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THE
MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD;
AND
MASTER HUMP.HREY'S CLOCK.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
PEOPLE'S DUODECIMO EDITION.
PHILADELPHIA:
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
306 CHESTNUT STREET.






CONTENTS.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
Chapter                                                  Page
I.-THE DAWN................. *,  23
II.-A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO..................... 27
III.-THE NUNS' HOUSE.................................  39
IV.-MR. SAPSEA.....................................  53
V.-MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND....................... 63
VI.-PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER...........      71
VII.-MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE......................    82
VIII.-DAGGERS DRAWN................................  92
IX.-BIRDS IN THE BUSH..............................  103
X.-SMOOTHING THE WAY...........................      119
XI.-A PICTURE AND A RING........................... 135
XII.-A NIGHT WITH DURDLES........................... 151
XIII.-BOTH AT THEIR BEST.............................. 167
XIV.-WHEN SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN?............ 173
XV. -IMPEACHED...................................... 194
XVI.-DEVOTED........................................ 204
XVII.-PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL.. 215
XVIII.-A SETTLER IN CLOISTERHAM........................ 232
XIX.-SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL........................    241
XX.- A  FLIGHT........................................  250
(21)



22                      CONTENTS.
Chapter                                               Pag(
XXI.-A RECOGNITION.........................         261
XXII.-A GRITTY STATE OF THINGS COMES ON............ 267
XXIII.-THE DAWN AGAIN.............................. 287
MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
MASTER HUMPHREY FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE CHIMNEYCORNER............................................  307
THE CLOCK-CASE........................................ 314
INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES.................. 315
FIRST NIGHT OF THE GIANT CHRONICLES................... 322
CORRESPONDENCE.-TO MASTER HUMPHREY.................. 336
MASTER HUMPHREY FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE CHIMNEYCORNER....................................... 337
THE CLOCK-CASE.-A CONFESSION FOUND IN A PRISON IN THE
TIMES OF CHARLES THE SECOND....................... 348
CORRESPONDENCE........................................  355
MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.......................... 359
MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.................................... 366
SECOND CHAPTER OF MR. PICKWICK'S TALE................. 376
FURTHER PARTICULARS OF MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.THE WELLER FAMILY................................ 388
THE CLOCK COMPANY..................................  394
MR. WELLER'S WATCH.................................... 404
SAM WELLER'S SON...................................... 415
INTRODUCING BARNABY RUDGE............................   422
MIDNIGHT REVERIES..............*................. 430
MASTER HUMPHREY'S DEATH.-THE DEAF GENTLEMAN FROM
HIS OWN APARTMENT.............................       435



THE MYSTERY
OF
EDWIN DROOD.
CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN.
AN Ancient English Cathedral Tower? How can the
ancient English Cathedral tower be here! The well-known
massive grey square tower of its old Cathedral? How can
that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the air,
between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect.
What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up?
Maybe, it is set up by the Sultan's orders for the impaling
of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one. It is so, for
cymbals clash, and the Sultan goes by to his palace in long
procession. Ten thousand scimitars flash in the sunlight,
and thrice ten thousand dancing-girls strew flowers. Then,
follow white elephants caparisoned in countless gorgeous colors, and infinite in number and attendants. Still, the Cathedral Tower rises in the background, where it cannot be, and
still no writhing figure is on the grim spike. Stay! Is the
spike so low a thing as the rusty spike on the top of a post of
an old beadstead that has tumbled all awry? Some vague
period of drowsy laughter must be devoted to the consideration
of this possibility.
Shaking from head to foot, the man whose scattered consciousness has thus fantastically pieced itself together, at
(23)



24    THE MY STERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
length rises, supports his trembling frame upon his arms, and
looks around. He is in the meanest and closest of small rooms.
Through the ragged window-curtain, the light of early day
steals in from a miserable court. He lies, dressed, across a
large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead that has indeed given
way under the weight upon it. Lying, also dressed and also
across the bed, not longwise, are a Chinaman, a Lascar, and a
haggard woman. The two first are in a sleep or stupor; the
last is blowing at a kind of pipe, to kindle it. And as she
blows, and shading it with her lean hand, concentrates its red
spark of light, it serves in the dim morning as a lamp to show
him what he sees of her.
"Another?" says this woman, in a querulous, rattling
whisper. "Have another? "
He looks about him, with his hand to his forehead.
" Ye've smoked as many as five since ye came in at midnight," the woman goes on, as she chronically complains.
"Poor me, poor me, my head is so bad! Them two came in
after ye. Ah, poor me, the business is slack, is slack! Few
Chinamen about the Docks, and fewer Lascars, and no ships
coming in, these say! Here's another ready for ye, deary.
Ye'll remember like a good soul, won't ye, that the market price
is drefile high just now? More nor three shillings and sixpence for a thimbleful! And ye'll remember that nobody but
me (and Jack Chinaman t'other side the court; but he can't
do it as well as me) has the true secret of mixing it? Ye'll
pay up according, deary, won't ye?"
She blows at the pipe as she speaks, and, occasionally bubbling at it, inhales much of its contents.
"0 me, 0 me, my lungs is weak, my lungs is bad! It's
nearly ready for ye, deary. Ah poor me, poor me, my poor
hand shakes like to drop off! I see ye coming-to, and I ses
to my poor self,'I'll have another ready for him, and he'll
bear in mind the market-price of opium, and pay according.'
0 my poor head! I makes my pipes of old penny ink-bottles,
ye see, deary-this is one-and I fits in a mouthpiece, this



THE   DAWN.                     25
way, and I takes my mixter out of this thimble with this little
horn-spoon; and so I fills, deary. Ah, my poor nerves! I
got Heavens-hard drunk for sixteen year afore I took to this;
but this don't hurt me, not to speak of. And it takes away
the hunger as well as wittles, deary."
She hands him the nearly emptied pipe, and sinks back,
turning over on her face.
He rises unsteadily from the bed, lays the pipe upon the
hearthstone, draws back the ragged curtain, and looks with
repugnance at his three companions. He notices that the
woman has opium-smoked herself into a strange likeness of
the Chinaman. His form of cheek, eye, and temple, and his
color, are repeated in her.  Said Chinaman convulsively
wrestles with one of his many Gods, or Devils, perhaps, and
snarls horribly.  The Lascar laughs and dribbles at the
mouth. The hostess is still.
" What visions can she have? " the waking man muses, as
he turns her face towards him, and stands looking down at it.
"Visions of many butchers' shops, and public-houses, and
much credit? Of an increase of hideous customers, and this
horrible bedstead set upright again, and this horrible court
swept clean? What can she rise to, under any quantity of
opium, higher than that!-Eh?"
He bends down his ear, to listen to her mutterings.
"Unintelligible!"
As he watches the spasmodic shoots and darts that break
out of her face and limbs, like fitful lightning out of a dark
sky, some contagion in them seizes upon him: insomuch that
he has to withdraw himself to a lean arm-chair by the hearth
-placed there, perhaps, for such emergencies-and to sit in
it, holding tight, until he has got the better of this unclean
spirit of imitation.
Then he comes back, pounces on the Chinaman, and, seizing him with both hands by the throat, turns him violently
on the bed. The Chinaman clutches the aggressive hands,
resists, gasps, and protests.



26    THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" What do you say?"
A watchful pause.
"Unintelligible I"
Slowly loosening his grasp as he listens to the incoherent
jargon with an attentive frown, he turns to the Lascar and
fairly drags him forth upon the floor. As he falls, the Lascar
starts into a half-risen attitude, glares with his eyes, lashes
about him fiercely with his arms, and draws a phantom knife.
It then becomes apparent that the woman has taken possession
of his knife, for safety's sake; for, she too starting up, and
restraining and expostulating with him, the knife is visible in
her dress, not in his, when they drowsily drop back, side by
side.
There has been chattering and clattering enough between
them, but to no purpose. When any distinct word has been
flung into the air, it has had no sense or sequence. Wherefore "unintelligible!" is again the comment of the watcher,
made with some reassured nodding of his head, and a gloomy
smile. He then lays certain silver money on the table, finds
his hat, gropes his way down the broken stairs, gives a good
morning to some rat-ridden doorkeeper, in bed in a black hutch
beneath the stairs, and passes out.
That same afternoon, the massive grey square tower of an
old Cathedral rises before the sight of a jaded traveler. The
bells are going for daily vesper service, and he must needs
attend it, one would say, from his haste to reach the open
cathedral door. The choir are getting on their sullied white
robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among them, gets on his
own robe, and falls into the procession filing in to service.
Then, the Sacristan locks the iron-barred gates that divide the
sanctuary from the chancel, and all of the procession having
scuttled into their places, hide their faces; and then the intoned words, "WHEN THE WICKED MAN —" rise among
groins of arches and beams of roof, awakening muttered
thunder.



A  DEAN, AND      A  CHAPTER     ALSO.       27
CHAPTER II.
A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO.
WHOSOEVER has observed that sedate and clerical bird, the
rook, may perhaps have noticed that when he wings his way
homeward towards nightfall, in a sedate and clerical company, two rooks will suddenly detach themselves from the
rest, will retrace their flight for some distance, and will there
poise and linger; conveying to mere men the fancy that it is
of some occult importance to the body politic, that this artful
couple should pretend to have renounced connection with it.
Similarly, service being over in the old cathedral with the
square tower, and the choir scuffling out again, and divers
venerable persons of rook-like aspect dispersing, two of these
latter retrace their steps, and walk together in the echoing
Close.
Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is
fiery and yet cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the cathedral wall has showered half its deep-red
leaves down on the pavement. There has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the little pools on the
cracked uneven flag-stones, and through the giant elm trees as
they shed a gust of tears. Their fallen leaves lie strewn
thickly about. Some of these leaves, in a timid rush, seek
sanctuary within the low arched cathedral door; but two men
coming out, resist them, and cast them forth again with their
feet; this done, one of the two locks the door with a goodly
key, and the other flits away with a folio music book.
"Mr. Jasper was that, Tope?"
" Yes, Mr. Dean."
"He has stayed late."
"Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Reverence.
He has been took a little poorly."'Say'taken,' Tope-to the Dean." The younger rook in



28    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
terposes in a low tone with this touch of correction, as who
should say: "You may offer bad grammar to the laity, or the
humbler clergy, not to the Dean."
Mr. Tope, Chief Verger and Showman, and accustomed to
be high with excursion parties, declines with a silent loftiness
to perceive that any suggestion has been tendered to him.
" And when and how has Mr. Jasper been taken-for, as
Mr. Crisparkle has remarked, it is better to say taken -
taken-" repeats the Dean; " when and how has Mr. Jasper
been Taken    "
"Taken, sir," Tope deferentially murmurs.
" -   Poorly, Tope? "
"Why, sir, Mr. Jasper was that breathed -"
"I wouldn't say'That breathed,' Tope," Mr. Crisparkle
interposes, with the same touch as before. "Not English-to
the Dean."
", Breathed to that extent," the Dean (not unflattered by
this indirect homage), condescendingly remarks, " would bo
preferable."
" Mr. Jasper's breathing was so remarkably short;" thus
discreetly does Mr. Tope work his way round the sunken rock,
" when he came in, that it distressed him mightily to get his
notes out: which was perhaps the cause of his having a kind
of fit on him after a little. His memory grew DAZED.'  Mr.
Tope, with his eyes on the Reverend Mr. Crisparkle, shoots
this word out, as defying him to improve upon it: "and a
dimness and giddiness crept over him as strange as ever I saw:
though he didn't seem to mind it particularly, himself. However, a little time and a little water brought him out of his
DAZE."   Mr. Tope repeats the word and its emphasis, with
the air of saying: " As I have made a success, I'll make it
again."
" And Mr. Jasper has gone home quite himself, has he?"
asked the Dean.
"Your Reverence, he has gone home quite himself. And
L'nm glad to see he's having his fire kindled up, for it's chilly



A  DEAN, AND       A  CHAPTER      ALSO.       29
after the wet, and the Cathedral had both a damp feel and a
damp touch this afternoon, and he was very shivery."
They all three look towards an old stone gatehouse crossing
the Close, with an arched thoroughfare passing beneath it.
Through its latticed window, a fire shines out upon the fastdarkening scene, involving in shadow the pendent masses of
ivy and creeper covering the building's front. As the deep
Cathedral-bell strikes the hour, a ripple of wind goes through
these at their distance, like a ripple of the solemn sound that
hums through tomb and tower, broken niche and defaced statue,
in the pile close at hand.
"Is Mr. Jasper's nephew with him?" the Dean asks.
" No, sir," replies the Verger, " but expected. There's his
own solitary shadow betwixt his two windows-the one looking this way, and the one looking down into the High Street
-drawing his own curtains now."
" Well, well," says the Dean, with a sprightly air of breaking up the little conference, " I hope Mr. Jasper's heart may
not be too much set upon his nephew. Our affections, however
laudable, in this transitory world, should never master us; we
should guide them, guide them. I find I am not disagreeably
reminded of my dinner, by hearing my dinner-bell. Perhaps
Mr. Crisparkle you will, before going home, look in on
Jasper? "
"Certainly, Mr. Dean. And tell him that you had the
kindness to desire to know how he was? "
"Ay; do so, do so. Certainly. Wished to know how he
was. By all means. Wished to know how he was."
With a pleasant air of patronage, the Dean as nearly cocks
his quaint hat as a Dean in good spirits may, and directs his
comely gaiters towards the ruddy dining-room of the snug old
red-brick house where lie is at present "in residence " with
Mrs. Dean and Miss I)ean.
Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon, fair and rosy, and perpetually
pitching himself lead-foremost into all the deep running water
in the surrounding country; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon,



30    THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured,
social, contented, and boy-like; Mr. Crisparkle, Minor Canon
and good man, lately " Coach" upon the chief Pagan high
roads, but since promoted by a patron (grateful for a welltaught son) to his present Christian beat; betakes himself to
the gate house, on his way home to his early tea.
" Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper."
"Oh, it was nothing, nothing!"
"You look a little worn."
"Do I?   Oh, I don't think so. What is better, I don't
feel so. Tope has made too much of it I suspect. It's his
trade to make the most of everything appertaining to the
Cathedral, you know."
" I may tell the Dean-I call expressly from the Deanthat you are all right again?"
The reply, with a slight smile, is: "Certainly; with my
respects and thanks to the Dean."
"I'm glad to hear that you expect young Drood."
"I expect the dear fellow every moment."
"Ah! He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper."
"Mlore good than a dozen doctors. For I love him dearly,
and I don't love doctors, or doctors' stuff."
Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with
thick, lustrous, well-arranged black hair and whisker. He
looks older than he is, as dark men often do. His voice is
deep and good, his face and figure are good, his manner is
a little sombre. His room is a little sombre, and may have
had its influence in forming his manner. It is mostly in
shadow. Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom
touches the grand piano in the recess, or the folio music books
on the stand, or the book-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished
picture of a blooming school-girl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied with a blue riband, and her
beauty remarkable for a quite childish, almost babyish, touch
of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself. (There is



A  DEAN, AND      A  CHAPTER      ALSO.       31
not the least artistic merit in this picture, which is a mere
daub; but it is clear that the painter has made it humorously
-one might almost say, revengefully-like the original.)
"We shall miss you, Jasper, at the'Alternate Musical
Wednesdays' to-night; but no doubt you are best at home.
Good-night. God bless you!'Tell me, shep-herds te-e-ell
me; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you seen, have you seen,
have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora-a pass this way!' " Melodiously good Minor Canon the Reverend Septimus Crisparkle
thus delivers himself, in musical rhythm, as he withdraws his
amiable face from the doorway and conveys it down stairs.
Sound of recognition and greeting pass between the Reverend Septimus and somebody else, at the stair foot. Mr. Jasper listens, starts from his chair, and catches a young fellow in
his arms, exclaiming:
"My dear Edwin!"
My dear Jack! So glad to see you!"
"Get off your greatcoat, bright boy, and sit down here in
your own corner. Your feet are not wet? Pull your boots
off. Do pull your boots off."
" My dear Jack, I am as dry as a bone. Don't moddleycoddley, there's a good fbllow. I like anything better than
being moddley-coddleyed."
With the check upon him of being unsympathetically restrained in a genial outburst of enthusiasm, Mr. Jasper stands
still, and looks on intently at the young fellow, divesting himself of his outer coat, hat, gloves, and so forth. Once for all,
a look of intentness and intensity-a look of hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection-is always, now and
ever afterwards, on the Jasper face whenever the Jasper face
is addressed in this direction. And whenever it is so addressed,
it is never, on this occasion or on any other, dividedly addressed;
it is always concentrated.
" Now I am right, and now I'll take my corner, Jack. Any
dinner, Jack? "
Mr. Jasper opens a door at the upper end of the room, and



32    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
discloses a small inner room pleasantly lighted and prepared,
wherein a comely dame is in the act of setting dishes on table.
" What a jolly old Jack it is!" cries the young fellow, with
a clap of his hands. "Look here, Jack; tell me; whose birthday is it?"
" Not yours, I know," Mr. Jasper answers, pausing to consider.
"Not mine, you know?   No; not mine, I know! Pussy's!?
Fixed as the look the young fellow meets is, there is yet in
it some strange power of suddenly including the sketch over
the chimneypiece.
" Pussy's, Jack! We must drink Many happy returns to
her. Come, uncle; take your dutiful and sharp-set nephew
in to dinner."
As the boy (for he is little more) lays a hand on Jasper's
shoulder, Jasper cordially and gaily lays a hand on his shoulder, and so Marseillaise-wise they go in to dinner.
" And Lord! Here's Mrs. Tope!" cries the boy. "Lovelier than ever!"
"' Never you mind me, Master Edwin," retorts the Verger's
wife; " I can take care of myself."
" You can't. You're much too handsome. Give me a kiss,
because it's Pussy's birthday."
" I'd Pussy you, young man, if I was Pussy, as you call
her," Mrs. Tope blushingly retorts, after being saluted.
" Your uncle's too much wrapt up in you, that's where it is.
He makes so much of you, that it's my opinion you think
you've only to call your Pussys by the dozen to make'em
come."
"You forget, Mrs. Tope," Mr. Jasper interposes, taking
his place at the table with a genial smile, "and so do you,
Ned, that Uncle and Nephew are words prohibited here by
common consent and express agreement.  For what we are
going to receive His holy name be praised!"
"Done like the Dean! Witness, Edwin Drood! Please to
carve, Jack, for I can't."



A  DEAN, AND      A CHAPTER      ALSO.      33
This sally ushers in the dinner. Little to the present purpose, or to any purpose, is said, while it is in course of being
disposed of. At length the cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts and a decanter of rich-colored sherry are placed upon the
table.
" I say! Tell me, Jack," the young fellow then flows on;
"do you really and truly feel as if the mention of our relationship divided us at all? I don't."
"Uncles as a rule, Ned, are so much older than their
nephews," is the reply, "that I have that feeling instinctively."
"' As a rule? Ah, may-be! But what is a difference in
age of half a dozen years or so? And some uncles, in large
families, are even younger than their nephews. By George, I
wish it was the case with us!"
"' Why? "
"Because if it was, I'd take the lead with you, Jack, and
be wise as Begone dull care that turned a young man grey,
and begone dull care that turned an old man to clay.-Halloa,
Jack I Don't drink."
"Why not?"
"Ask why not, on Pussy's birthday, and no Happy Returns
proposed! Pussy, Jack, and many of'em! Happy returns,
I mean."
Laying an affectionate and laughing touch on the boy's extended hand, as if it were at once his giddy head and his
light heart, Mr. Jasper drinks the toast in silence.
" Hip, hip, hip, and nine times nine, and one to finish with,
and all that, understood. Hooray, hooray, hooray! And
now, Jack, let's have a little talk about Pussy.  Two pairs of
nut-crackers?  Pass me one, and take the other." Crack.
"How's Pussy getting on, Jack?"
"With her music? Fairly."
"What a dreadfully conscientious fellow you are, Jack.
But I know, Lord bless you! Inattentive, isn't she?"
"She can learn anything, if she will."
2



34   THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"If she will? Egad, that's it. But if she won't?"
Crack. On Mr. Jasper's part.
" How's she looking, Jack? "
Mr. Jasper's concentrated face again includes the portrait
as he returns: " Very like your sketch indeed."
" I am a little proud of it," says the young fellow, glancing
up at the sketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye
and taking a corrected prospect of it over a level bridge of a
nut-cracker in the air: "Not badly hit off from memory.
But 1 ought to have caught that expression pretty well, for I
have seen it often enough."
Crack. On Edwin Drood's part.
Crack. On Mr. Jasper's part.
" In point of fact," the former resumes, after some silent
dipping among his fragments of walnut with an air of pique,
C" I see it whenever I go to see Pussy. If I don't find it on
her face, I leave it there.-You know I do, Miss Scornful Pert.
Booh! " With a twirl of the nut-crackers at the portrait.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Slowly, on Mr. Jasper's part.
Crack. Sharply, on the part of Edwin Drood.
Silence on both sides.
"Have you lost your tongue, Jack? "
"Have you found yours, Ned? "
"No, but really;-isn't it, you know, after all?"
Mr. Jasper lifts his dark eyebrows inquiringly.
" Isn't it unsatisfactory to be cut off from choice in such a
matter? There, Jack! I tell you! If I could choose, I
would choose Pussy from all the pretty girls in the world."
"But you have not got to choose."
"That's what I complain of. My dead and gone father and
Pussy's dead and gone father must needs marry us together by
anticipation. Why the-Devil, I was going to say, if it had
been respectful to their memory-couldn't they leave us
alone? "
" Tut, tut, dear boy," Mr. Jasper remonstrates, in a tone of
gentle deprecation.



A  DEAN, AND      A  CHAPTER      ALSO.       35
"Tut, tut? Yes, Jack, it's all very well for you.  You can
take it easily.  Your life is not laid down to scale, and lined
and dotted out for you, like a surveyor's plan.  You have no
uncomfortable suspicion that you are forced upon anybody, nor
has anybody an uncomfortable suspicion that she is forced
upon you, or that you are forced upon her.  You can choose
for yourself. Life, for you, is a plum with the natural bloom
on; it hasn't been over-carefully wiped off for you-"
"Don't stop, dear fellow. Go on."
"Can I anyhow have hurt your feelings, Jack? 
"How can you have hurt my feelings? "
" Good Heavens, Jack, you look frightfully ill! There's a
strange film come over your eyes."
Mr. Jasper, with a forced smile, stretches out his right hand,
as if at once to disarm apprehension and gain time to get better. After a while he says faintly:
" I have been taking opium for a pain-an agony-that
sometimes overcomes me. The effects of the medicine steal
over me like a blight or a cloud, and pass. You see them in
the act of passing; they will be gone directly. Look away
from me. They will go all the sooner."
With a scared face, the young man complies, by casting his
eyes downward at the ashes on the hearth. Not relaxing his
own gaze at the fire, but rather strengthening it with a fierce,
firm grip upon his elbow-chair, the elder sits for a few. moments
rigid, and then, with thick drops standing on his forehead, and
a sharp catch of his breath, becomes as he was before. On
his so subsiding in his chair, his nephew gently and assiduously tends him while he quite recovers. When Jasper is restored, he lays a tender hand upon his nephew's shoulder, and,
in a tone of voice less troubled than the purport of his words
-indeed with something of raillery or banter in it-thus addresses him:
i" There is said to be a hidden skeleton in every house; but
you thought there was none in mine, dear Ned."
"Upon my life, Jack, I did think so. However, when I



36    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
come to consider that even in Pussy's house-if she had one
-and in mine-if I had one    "
" You were going to say (but that I interrupted you in spite
of myself) what a quiet life mine is. No whirl and uproar
around me, no distracting commerce or calculation, no risk, no
change of place, myself devoted to the art I pursue, my business my pleasure."
" I was really going to say something of the kind, Jack;
but you see, you, speaking of yourself, almost necessarily
leave out much that I should have put in. For instance: I
should have put in the foreground, your being so much
respected as Lay Precentor, or Lay Clerk, or whatever you
call it, of this Cathedral; your enjoying the reputation of
having done such wonders with the choir; your choosing your
society, and holding such an independent position in this queer
old place; your gift of teaching (why, even Pussy, who don't
like being taught, says there never was such a Master as you
are!) and your connection."
"Yes; I saw what you were tending to. I hate it."
"Hate it, Jack? " (Much bewildered.)
"I hate it. The cramped monotony of my existence grinds
me away by the grain. How does our service sound to you?
"Beautiful! Quite celestial."
" It often sounds to me quite devilish. I am so weary of
it.  The echoes of my own voice among the arches seem to
mock.me with my daily drudging round. No wretched monk
who droned his life away in that gloomy place, before me, can
have been more tired of it than I am. He could take for relief (and did take) to carving demons out of the stalls and
seats and desks. What shall I do? Must I take to carving
them out of my heart?"
" I thought you had so exactly found your niche in life,
Jack," Edwin Drood returns, astonished, bending forward in
his chair to lay a sympathetic hand on Jasper's knee, and
looking at him with an anxious face.
"I know you thought so. They all think so."



A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO.                    37
"Well; I suppose they do," says Edwin, meditating aloud.
"Pussy thinks so."
"When did she tell you that?"
"The last time I was here. You remember when. Three
months ago."
"How did she phrase it?"
"Oh! She only said that she had become your pupil, and
that you were made for your vocation."
The younger man glances at the portrait. The elder sees
it in him.
" Anyhow, my dear Ned," Jasper resumes, as he shakes his
head with a grave cheerfulness: "I must subdue myself to
my vocation: which is much the same thing outwardly. It's
too late to find another now. This is a confidence between
us."
"It shall be sacredly preserved, Jack."
" I have reposed it in you, because -"
" I feel it, I assure you. Because we are fast friends, and
because you love and trust me, as I love and trust you. Both
hands, Jack."
As each stands looking into the other's eyes, and as tho
uncle holds the nephew's hands, the uncle thus proceeds:
"You know now, don't you, that even a poor, monotonous
chorister and grinder of music-in his niche-may be troubled with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, restlessness,
dissatisfaction, what shall we call it?"
" Yes, dear Jack."
" And you will remember?"
" My dear Jack, I only ask you, am I likely to forget what
you have said with so much feeling? "
" Take it as a warning, then."
In the act of having his hands released, and of moving a
step back, Edwin pauses for an instant to consider the application of these last words. The instant over, he says, sensibly touched:
"I am afraid I am but a shallow, surface kind of a fellow,



88    THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Jack, and that my headpiece is none of the best. But I
needn't say I am young; and perhaps I shall not grow worse
as I grow older. At all events, I hope I have something impressible within me, which feels-deeply feels-the disinterestedness of your painfully laying your inner self bare, as a
warning to me."
Mr. Jasper's steadiness of face and figure becomes so marvellous that his breathing seems to have stopped.
" I couldn't fail to notice, Jack, that it cost you a great effort, and that you were very much moved, and very unlike
your usual self. Of course I knew that you were extremely
fond of me, but I really was not prepared for your, as I may
say, sacrificing yourself to me, in that way."
Mr. Jasper becoming a breathing man again without the
smallest stage of transition between the two extreme states,
lifts his shoulders, laughs, and waves his right arm.
"No; don't put the sentiment away, Jack; please don't;
for I am very much in earnest. I have no doubt that that unhealthy state of mind which you have so powerfully described
is attended with some real suffering and is hard to bear. But
let me reassure you, Jack, as to the chances of its overcoming
Me. I don't think I am in the way of it. In some few
months less than another year, you know, I shall carry Pussy
off from school as Mrs. Edwin Drood. I shall then go engineering into the East, and Pussy with me. And although
we have our little tiffs now, arising out of a certain unavoidable flatness that attends our love-making, owing to its end
being all settled beforehand, still I have no doubt of our getting on capitally then, when it's done and can't be helped.
In short, Jack, to go back to the old song I was freely quoting at dinner (and who knows old songs better than you!),
my wife shall dance and I will sing, so merrily pass the day.
Of Pussy's being beautiful there cannot be a doubt;-and
when you are good besides, Little Miss Impudence," once
more apostrophising the portrait, " I'll burn your comic likeness and paint your music-master another."



THE    NUNS' HOUSE.                   89
Mr. Jasper, with his hand to his chin, and with an expression of musing benevolence on his face, has attentively
watched every animated look and gesture attending the delivery of these words. He remains in that attitude after they
are spoken, as if in a kind of fascination attendant on his
strong interest in the youthful spirit that he loves so well.
Then, he says with a quiet smile:
"You won't be warned, then?"
"No, Jack."
"You can't be warned, then?"
"No, Jack, not by you. Besides that I don't really consider myself in danger, I don't like your putting yourself in
that position."
"Shall we go and walk in the churchyard?"
"By all means. You won't mind my slipping out of it for
half a moment to the Nuns' House, and leaving a parcel
there? Only gloves for Pussy; as many pairs of gloves as
she is years old to-day. Rather poetical, Jack? "
Mr. Jasper, still in the same attitude, murmurs: "'Nothing half so sweet in life,' Ned! "
" Here's the parcel in my greatcoat pocket. They must be
presented to-night, or the poetry is gone. It's against regulations for me to call at night, but not to leave a packet. I
am ready, Jack."
Mr. Jasper dissolves his attitude, and they go out together.
CHAPTER III.
THE NUNS' HOUSE.
FOR sufficient reasons which this narrative will itself unfold as it advances, a fictitious name must be bestowed on the
old Cathedral town. Let it stand in these pages as Cloisterham. It was once possibly known to the Druids by another



40    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
name, and certainly to the Romans by another, and to the
Saxons by another, and to the Normans by another; and a
name more or less in the course of many centuries can be of
little moment to its dusty chronicles.
An ancient city, Cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place
for any one with hankerings after the noisy world. A monotonous, silent city, deriving an earthy flavor throughout, from
its cathedral crypt, and so abounding in vestiges of monastic
graves, that the Cloisterham children grow small salad in the
dust of abbots and abbesses, and make dirt-pies of nuns and
friars; while every ploughman in its outlying fields renders to
once puissant Lord Treasurers, Archbishops, Bishops, and
such-like, the attention which the Ogre in the story-book desired to render to his unbidden visitor, and grinds their bones
to make his bread.
A drowsy city, Cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem to sup.
pose, with an inconsistency more strange than rare, that all
its changes lie behind it, and that there are no more to come.
A queer moral to derive from antiquity, yet older than any
traceable antiquity. So silent are the streets of Cloisterham
(though prone to echo on the smallest provocation), that of
a summer-day the sunblinds of its shops scarce dare to flap in
the south wind; while the sun-browned tramps who pass along
and stare, quicken their limp a little, that they may the sooner
get beyond the confines of its oppressive respectability. This
is a feat not difficult of achievement, seeing that the streets
of Cloisterham city, are little more than one narrow street by
which you get into it and get out of it: the rest being mostly
disappointing yards with pumps in them and no thoroughfare
-exception made of the Cathedral-close, and a paved Quaker
settlement, in color and general conformation very like a Quakeress's bonnet, up in a shady corner.
In a word, a city of another and a bygone time is Cloisterham, with its hoarse cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hovering
about the Cathedral tower, its hoarser and less distinct rooks
in the stalls far beneath. Fragments of old wall, saint's



THE NUNS' HOUSE.                     41
chapel, chapter-house, convent, and monastery, have got incongruously or obstructively built into many of its houses and
gardens, much as kindred jumbled notions have become incorporated into many of its citizens' minds. All things in it
are of the past. Even its single pawnbroker takes no pledges,
nor has he for a long time, but offers vainly an unredeemed
stock for sale, of which the costlier articles are dim and pale
old watches apparently in a slow perspiration, tarnished sugartongs with ineffectual legs, and odd volumes of dismal books.
The most abundant and the most agreeable evidences of progressing life in Cloisterham, are the evidences of vegetable life
in its many gardens; even its drooping and despondent little
theatre has its poor strip of garden, receiving the foul fiend,
when he ducks from its stage into the infernal regions, among
scarlet beans or oyster-shells, according to the season of the
year.
In the midst of Cloisterham stands the Nuns' House; a
venerable brick edifice whose present appellation is doubtless
derived from the legend of its conventual uses. On the trim
gate enclosing its old courtyard, is a resplendent brass plate
flashing forth the legend: "Seminary for Young Ladies.
Miss Twinkleton." The house-front is so old and worn, and
the brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general
result has reminded imaginative strangers of a battered old
beau with a large modern eye-glass stuck in his blind eye.
Whether the nuns of yore, being of a submissive rather
than a stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contemplative heads to avoid collision with the beams in the low ceilings of the many chambers of their House; whether they
sat in its long low windows, telling their beads for their mortification instead of making necklaces of them for their
adornment; whether they were ever walled up alive in
odd angles and jutting gables of the building for having
some ineradicable leaven of busy mother Nature in them
which has kept the fermenting world alive ever since; these
may be matters of interest to its haunting ghosts (if any),



42   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
but constitute no item in Miss Twinkleton's half-yearly
accounts. They are neither of Miss Twinkleton's inclusive
regulars, nor of her extras. The lady who undertakes the
poetical department of the establishment at so much (or so
little) a quarter, has no pieces in her list of recitals bearing
on such unprofitable questions.
As, in some cases of drunkenness, and in others of animal
magnetism, there are two states of consciousness which never
clash, but each of which pursues its separate course as though
it were continuous instead of broken (thus if I hide my watch
when I am drunk, I must be drunk again before I can remember where), so Miss Twinkleton has two distinct and separate
phases of being. Every night, the moment the young ladies
have retired to rest, does Miss Twinkleton smarten up her
curls a little, brighten up her eyes a little, and become a
sprightlier Miss Twinkleton than the young ladies have ever
seen. Every night, at the same hour, does Miss Twinkleton
resume the topics of the previous night, comprehending the
tenderer scandal of Cloisterham, of which she has no knowledge whatever by day, and references to a certain season at
Tunbridge Wells (airily called by Miss Twinkleton in this
state of her existence " The Wells "), notably the season
wherein a certain finished gentleman (compassionately called
by Miss Twinkleton in this state of her existence, " Foolish
Mr. Porters") revealed an homage of the heart, whereof Miss
Twinkleton, in her scholastic state of existence, is as ignorant
as a granite pillar. Miss Twinkleton's companion in both
states of existence, and equally adaptable to either, is one
Mrs. Tisher: a deferential widow with a weak back, a chronic
sigh, and a suppressed voice, who looks after the young ladies'
wardrobes, and leads them to infer that she has seen better
days. Perhaps this is the reason why it is an article of faith
with the servants, handed down from race to race, that the
departed Tisher was a hairdresser.
The pet pupil of the Nuns' House is Miss Rosa Bud, of
course called Rosebud; wonderfully pretty, wonderfully child



THE    NUNS' HOUSE.                   43
ish, wonderfully whimsical.  An awkward interest (awkward because romantic) attaches to Miss Bud in the minds of
the young ladies, on account of its being known to them that
a husband has been chosen for her by will and bequest, and
that her guardian is bound down to bestow her on that husband when he comes of age. Miss Twinkleton, in her seminarial state of existence, has combated the romantic aspect of
this destiny by affecting to shake her head over it behind
Miss Bud's dimpled shoulders, and to brood on the unhappy
lot of that doomed little victim. But with no better effectpossibly some unfelt touch of foolish Mr. Porters has undermined the endeavor-than to evoke from the young ladies an
unanimous bedchamber cry of  Oh! what a pretending old
thing Miss Twinkleton is, my dear!"
The Nuns' House is never in such a state of flutter as
when this allotted husband calls to see little Rosebud. (It is
unanimously understood by the young ladies that he is lawfully entitled to this privilege, and if Miss Twinkleton disputed it she would be instantly taken up and transported.)
When his ring at the gate bell is expected, or takes place,
every young lady who can, under any pretence, look out of
the window, looks out of the window: while every young
lady who is "practising," practises out of time; and the
French class becomes so demoralized that the Mark goes
round as briskly as the bottle at a convivial party in the last
century.
On the afternoon of the day next after the dinner of two
at the Gate House, the bell is rung with the usual fluttering
results.
" Mr. Edwin Drood to see Miss Rosa."
This is the announcement of the parlor-maid in chief.
Miss Twinkleton, with an exemplary air of melancholy on her,
turns to the sacrifice, and says: "You may go down, my
dear." Miss Bud goes down, followed by all eyes.
Mr. Edwin Drood is waiting in Miss Twinkleton's own
parlor: a dainty room, with nothing more directly scholastic



44   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
in it than a terrestrial and a celestial globe. These expressive machines imply (to parents and guardians) that even
when Miss Twinkleton retires into the bosom of privacy,
duty may at any moment compel her to become a sort of
Wandering Jewess, scouring the earth and soaring through
the skies in search of knowledge for her pupils.
The last new maid, who has never seen the young gentleman Miss Rosa is engaged to, and who is making his acquaintance between the hinges of the open door, left open for the
purpose, stumbles guiltily down the kitchen stairs, as a
charming little apparition with its face concealed by a little
silk apron thrown over its head, glides into the parlor.
" Oh! It is so ridiculous!" says the apparition, stopping
and shrinking. "Don't, Eddy!"
" Don't what, Rosa? "
"Don't come any nearer, please. It is so absurd."
What is absurd, Rosa? "
"The whole thing is. It is so absurd to be an engaged
orphan; and it is so absurd to have the girls and the servants
scuttling about after one, like mice in the wainscot; and it is
so absurd to be called upon!"
The apparition appears to have a thumb in the corner of its
mouth while making this complaint.
" You give me an affectionate reception, Pussy, I must
say."
" Well, I will in a minute, Eddy, but I can't just yet. How
are you? " (very shortly).
" I am unable to reply that I am much the better for seeing
you, Pussy, inasmuch as I see nothing of you."
This second remonstrance brings a dark bright pouting eye
out from a corner of the apron; but it swiftly becomes invisible again, as the apparition exclaims; " Oh I Good Gracious,
you have had half your hair cut off!"
"I should have done better to have had my head cut off, I
think," says Edwin, rumpling the hair in question, with a
fierce glance at the looking-glass, and giving an impatient
stamp. " Shall I go? "



THE   NUNS' HOUSE.                   45
"No; you needn't go just yet, Eddy. The girls would all
be asking questions why you went."
" Once for all, Rosa, will you uncover that ridiculous little
head of yours and give me a welcome? "
The apron is pulled off the childish head, as its wearer replies: " You're very welcome, Eddy. There! I'm sure that's
nice. Shake hands. No, I can't kiss you, because I've got
an acidulated drop in my mouth."
" Are you at all glad to see me, Pussy?"
"Oh, yes, I'm dreadfully glad.-Go and sit down.-Miss
Twinkleton."
It is the custom of that excellent lady, when these visits
occur, to appear every three minutes, either in her own person
or in that of Mrs. Tisher, and lay an offering on the shrine of
Propriety by affecting to look for some desiderated article.
On the present occasion, Miss Twinkleton, gracefully gliding
in and out, says, in passing: IHow do you do, Mr. Drood?
Very glad indeed to have the pleasure. Pray excuse me.
Tweezers. Thank you! "
" I got the gloves last evening, Eddy, and I like them very
much. They are beauties."
"Well, that's something," the affianced replies, half
grumbling. "The smallest encouragement thankfully received. And how did you pass your birthday, Pussy? "
" Delightfully! Everybody gave me a present. And we
had a feast. And we had a ball at night."
" A feast and a ball, eh? These occasions seem to go off
tolerably well without me, Pussy."
"De-lightfully!" cries Rosa, in a quite spontaneous manner,
and without the least pretence of reserve.
"Hah! And what was the feast?"
"Tarts, oranges, jellies, and shrimps."
"Any partners at the ball? "
We danced with one another, of course, sir. But some of
the girls made game to be their brothers. It was so droll! "
"Did anybody make game to be-"



46    THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"To be you?  Oh dear yes!" cries Rosa, laughing with
great enjoyment. " That was the first thing done."
"I hope she did it pretty well," says Edwin, rather doubtfully.
"Oh! It was excellent!-I wouldn't dance with you, you
know."
Edwin scarcely seems to see the force of this; begs to know
if he may take the liberty to ask why?
" Because I was so tired of you," returns Rosy. But she
quickly adds, and pleadingly too, seeing displeasure in his
face: " Dear Eddy, you were just as tired of me, you know."
"Did I say so, Rosa? "
"Say so! Do you ever say so?  No, you only showed it.
Oh, she did it so well!" cries Rosa, in a sudden ecstacy with
her counterfeit betrothed.
" It strikes me that she must be a devilish impudent girl,"
says Edwin Drood. "And so, Pussy, you have passed your
last birthday in this old house."
" Ah, yes! " Rosa clasps her hands, looks down with a sigh,
and shakes her head.
" You seem to be sorry, Rosa."
" I am sorry for the poor old place. Somehow, I feel as if
it would miss me, when I am gone so far away, so young."
" Perhaps we had better stop short, Rosa? "
She looks up at him with a swift bright look; next moment
shakes her head, sighs, and looks down again.
" That is to say, is it Pussy, that we are both resigned?"
She nods her head again, and after a short silence, quaintly
bursts out with: " You know we must be married, and married from here, Eddy, or the poor girls will be so dreadfully
disappointed!"
For the moment there is more of compassion, both for her
and for himself, in her affianced husband's face, than there is
of love. He checks the look, and asks: " Shall I take you out
for a walk, Rosa dear?"
Rosa dear does not seem at all clear on this point, until her



THE NUNS' HOUSE.                     41
face, which has been comically reflective, brightens. "Oh,
yes, Eddy; let us go for a walk! And I tell you what we'll
do. You shall pretend that you are engaged to somebody else,
and I'll pretend that I am not engaged to anybody, and then
we shan't quarrel."
Do you think that will prevent our falling out, Rosa?"
" I know it will. Hush! Pretend to look out of window.
-Mrs. Tisher!"
Through a fortuitous concourse of accidents, the matronly
Tisher heaves in sight, says, in rustling through the room like
the legendary ghost of a Dowager in silken skirts: " I hope I
see Mr. Drood well; though I needn't ask, if I may judge from
his complexion? I trust I disturb no one; but there was a
paper-knife-Oh, thank you, I am sure!" and disappears with
her prize.
" One other thing you must do, Eddy, to oblige me," says
Rosebud. " The moment we get into the street, you must put
me outside, and keep close to the house yourself-squeeze and
graze yourself against it."
"By all means, Rosa, if you wish it. Might I ask why?"
"Oh! because I don't want the girls to see you."
"It's a fine day; but would you like me to carry an umbrella
up?"
"Don't be foolish, sir. You haven't got polished leather
boots on," pouting, with one shoulder raised.
"Perhaps that might escape the notice of the girls, even if
they did see me," remarks Edwin, looking down at his boots
with a sudden distaste for them.
" Nothing escapes their notice, sir. And then I know what
would happen. Some of them would begin reflecting on me by
saying (for they are free) that they never will on any account
engage themselves to lovers without polished leather boots.
Hark! Miss Twinkleton. I'll ask for leave."
That discreet lady being indeed heard without, inquiring of
nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances:'Eh? Indeed! Are you quite sure you saw my mother-of



48    THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN     DROOD.
pearl button-holder on the work-table in my room? " is at once
solicited for walking leave, and graciously accords it. And
soon the young couple go out of the Nuns' House, taking all
precautions against the discovery of the so vitally defective
boots of Mr. Edwin Drood: precautions, let us hope, effective
for the peace of Mrs. Edwin Drood that is to be.
" Which way shall we take, Rosa?"
Rosa replies: "I want to go to the Lumps-of-Delight
shop."
"To the?"
"A Turkish sweetmeat, sir. My gracious me, don't you
understand anything? Call yourself an Engineer, and not
know that? "
"Why, how should I know it, Rosa? "
" Because I am very fond of them. But oh! I forgot what
we are to pretend. No, you needn't know anything about
them; never mind."
So, he is gloomily borne off to the Lumps-of-Delight shop,
where Rosa makes her purchase, and, after offering some to him
(which he rather indignantly declines), begins to partake of it
with great zest: previously taking off and rolling up a pair of
little pink gloves, like rose-leaves, and occasionally putting her
little pink fingers to her rosy lips, to cleanse them from the
Dust of Delight that comes off the Lumps.
" Now, be a good-tempered Eddy, and pretend. And so you
are engaged?"
" And so I am engaged."
"Is she nice?"
" Charming."
" Tall? "
"Immensely tall! " Rosa being short.
"Must be gawky, I should think," is Rosa's quiet commentary.
" I beg your pardon; not at all," contradiction rising in
him. " What is termed a fine woman; a splendid woman."
" Big nose, no doubt," is the quiet commentary again.



THE   NUNS' HOUSE.                   49
" Not a little one, certainly," is the quick reply. (Rosa's
being a little one.)
" Long pale nose, with a red knob in the middle. I know
the sort of nose," says Rosa, with a satisfied nod, and tranquilly enjoying the Lumps.
"You don't know the sort of nose, Rosa," with some
warmth; " because it's nothing of the kind."
"Not a pale nose, Eddy?"
No." Determined not to assent.
"A red nose? Oh! I don't like red noses. However; to
be sure she can always powder it."
"' She would scorn to powder it," says Edwin, becoming
heated.
"Would she? What a stupid thing she must be I Is she
stupid in everything?"'No. In nothing."
After a pause, in which the whimsically wicked face has not
been unobservant of him, Rosa says:
" And this most sensible of creatures likes the idea of being
carried off to Egypt; does she, Eddy?"
" Yes. She takes a sensible interest in triumphs of engineering skill: especially when they are to change the whole
condition of an undeveloped country."
"Lor!" says Rosa, shrugging her shoulders, with a little
laugh of wonder.
" Do you object," Edwin inquires, with a majestic turn of
his eyes downward upon the fairy figure: "do you object,
Rosa, to her feeling that interest? "
"Object? My dear Eddy! But really. Doesn't she hate
boilers and things? "
" I can answer for her not being so idiotic as to hate Boilers," he returns with angry emphasis; "though I cannot answer for her views about Things; really not understanding
what Things are meant."
" But don't she hate Arabs, and Turks, and Fellahs, and
people?"
3



O60   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"Certainly not."  Very firmly.
"At least, she must hate the Pyramids? Come, Eddy?"
"Why should she be such a little-tall, I mean-Goose, as
to hate the Pyramids, Rosa?"'(Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton," often nodding
her head, and much enjoying the Lumps, " bore about them,
and then you wouldn't ask. Tiresome old burying-grounds!
Isises, and Ibises, and Cheopses, and Pharaohses; who cares
about them? And then there was Belzoni or somebody,
dragged out by the legs, half choked with bats and dust. All
the girls say serve him right, and hope it hurt him, and wish
he had been quite choked."
The two youthful figures, side by side, but not now arm-inarm, wander discontentedly about the old Close; and each
sometimes stops and slowly imprints a deeper footstep in the
fallen leaves.
" Well!" says Edwin, after a lengthy silence. "According
to custom. We can't get on, Rosa."
Rosa tosses her head, and says she donet want to get on.
" That's a pretty sentiment, Rosa, considering."
"Considering what?"
"If I say what, you'll go wrong again."
" You'll go wrong, you mean, Eddy. Don't be ungenerous."
"Ungenerous! I like that!"
"Then I don't like that, and so I tell you plainly," Rosa
pouts.
"Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who disparaged my profession, my destination  "
"You are not going to be buried in the Pyramids, I hope?"
she interrupts, arching her delicate eyebrows. "You never
said you were. If you are, why haven't you mentioned it to
me? I can't find out your plans by instinct."
" Now, Rosa; you know very well what I mean, my dear."
" Well then, why did you begin with your detestable rednosed Giantesses? And she would, she would, she would, she



THE NUNS' HOUSE.                      51
would, she WOULD powder it!" cries Rosa, in a little burst of
comical contradictory spleen.
" Somehow or other, I never can come right in these discussiofts, says Edwin, sighing and becoming resigned.
"How is it possible, sir, that you ever can come right when
you're always wrong? And as to Belzoni, I suppose he's dead;
-I'm sure I hope he is-and how can his legs, or his chokes
concern you? "
" It is nearly time for your return, Rosa. We have not had
a very happy walk, have we? "
" A happy walk? A detestably unhappy walk, sir. If I
go up stairs the moment I get in and cry till I can't take my
dancing-lesson, you are responsible, mind!"
"Let us be friends, Rosa."
" Ah!" cries Rosa, shaking her head and bursting into real
tears. "I wish we could be friends! It's because we can't be
friends, that we try one another so. I am a young little thing,
Eddy, to have an old heartache; but I really, really have,
sometimes. Don't be angry. I know you have one yourself,
too often. We should both of us have done better, if What
is to be had been left, What might have been. I am quite a
serious little thing now, and not teasing you. Let each of us
forbear, this one time, on our own account, and on the
other's!"
Disarmed by this glimpse of a woman's nature in the spoilt
child, though for an instant disposed to resent it as seeming to
involve the enforced infliction of himself upon her, Edwin
Drood stands watching her as she childishly cries and sobs,
with both hands to the handkerchief at her eyes, and thenshe becoming more composed, and indeed beginning in her
young inconstancy to laugh at herself for having been so
moved-leads her to a seat hard by, under the elm trees.
"One clear word of understanding, Pussy dear. I am not
clever out of my own line-now I come to think of it I don't
know that I am particularly clever in it-but I want to do
right. There is not-there may be-I really don't see my way



52   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
to what I want to say, but I must say it before we part-there
is not any other young-? "
" Oh no, Eddy! It's generous of you to ask me; but no,
no, no!"
They have come very near to the Cathedral windows, and at
this moment the organ and the choir sound out sublimely.
As they sit listening to the solemn swell, the confidence of
last night rises in young Edwin Drood's mind, and he thinks
how unlike this music is, to that discordance.
" I fancy I can distinguish Jack's voice," is his remark in
a low tone in connection with the train of thought.
"Take me back at once, please," urges his Affianced,
quickly laying her light hand upon his wrist. " They will all
be coming out directly; let us get away. Oh, what a resounding chord! But don't let us stop to listen to it; let us
get away!"
Her hurry is over, as soon as they have passed out of the
Close. They go, arm-in-arm now, gravely and deliberately
enough, along the old High Street, to the Nuns' House. At
the gate, the street being within sight empty, Edwin bends
down his face to Rosebud's.
She remonstrates, laughing, and is a childish schoolgirl
again.
"Eddy, no! I'm too stickey to be kissed. But give me
your hand, and I'll blow a kiss into that."
He does so. She breathes a light breath into it, and asks,
retaining it and looking into it:
" Now say, what do you see?"
"See, Rosa?"
"Why, I thought you Egyptian boys could look into a
hand and see all sorts of phantoms? Can't you see a happy
Future?"
For certain, neither of them sees a happy Present, as the gate
opens and closes, and one goes in and the other goes away.



MR. SAPSEA.                      63
CHAPTER IV.
MR. SAPSEA.
ACCEPTING the Jackass as the type of self-sufficient stupidity and conceit-a custom, perhaps, like some few other customs, more conventional than fair-then the purest Jackass in
Cloisterham is Mr. Thomas Sapsea, Auctioneer.
Mr. Sapsea "dresses at" the Dean; has been bowed to for
the Dean, in mistake; has even been spoken to in the street
as My Lord, under the impression that he was the Bishop come
down unexpectedly, without his chaplain. Mr. Sapsea is very
proud of this, and of his voice, and of his style. He has even
(in selling landed property), tried the experiment of slightly
intoning in his pulpit, to make himself more like what he
takes to be the genuine ecclesiastical article. So, in ending a
Sale by Public Auction, Mr. Sapsea finishes off with an air of
bestowing a benediction on the assembled brokers, which leaves
the real Dean-a modest and worthy gentleman-far behind.
Mr. Sapsea has many admirers; indeed, the proposition is
carried by a large local majority, even including non-belieyers
in his wisdom, that he is a credit to Cloisterham. He possesses the great qualities of being portentous and dull, and of
having a roll in his speech, and another roll in his gait; not to
mention a certain gravely flowing action with his hands, as if
he were presently going to Confirm the individual with whom
he holds discourse. Much nearer sixty years of age than fifty,
with a flowing outline of stomach, and horizontal creases in his
waistcoat; reputed to be rich; voting at elections in the
strictly respectable interest; morally satisfied that nothing but
he himself has grown since he was a baby; how can dunderheaded Mr. Sapsea be otherwise than a credit to Cloisterham,
and society?
Mr. Sapsea's premises are in the High Street, over against
the Nuns' House. They are of about the period of the Nuns'



54   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
House, irregularly modernized here and there, as steadily
deteriorating generations found, more and more, that they
preferred air and light to Fever and the Plague. Over the
doorway, is a wooden effigy, about half life-size, representing
Mr. Sapsea's father, in a curly wig and toga, in the act of
selling. The chastity of the idea, and the natural appearance
of the little finger, hammer, and pulpit, have been much admired.
Mr. Sapsea sits in his dull ground-floor sitting-room, gazing
first on his paved back yard and then on his railed-off garden.
Mr. Sapsea has a bottle of port wine on a table before the fire
-the fire is an early luxury, but pleasant on the cool, chilly
autumn evening-and is characteristically attended by his
portrait, his eight-day clock, and his weather-glass. Characteristically, because he would uphold himself against mankind, his weather-glass against weather, and his clock against
time.
By Mr. Sapsea's side on the table are a writing-desk and
writing materials. Glancing at a scrap of manuscript, Mr.
Sapsea reads it to himself with a lofty air, and then, slowly pacing the room with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat,
repeats it from memory: so internally, though with much dignity, that the word " Ethelinda " is alone audible.
There are three clean wine-glasses in a tray on the table.
His serving-maid entering, and announcing " Mr. Jasper is
come, sir," Mr. Sapsea waves "Admit him" and draws two
wine-glasses from the rank, as being claimed.
" Glad to see you, sir. I congratulate myself on having the
honor of receiving you here for the first time." Mr. Sapsea
does the honors of his house in this wise.
" You are very good. The honor is mine and the self-congratulation is mine."
" You are pleased to say so, sir. But I do assure you that
it is a satisfaction to me to receive you in my humble home.
And that is what I would not say to everybody." Ineffable
loftiness on Mr. Sapsea's part accompanies these words, as leav



MR. SAPSEA.                      55
ing the sentence to be understood: "You will not easily believe that your society can be a satisfaction to a man like myself; nevertheless, it is."
"I have for some time desired to know you, Mr. Sapsea."
"And I, sir, have long known you by reputation as a man
of taste. Let me fill your glass. I will give you, sir," says
Mr. Sapsea, filling his own:
"When the French come over,
May we meet them at Dover!"
This was a patriotic toast in Mr. Sapsea's infancy, and he is
therefore fully convinced of its being appropriate to any subsequent era.
"You can scarcely be ignorant, Mr. Sapsea," observes Jasper,
watching the auctioneer with a smile as the latter stretches
out his legs before the fire, " that you know the world."
"Well, sir," is the chuckling reply, "I think I know something of it; something of it."
" Your reputation for that knowledge has always interested
and surprised me, and made me wish to know you. For,
Cloisterham is a little place. Cooped up in it myself, I know
nothing beyond it, and feel it to be a very little place."
"If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man," Mr.
Sapsea begins, and then stops:-" You will excuse my calling
you young man, Mr. Jasper? You are much my junior."
"By all means."
"If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man, foreign countries have come to me. They have come to me in
the way of business, and I have improved upon my opportunities. Put it that I take an inventory, or make a catalogue.
I see a French clock. I never saw him before, in my life, but
I instantly lay my finger on him and say'Paris!' I see
some cups and saucers of Chinese make, equally strangers to
me personally: I put my finger on them, then and there, and
I say'Pekin, Nankin, and Canton.' It is the same with
Japan, with Egypt, and with bamboo and sandal-wood from



56    THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
the East Indies; I put my finger on them all. I have put my
finger on the North Pole before now, and said,'Spear of
Esquimaux make, for half a pint of pale sherry! "
"Really? A very remarkable way, Mr. Sapsea, of acquiring a knowledge of men and things."
"I mention it, sir," Mr. Sapsea rejoins, with unspeakable
complacency, " because, as I say, it don't do to boast of what
you are; but show how you came to be it, and then you
prove it."
"Most interesting. We were to speak of the late Mrs.
Sapsea."
" We were, sir." Mr. Sapsea fills both glasses, and takes
the decanter into safe keeping again. " Before I consult your
opinion as a man of taste on this little trifle " —holding it up
— " which is but a trifle, and still has required some thought,
sir, some little fever of the brow, I ought perhaps to describe
the character of the late Mrs. Sapsea, now dead three quarters
of a year."
Mr. Jasper, in the act of yawning behind his wineglass,
puts down that screen and calls up a look of interest. It is a
little impaired in its expressiveness by his having a shut-up
gape still to dispose of, with watering eyes.
"Half a dozen years ago, or so," Mr. Sapsea proceeds,
" when I had enlarged my mind up to-I will not say to what
it now is, for that might.seem to aim at too much, but up to
the pitch of wanting another mind to be absorbed in it-I
cast my eye about me for a nuptial partner. Because, as I
say, it is not good for man to be alone."
Mr. Jasper appears to commit this original idea to memory.
"Miss Brobity at that time kept, I will not call it the rival
establishment to the establishment at the Nuns' House opposite, but I will call it the other parallel establishment down
town. The world did have it that she showed a passion for
attending my sales, when they took place on half-holidays, or
in vacation time. The world did put it about, that she admired my style. The world did notice that as time flowed by,



MR. SAPSEA.                       57
my style became traceable in the dictation exercises of Miss
Brobity's pupils. Young man, a whisper even sprang up in
obscure malignity, that one ignorant and besotted Churl (a
parent) so committed himself as to object to it by name. But
I do not believe this. For is it likely that any human creature in his right senses would so lay himself open to be
pointed at, by what I call the finger of scorn? "
Mr. Jasper shakes his head. Not in the least likely. Mr.
Sapsea, in a grandiloquent state of absence of mind, seems to
refill his visitor's glass, which is full already; and does really
refill his own, which is empty.
"Miss Brobity's Being, young man, was deeply imbued
with homage to Mind. She revered Mind, when launched,
or, as I say, precipitated, on an extensive knowledge of the
world. When I made my proposal, she did me the honor to
be so overshadowed with a species of Awe, as to be able to
articulate only the two words,' Oh Thou!'-meaning myself.
Her limpid blue eyes were fixed upon me, her semi-transparent
hands were clasped together, pallor overspread her aquiline
features, and, though encouraged to proceed, she never did proceed a word further. I disposed of the parallel establishment,
by private contract, and we became as nearly one as could be expected under the circumstances. But she never could, and she
never did, find a phrase satisfactory to her perhaps-too-favorable
estimate of my intellect. To the very last (feeble action of
liver), she addressed me in the same unfinished terms."
Mr. Jasper has closed his eyes as the auctioneer has deepened his voice. He now abruptly opens them, and says, in
unison with the deepened voice " Ah! "-rather as if stopping
himself on the extreme verge of adding-" men!"
"I have been since," says Mr. Sapsea, with his legs
stretched out, and solemnly enjoying himself with the wine
and the fire, " what you behold me; I have been since a solitary mourner; I have been since, as I say, wasting my evening conversation on the desert air. I will not say that I have
reproached myself; but there have been times when I have



65    THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
asked myself the question: What if her husband had been
nearer on a level with her? If she had not had to look up
quite so high, what might the stimulating action have been
upon the liver?"
Mr. Jasper says, with an appearance of having fallen into
dreadfully low spirits, that he,. "Supposes it was to be."
"W e can only suppose so, sir," Mr. Sapsea coincides. "As
I say, Man proposes, Heaven disposes. It may or may not be
putting the same thought in another form; but that is the
way I put it."
Mr. Jasper murmurs assent.
" And now, Mr. Jasper," resumes the auctioneer, producing
his scrap of manuscript, "Mrs. Sapsea's monument having
had full time to settle and dry, let me take your opinion as a
man of taste, on the inscription I have (as I before remarked,
not without some little fever of the brow), drawn out for it.
Take it in your own hand. The setting out of the lines requires to be followed with the eye, as well as the contents
with the mind."
Mr. Jasper complying, sees and reads as follows:
ETHELINDA,
Reverential Wife of
MR. THOMAS SAPSEA,
AUCTIONEER, VALUER, ESTATE AGENT, &c.,
OF THIS CITY,
Whose Knowledge of the World,
Though somewhat extensive
Never brought him acquainted with
A SPIRIT
More capable of
LOOKING UP TO HIM.
STRANGER PAUSE
And ask thyself the Question,
CANST THOU       DO LIKEWISE?
If Not,
WITI A BLUSH RETIRE.



MR. SAPSEA.                      59
Mr. Sapsea having risen and stationed himself with his back
to the fire, for the purpose of observing the effect of these lines
on the countenance of a man of taste, consequently has his face
towards the door, when his serving-maid, again appearing,
announces, " Durdles is come, sir! " He promptly draws forth
and fills the third wineglass, as being now claimed, and replies, "Show Durdles in."
"Admirable! " quoth Mr. Jasper, handing back the paper.
"You approve, sir? "
"Impossible not to approve. Striking, characteristic, and
complete."
The auctioneer inclines his head, as one accepting his due
and giving a receipt; and invites the entering Durdles to take
off that glass of wine (handing the same), for it will warm
him.
Durdles is a stonemason; chiefly in the gravestone, tomb,
and monument way, and wholly of their color from head to
foot. No man is better known in Cloisterham. He is the
chartered libertine of the place. Fame trumpets him a wonderful workman-which, for aught that anybody knows, he
may be (as he never works); and a wonderful sot-which
everybody knows he is. With the Cathedral crypt he is better
acquainted than any living authority; it may even be than
any dead one. It is said that the intimacy of this acquaintance began in his habitually resorting to that secret place, to
lock out the Cloisterham boy-populace, and sleep off the fumes
of liquor: he having ready access to the Cathedral, as contractor for rough repairs. Be this as it may, he does know much
about it, and, in the demolition of impedimental fragments of
wall, buttress, and pavement; has seen strange sights. He
often speaks of himself in the third person; perhaps being a
little misty as to his own identity when he narrates; perhaps
impartially adopting the Cloisterham nomenclature in reference to a character of acknowledged distinction. Thus he will
say, touching his strange sights: " Durdles come upon the old
chap," in reference to a buried magnate of ancient time and



00   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
high degree, " by striking right into the coffin with his pick.
The old chap gave Durdles a look with his open eyes, as much
as to say' Is your name Durdles? Why, my man, I've been
waiting for you a Devil of a time!' And then he turned to
powder."  With a two-foot rule always in his pocket, and a
mason's hammer all but always in his hand, Durdles goes continually sounding and tapping all about and about the Ca
thedral; and whenever he says to Tope: " Tope, here's another
old'un in here!"  Tope announces it to the Dean as an established discovery.
In a suit of coarse flannel with horn buttons, a yellow
neckerchief with draggled ends, an old hat more russetcolored than black, and laced boots of the hue of his stony
calling, Durdles leads a hazy, gipsy sort of life, carrying his
dinner about with him in a small bundle, and sitting on all
manner of tombstones to dine. This dinner of Durdles's has
become quite a Cloisterham institution: not only because of
his never appearing in public without it, but because of its
having been, on certain renowned occasions, taken into custody along with Durdles (as drunk and incapable), and exhibited before the Bench of Justices at the Town Hall. These
occasions, however, have been few and far apart: Durdles being as seldom drunk as sober. For the rest, he is an old
bachelor, and he lives in a little antiquated hole of a house
that was never finished: supposed to be built, so far, of stones
stolen from the city wall. To this abode there is an approach,
ankle-deep in stone-chips, resembling a petrified grove of
tombstones, urns, draperies, and broken columns, in all stages
of sculpture. Herein, two journeymen incessantly chip, while
other two journeymen, who face each other, incessantly saw
stone; dipping as regularly in and out of their sheltering
sentry-boxes, as if they were mechanical figures emblematical
of Time and Death.
To Durdles, when he has consumed his glass of port, Mr.
Sapsea entrusts that precious effort of his Muse. Durdles unfeelingly takes out his two-foot rule, and measures the lines
calmly, alloying them with stone-grit.



MR. SAPSEA.                      61
"This is for the monument, is it, Mr. Sapsea? "
"The Inscription. Yes." Mr. Sapsea waits for its effect
on a common mind.
" It'll come in to a eighth of a inch," says Durdles. "Your
servant, Mr. Jasper. Hope I see you well."
"How are you, Durdles?"
"I've got a touch of the Tombatism on me, Mr. Jasper, but
that I must expect."
" You mean the Rheumatism," says Sapsea, in a sharp tone.
(He is nettled by having his composition so mechanically received.)
"No, I don't. I mean, Mr. Sapsea, the Tombatism. It's
another sort from Rheumatism. Mr. Jasper knows what
Durdles means. You get among them Tombs afore it's well
light on a winter morning, and keep on, as the Catechism
says, a-walking in the same all the days of your life, and
you'll know what Durdles means."
" It is a bitter cold place, Mr. Jasper assents, with an antipathetic shiver.
"And if it's bitter cold for you, up in the chancel, with a
lot of live breath smoking out about you, what the bitterness
is to Durdles, down in the crypt among the earthy damps
there, and the dead breath of the old'uns," returns that individual, " Durdles leaves you to judge.-Is this to be put in
hand at once, Mr. Sapsea? "
Mr. Sapsea, with an Author's anxiety to rush into publication, replies that it cannot be out of hand too soon.
"You had better let me have the key, then," says Durdles.
Why, man, it is not to be put inside the monument!"
"Durdles knows where it's to be put, Mr. Sapsea; no man
better. Ask'ere a man in Cloisterham whether Durdles knows
his work."
Mr. Sapsea rises, takes a key from a drawer, unlocks an iron
safe let into the wall, and takes from it another key.
"When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work, no
matter where, inside or outside, Durdles likes to look at his



62    THE'MYSTERY        OF EDWIN DROOD.
work all round, and see that his work is a doing him credit,"
Durdles explains, doggedly.
The key proffered him by the bereaved widower being a
large one, he slips his two-foot rule into a side pocket of his
flannel trousers made for it, and deliberately opens his flannel
coat, and opens the mouth of a large breast-pocket within it
before taking the key to place in that repository.
"Why, iDurdles!" exclaims Jasper, looking on amused.
"You are undermined with pockets!"
"And I carries weight in'em   too, Mr. Jasper.  Feel
those;" producing two large keys.
"Hand me Mr. Sapsea's likewise.    Surely this is the
heaviest of the three."
"You'll find'em much of a muchness, I expect," says Durdles. "They all belong to monuments. They all open Durdles's work. Durdles keeps the keys of his work mostly.
Not that they are much used."
" By the bye," it comes into Jasper's mind to say, as he
idly examines the keys; "I have been going to ask you,
many a day, and have always forgotten. You know they
sometimes call you Stony Durdles, don't you?"
" Cloisterham knows me as Durdles, Mr. Jasper."
"I am   aware of that, of course.  But the boys sometimes    "
"Oh! If you mind them young Imps of boys-"      Durdles gruffly interrupts.
"I don't mind them, any more than you do. But there
was a discussion the other day among the Choir, whether
Stony stood for Tony;" clinking one key against another.
(" Take care of the wards, Mr. Jasper.")
"Or whether Stony stood for Stephen;" clinking with a
change of keys.
(" You can't make a pitch-pipe of'em, Mr. Jasper.")
" Or whether the name comes from your trade. How stands
the fact? "
Mr. Jasper weighs the three keys in his hand, lifts his head



MR. DURDLES AND           FRIEND.          63
from his idly stooping attitude over the fire, and delivers the
keys to Durdles with an ingenuous and friendly face.
But the stony one is a gruff one likewise, and that hazy state
of his is always an uncertain state, highly conscious of its dignity, and prone to take offence. He drops his two keys back
into his pocket one by one, and buttons them up; he takes
his dinner-bundle from the chair-back on which he hung it
when he came in; he distributes the weight he carries, by tying the third key up in it, as though he were an Ostrich, and
liked to dine off cold iron; and he gets out of the room, deigning no word of answer.
Mr. Sapsea then proposes a hit at backgammon, which, seasoned with his own improving conversation, and terminating
in a supper of cold roast beef and salad, beguiles the golden
evening until pretty late. Mr. Sapsea's wisdom being, in its
delivery to mortals, rather of the diffuse than the epigrammatic order, is by no means expended even then; but his visitor intimates that he will come back for more of the precious
commodity on future occasions, and Mr. Sapsea lets him off for
the present, to ponder on the instalment he carries away.
CHAPTER V.
MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND.
JOHN JASPER, on his way home through the Close, is
brought to a stand-still by the spectacle of Stony Durdles,
dinner-bundle and all, leaning his back against the iron railing of the burial-ground enclosing it from the old cloisterarches; and a hideous small boy in rags flinging stones ak
him as a well-defined mark in the moonlight. Sometimes the
stones hit him, and sometimes they miss him, but Durdles
seems indifferent to either fortune. The hideous small boy,
on the contrary, whenever he hits Durdles, blows a whistle of



64    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
triumph through a jagged gap convenient for the purpose, in
the front of his mouth, where half his teeth are wanting;
and whenever he misses him, yelps out " Mulled agin! " and
tries to atone for the failure by taking a more correct and
vicious aim.
"-What are you doing to the man? " demands Jasper, stepping out into the moonlight from the shade.
"Making a cock-shy of him," replies the hideous small boy.
"Give me those stones in your hand."
"Yes, I'll give'em  you down your throat, if you come
a-ketching hold of me," says the small boy, shaking himself
loose, and backing. "I'll smash your eye, if you don't look
out!"
"Baby-Devil that you are, what has the man done to
you?"
"He won't go home."
"What is that to you?"
"He gives me a'apenny to pelt him home if I ketches him
out too late," says the boy. And then chants, like a little
savage, half stumbling and half dancing among the rags and
laces of his dilapidated boots:
" Widdy widdy wen!
I-ket-ches-Im-out-ar-ter-ten,
Widdy widdy wy!
Then-E-don't-go-then-I-shyWiddy Widdy Wake-cock warning I "
— with a comprehensive sweep on the last word, and one more
delivery at Durdles.
This would seem to be a poetical note of preparation, agreed
upon, as a caution to Durdles to stand clear if he can, or to
betake himself homeward.
John Jasper invites the boy with a beck of his head to follow
him (feeling it hopeless to drag him, or coax him) and crosses
to the iron railing where the Stony (and stoned) One is profoundly meditating.
" Do you know this thing, this child? " asks Jasper, at a
loss for a word that will define this thing.



MR. DURDLES AND          FRIEND.           65
Deputy," says Durdles, with a nod.
Is that it's-his-name? "
"Deputy," assents Durdles.
"I'm man-servant up at tile Travellers' Twopenny in Gas
Works Garding," this tling explains. " All us man-servants
at Travellers Lodgings is named Deputy. When we're chock
full and the Travellers is all a-bed I come out for my'elth."
Then withdrawing into the road, and taking aim, he resumes;
"Widdy Widdy wen!
I-ket-ches-Im-out-ar-ter-"
"Hold your hand," cries Jasper, " and don't throw while I
stand so near him, or I'll kill you! Come, Durdles; let me
walk home with you to-night. Shall I carry your bundle? "
"Not on any account," replies Durdles, adjusting  it.
" Durdles was making his reflections here when you come up,
sir, surrounded by his works, like a popular Author.-Your
own brother-in-law;" introducing a sarcophagus within the
railing, white and cold in the moonlight. "Mrs. Sapsea; "
introducing the monument of that devoted wife. " Late Incumbent;" introducing the Reverend Gentleman's broken
column. "Departed Assessed Taxes;" introducing a vase
and towel, standing on what might represent the cake of soap.
"' Former pastrycook and muffin-maker, much respected;" introducing gravestone. "All safe and sound here, sir, and all
Durdle's work! Of the common folk that is mere bundled up
in turf and brambles, the less said, the better. A poor lot,
soon forgot."
"This creature, Deputy, is behind us," says Jasper, looking
back. " Is he to follow us? "
The relations between Durdles and Deputy are of a capricious kind; for, on Durdles's turning himself about with the
slow gravity of beery soddenness, Deputy makes a pretty wide
circuit into the road and stands on the defensive.
"You never cried Widdy Warning before you begun tonight," says Durdles, unexpectedly reminded of, or imagining,
an injury.
4



66   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
Yer lie, I did," says Deputy, in his only form of polite
contradiction.
" Own brother, sir," observes Durdles, turning himself about
again, and as unexpectedly forgetting his offence as he had
recalled or conceived it; "own brother to Peter the Wild
Boy! But I gave him an object in life."
"At which he takes aim? " Mr. Jasper suggests.
"That's it, sir," returns Durdles, quite satisfied; " at which
he takes aim. I took him in hand and gave him an object.
What was he before? A destroyer. What work did he do?
Nothing but destruction. What did he earn by it? Short
terms in Cloisterham Jail. Not a person, not a piece of property, not a winder, not a horse, nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a
bird, nor a fowl, nor a pig, but what he stoned, for want of an
enlightened object. I put that enlightened object before him,
and now he can turn his honest half-penny by the three
penn'orth a week."
" I wonder he has no competitors."
"He has plenty, Mr. Jasper, but he stones'em all away.
Now, I don't know what this scheme of mine comes to," pursues Durdles, considering about it with the same sodden gravity; "I don't know what you may precisely call it. It ain't
a sort of a-scheme of a-National Education?"
" I should say not," replies Jasper.
"I should say not," assents Durdles; "then we won't try
to give it a name."
" He still keeps behinds us," repeats Jasper, looking over
his shoulder; " is he to follow us? "
"We can't help going round by the Travellers' Twopenny,
if we go the short way, which is the back way," Durdles answers, "and we'll drop him there."
So they go on; Deputy, as a rear rank of one, taking open
order, and invading the silence of the hour and place by stoning every wall, post, pillar, and other inanimate object, by the
deserted way.
" Is there anything new down in the crypt, Durdles?" asks
John Jasper.



MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND.                    67' Anything old, I think you mean," growls Durdles.  "It
ain't a spot for novelty."
"Any new discovery on your part, I meant."' There's a old'un under the seventh pillar on the left as
you go down the broken steps of the little underground chapel
as formerly was; I make him out (so fur as I've made him out
yet) to be one of them old'uns with a crook. To judge from
the size of the passages in the walls, and of the steps and
doors, by which they came and went, them crooks must have
been a good deal in the way of the old'uns! Two on'em
meeting promiscuous must have hitched one another by the
mitre, pretty often, I should say."
Without any endeavor to correct the literality of this opinion, Jasper surveys his companion-covered from head to foot
with old mortar, lime, and stone grit-as though he, Jasper,
were getting imbued with a romantic interest in his weird
life.
" Yours is a curious existence."
Without furnishing the least clue to the question, whether
he receives this as a compliment or as quite the reverse, Durdles
gruffly answers: " Yours is another."
" Well! Inasmuch as my lot is cast in the same old earthy,
chilly, never-changing place, Yes. But there is much more
mystery and interest in your connection with the Cathedral
than in mine. Indeed, I am beginning to have some idea of
asking you to take me on as a sort of student or free'prentice, under you, and to let me go about with you sometimes.
and see some of these odd nooks in which you pass your
days."
The Stony One replies, in a general way, All right. Every.
body knows where to find Durdles, when he's wanted. Which,
if not strictly true, is approximately so, if taken to express
that Durdles may always be found in a state of vagabondage
somewhere.
" What I dwell upon most," says Jasper, pursuing his subject of romantic interest, " is the remarkable accuracy with



68   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
which you would seem to find out where people are buried.What is the matter? That bundle is in your way; let me
hold it."
Durdles has stopped and backed a little (Deputy, attentive
to all his movements, immediately skirmishing into the road)
and was looking about for some ledge or corner to place his
bundle on, when thus relieved of it.
"Just you give me my hammer out of that," says Durdles,, and I'll show you."
Clink, clink. And his hammer is handed him.
"Now, lookee here. You pitch your note, don't you, Mr.
Jasper? "
" Yes."
"So I sound for mine.   I take my hammer, and I tap."
(Here he strikes the pavement, and the attentive Deputy
skirmishes at a rather wider range, as supposing that his
head may be in requisition.) " I tap, tap, tap. Solid! I go
on tapping.  Solid still! Tap again.  Holloa! Hollow!
Tap again, persevering. Solid in hollow! Tap, tap, tap, to
try it better. Solid in hollow, and inside solid, hollow again!
There you are! Old'un crumbled away in stone coffin in
vault!"
" Astonishing!"
"I have even done this," says Durdles, drawing out his
two-foot rule, (Deputy meanwhile skirmishing nearer, as suspecting that Treasure may be about to be discovered, which
may somehow lead to his own enrichment, and the delicious
treat of the discoverers being hanged by the neck, on his evidence, until they are dead). " Say that hammer of mine's a wall
-my work.    Two; four; and two is six," measuring on the
pavement. "Six foot inside that wall is Mrs. Sapsea."
"Not really Mrs. Sapsea?"
"Say Mrs. Sapsea. Her wall's thicker, but say Mrs. Sapsea. Durdles taps that wall represented by that hammer, and
says, after good sounding:'Something betwixt us!' Sure
enough, some rubbish has been left in that same six foot
space by Durdles's men."



MR. DURDLES        AND   FRIEND.           69
Jasper opines that such accuracy " is a gift."
" I wouldn't have it at a gift," returns Durdles, by no
means receiving the observation in good part. " I worked it
out for myself. Durdles comes to his knowledge through
grabbing deep for it, and having it up by the roots when it
don't want to come.-Halloa you Deputy!"
"Widdy!" is Deputy's shrill response, standing off again.
"Catch that ha'penny. And don't let me see any more of
you to-night, after we come to the Travellers' Twopenny."
"Warning!" returns Deputy, having caught the halfpenny, and appearing by this mystic word to express his
assent to the arrangement.
They have but to cross what was once the vineyard, belonging to what was once the Monastery, to come into the narrow
back lane wherein stands the crazy wooden house of two low
stories currently known as the Traveller's Twopenny:-a house
all warped and distorted, like the morals of the travellers, with
scant remains of a lattice-work porch over the door, and also
of a rustic fence before its stamped-out garden; by reason of
the travellers being so bound to the premises by a tender sentiment (or so fond of having a fire by the roadside in the
course of the day), that they can never be persuaded or
threatened into departure, without violently possessing themselves of some wooden forget-me-not, and bearing it off.
The semblance of an inn is attempted to be given to this
wretched place by fragments of conventional red curtaining
in the windows, which rags are made nuddily transparent in
the night-season by feeble lights of rush or cotton dip burning
dully in the close air of the inside. As Durdles and Jasper
come near, they are addressed by an inscribed paper lantern
over the door, setting forth the purport of the house. They
are also addressed by some half-dozen other hideous small boys
-whether twopenny lodgers or followers or hangers-on of
such, who knows!-who, as if attracted by some carrion-scent
of Deputy in the air, start into the moonlight, as vultures
might gather in the desert, and instantly fall to stoning him
and one another.



70    THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN     DROOD.
" Stop, you young brutea," cries Jasper, angrily, " and let
us go by!"
This remonstrance being received with yells and flying
stones, according to a custom of late years comfortably established among the police regulations of our English communities, where Christians are stoned on all sides, as if the days
of Saint Stephen were revived, Durdles remarks of the young
savages, with some point, that " they haven't got an object,"
and leads the way down the lane.
At the corner of the lane, Jasper, hotly enraged, checks his
companion and looks back. All is silent. Next moment, a
stone coming rattling at his hat, and a distant yell of " WakeCock! Warning!" followed by a crow, as from some infernally-hatched Chanticleer, apprising him under whose victorious fire he stands, he turns the corner into safety, and takes
Durdles home: Durdles stumbling among the litter of his
stony yard as if he were going to turn head foremost into one
of the unfinished tombs.
John Jasper returns by another way to his gate house, and
entering softly with his key, finds his fire still burning. He
takes from a locked press, a peculiar-looking pipe which he
fills-but not with tobacco-and, having adjusted the contents
of the bowl, very carefully, with a little instrument, ascends
an inner staircase of only a few steps, leading to two rooms.
One of these is his own sleeping chamber: the other, is his
nephew's. There is a light in each.
His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled. John Jasper
stands looking down upon him, his unlighted pipe in his hand,
for some time, with a fixed and deep attention. Then, hushing his footsteps, he passes to his own room, lights his pipe,
and delivers himself to the Spectres it invokes at midnight.



PHILANTHROPY.                       71
CHAPTER VI.
PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER.
THE Reverend Septimus Crisparkle (Septimus, because six
little brother Crisparkles before him went out, one by one, as
they were born, like six weak little ruslhlights, as they were
lighted), having broken the thin morning ice near Cloisterham Weir with his amiable head, much to the invigoration of
his frame, was now assisting his circulation by boxing at a
looking-glass with great science and prowess. A fresh and
healthy portrait the looking-glass presented of the Reverend
Septimus, feinting and dodging with the utmost artfulness,
and hitting out from the shoulder with the utmost straightness,
while his radiant features teemed with innocence, and softhearted benevolence beamed from his boxing-gloves.
It was scarcely breakfast time yet, for Mrs. Crisparklemother, not wife, of the Reverend Septimus-was only just
down, and waiting for the urn. Indeed, the Reverend Septimus left off at this very moment to take the pretty old lady's
entering face between his boxing-gloves and kiss it. Having
done so with tenderness, the Reverend Septimus turned to
again, countering with his left, and putting in his right, in a
tremendous manner.
" I say, every morning of my life, that you'll do it at last,
Sept," remarked the old lady, looking on; " and so you will."
"Do what, Ma dear? "
"Break the pier-glass, or burst a blood-vessel."
"Neither, please God, Ma, dear. Here's wind, Ma. Look
at this! "
In a concluding round of great severity, the Reverend Septimus administered and escaped all sorts of punishment, and
wound up by getting the old lady's cap into Chancery-such
is the technical term used in scientific circles by the learned
in the Noble Art-with a lightness of touch that hardly stir



72   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
red the lightest lavender or cherry riband on it. Magnanimously releasing the defeated, just in time to get his gloves
into a drawer and feign to be looking out of the window in a
contemplative state of mind when a servant entered, the Reverend Septimus then gave place to the urn and other preparations for breakfast.  These completed, and the two alone
again, it was pleasant to see (or would have been, if there
had been any one to see it, which there never was), the old
lady standing to say the Lord's Prayer aloud, and her son,
Minor Canon nevertheless, standing with bent head to hear it,
he being within five years of forty: much as he had stood to
hear the same words from the same lips when he was within
five months of four.
What is prettier than an old lady-except a young ladywhen her eyes are bright, when her figure is trim and compact, when her face is cheerful and calm, when her dress is as
the dress of a china shepherdess: so dainty in its colors, so
individually assorted to herself, so neatly moulded on her?
Nothing is prettier, thought the good Minor Canon frequently,
when taking his seat at the table opposite his long-widowed
mother. Her thought at such times may be condensed into
the two words that oftenest did duty together in all her conversations: " My Sept!"
They were a good pair to sit breakfasting together in Minor
Canon Corner, Cloisterham. For, Minor Canon Corner was a
quiet place in the shadow of the Cathedral, which the cawing
of the rooks, the echoing footsteps of rare passers, the sound
of the Cathedral bell, or the roll of the Cathedral organ,
seemed to render more quiet than absolute silence. Swaggering fighting men had had their centuries of ramping and raving about Minor Canon Corner, and beaten serfs had had their
centuries of drudging and dying there, and powerful monks
had had their centuries of being sometimes useful and sometimes harmful there, and behold they were all gone out of
Minor Canon Corner, and so much the better. Perhaps one
of the highest uses of their ever having been there, was, that



PHILANTHROPY.                       73
there might be left behind, that blessed air of tranquillity
which pervaded Minor Canon Corner, and that serenely romantic state of the mind-productive for the most part of pity and
forbearance-which is engendered by a sorrowful story that is
all told, or a pathetic play that is played out.
Red-brick wall harmoniously toned down in color by time,
strong-rooted ivy, latticed windows, panelled rooms, big oaken
beams in little places, and stone-walled gardens where annual
fruit yet ripened upon monkish trees, were the principal surroundings of pretty old Mrs. Crisparkle and the Reverend
Septimus as they sat at breakfast.
" And what, Ma dear," inquired the Minor Canon, giving
proof of a wholesome and vigorous appetite, * does the letter
say?"
The pretty old lady, after reading it, had just laid it down
upon the breakfast-cloth. She handed it over to her son.
Now, the old lady was exceedingly proud of her bright eyes
being so clear that she could read writing without spectacles.
Her son was also so proud of the circumstance, and so dutifully bent on her deriving the utmost possible gratification
from it, that he had invented the pretence that he himself
could not read writing without spectacles. Therefore he now
assumed a pair of grave and prodigious proportions, which not
only seriously inconvenienced his nose and his breakfast, but
seriously impeded his perusal of the letter. For, he had the
eyes of a microscope and a telescope combined, when they
were unassisted.
"It's from Mr. Honeythunder, of course," said the old
lady, folding her arms.
"Of course," assented her son. He then lamely read on.
"HAVEN OF PHILANTHROPY,
"Chief Offices, London, Wednesday' DEAR MADAM,
"' I write in the-;' In the what's this? What does he
write in? "
" In the chair," said the old lady.



74    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
The Reverend Septimus took off his spectacles, that he
might see her face, as he exclaimed:
" Why, what should he write in? "
"Bless me, bless me, Sept," returned the old lady, "you
don't see the context! Give it back to me, my dear."
Glad to get his spectacles off (for they always made his eyes
water) her son obeyed: murmuring that his sight for reading
manuscript got worse and worse daily.
" I write,"' his mother went on, reading very perspicuously
and precisely, "'from the chair, to which I shall probably be
confined for some hours.' 
Septimus looked at the row of chairs against the wall, with
a half-protesting and half-appealing countenance.
"' We have,'" the old lady read on with a little extra emphasis, "'a meeting of our Convened Chief Composite Committee of Central and District Philanthropists, at our Head Haven
as above; and it is their unanimous pleasure that I take the
chair.' "
Septimus breathed more freely, and muttered: "Oh! If he
comes to that, let him."
"' Not to lose a day's post, I take the opportunity of a long
report being read, denouncing a public miscreant'"
" It is a most extraordinary thing," interposed the gentle
Minor Canon, laying down his knife and fork to rub his ear in
a vexed manner, " that these Philanthropists are always denouncing somebody. And it is another most extraordinary
thing that they are always so violently flush of miscreants! "
"'Denouncing a public miscreant!'"-the old lady resumed, "' to get our little affair of business off my mind. I
nave spoken with my two wards, Neville and Helena Landless,
on the subject of their defective education, and they give in
to the plan proposed; as I should have taken good care they
did, whether they liked it or not.' "
" And it is another most extraordinary thing," remarked
the Minor Canon in the same tone as before, "that these
Philanthropists are so given to seizing their fellow-creatures



PHILANTHROPY.                       75
by the scruff of the neck, and (as one may say) bumping them
into the paths of peace.-I beg your pardon, Ma dear, for interrupting."
"' Therefore, dear Madam, you will please prepare your son,
the Reverend Mr. Septimus, to expect Neville as an inmate
to be read with, on Monday next. On the same day Helena
will accompany him to Cloisterham, to take up her quarters at
the Nuns' House, the establishment recommended by yourself
and son jointly. Please likewise to prepare for her reception
and tuition there. The terms in both cases are understood to
be exactly as stated to me in writing by yourself, when I
opened a correspondence with you on this subject, after the
honor of being introduced to you at.your sister's house in town
here. With compliments to the Rev. Mr. Septimus, I am,
dear Madam, Your affectionate brother (In Philanthropy),
LUKE LHONEYTHUNDER.' "
" Well, Ma," said Septimus, after a little more rubbing of
his ears, "we must try it. There can be no doubt that we
have room for an inmate, and that I have time to bestow upon
him, and inclination too. I must confess to feeling rather glad
that he is not Mr. Honeythunder himself. Though that seems
wretchedly prejudiced-does it not?-for I never saw him.
Is he a large man, Ma? "
"I should call him a large man, my dear," the old lady
replied after some hesitation, " but that his voice is so much
larger."
"Than himself?"
"Than anybody."
"Hah!" said Septimus. And finished his breakfast as if
the flavor of the Superior Family Souchong, and also of the
ham and toast,nn egrs. were a little on the wane.
Mrs. Crisparkle's sister, another piece of Dresden china, and
matching her so neatly that they would have made a delightful pair of ornaments for the two ends of any capacious oldfashioned chimney-piece, and by right should never have been
seen apart, was the childless wife of a clergyman holding Cor



76    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
poration preferment in London City. Mr. Honeythunder in
his public character of Professor of Philanthropy had come
to know Mrs. Crisparkle during the last re-matching of the
china ornaments (in other words during her last annual visit
to her sister), after a public occasion of a philanthropic nature
when certain devoted orphans of tender years had been glutted
with plum buns, and plump bumptiousness. These were all
the antecedents known in Minor Canon Corner of the coming
pupils.
" I am sure you will agree with me, Ma," said Mr. Crisparkle, after thinking the matter over, " that the first thing to
be done is to put these young people as much at their ease as
possible. There is nothing disinterested in the notion, because
we cannot be at our ease with them unless they are at their
ease with us. Now, Jasper's nephew is down here at present;
and like takes to like, and youth takes to youth. He is a cordial young fellow, and we will have him to meet the brother
and sister at dinner. That's three. We can't think of asking him, without asking Jasper. That's four. Add Miss
Twinkleton and the fairy bride that is to be, and that's six.
Add our two selves, and that's eight. Would eight at a friendly dinner at all put you out, Ma? "
"Nine would, Sept," returned the old lady, visibly nervous.
"My dear Ma, I particularize eight."
"The exact size of the table and the room, my dear."
So it was settled that way; and when Mr. Crisparkle called
with his mother upon Miss Twinkleton, to arrange for the reception of Miss Helena Landless at the Nuns' House, the two
other invitations having reference to that establishment were
proffered and accepted. Miss Twinkleton did, indeed, glance
at the globes, as regretting that they were not formed to be
taken out into society; but became reconciled to leaving them
behind. Instructions were then despatched to the Philanthropist for the departure and arrival, in good time for dinner, of
Mr. Neville and Miss Helena; and stock for soup became
fragrant in the air of Minor Canon Corner.



PHILANTHROPY.                       T7
In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and Mr.
Sapsea said there never would be. Mr. Sapsea said more; he
said there never should be. And yet, marvellous to consider,
it has come to pass, in these days, that Express Trains don't
think Cloisterham worth stopping at, but yell and whirl
through it on their larger errands, casting the dust off their
wheels as a testimony against its insignificance. Some remote
fragment of Main Line to somewhere else, there was, which
was going to ruin the Money Market if it failed, and Church
and State if it succeeded, and (of course), the Constitution,
whether or no; but even that had already so unsettled Cloisterham traffic, that the traffic, deserting the high road, came
sneaking in from an unprecedented part of the country by a
back stable-way, for many years labelled at the corner: " Beware of the Dog."
"To this ignominious avenue of approach, Mr. Crisparkle
repaired, awaiting the arrival of a short squat omnibus, with
a disproportionate heap of luggage on the roof-like a little
Elephant with infinitely too much Castle-which was then the
daily service between Cloisterham and external mankind. As
this vehicle lumbered up, Mr. Crisparkle could hardly see anything else of it for a large outside passenger seated on the box,
with his elbows squared, and his hands on his knees, compressing the driver into a most uncomfortably small compass,
and glowering about him with a strongly marked face.
" Is this Cloisterham? " demanded the passenger, in a tremendous voice.
"It is," replied the driver, rubbing himself as if he ached,
after throwing the reins to the ostler. "And I never was so
glad to see it."
" Tell your master to make his box seat wider then," returned the passenger. "Your master is morally bound-and
ought to be legally, under ruinous penalties-to provide for
the comfort of his fellow-men."
The driver instituted, with the palms of his hands, a superficial perquisition into the state of his skeleton; which
seemed to make him anxious.



78    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROO).
"Have I sat upon you? " asked the passenger.
"You have," said the driver, as if he didn't like it at all.
"Take that card, my friend."
" I think I won't deprive you on it," returned the driver,
casting his eyes over it with no great favor, without taking it.
What's the good of it to me? "
"Be a Member of that Society," said the passenger.
"What shall I get by it? " asked the driver.
"Brotherhood,"  returned the passenger, in a ferocious
voice.
"Thankee," said the driver, very deliberately, as he got
down; " my mother was contented with myself, and so am I.
I don't want no brothers."
" But you must have them," replied the passenger, also descending, "whether you like it or not. I am your brother."
" I say!" expostulated the driver, becoming more chafed in
temper; " not too fur! The worm will, when  "
But here Mr. Crisparkle interposed, remonstrating, aside, in
a friendly voice:  Joe, Joe, Joe! Don't forget yourself, Joe,
my good fellow! " " and then, when Joe peaceably touched
his hat, accosting the passenger with: " Mr. Honeythunder?"
"That is my name, sir."
" My name is Crisparkle."
" Reverend Mr. Septimus? Glad to see you, sir. Neville
and Helena are inside. Having a little succumbed of late,
under the pressure of my public labors, I thought I would take
a mouthful of fresh air, and come down here with them, and
return at night. So you are the Reverend Mr. Septimus, are
you? " surveying him on the whole with disappointment, and
twisting a double eye-glass by its ribbon, as if he were roasting it; but not otherwise using it. "Ha! I expected to see
you older, sir."
"I hope you will," was the good-humored reply.
"Eh? " demanded Mr. Honeythunder.
"Only a poor little joke. Not worth repeating."
"Joke?   Aye; I never see a joke," Mr. Honeythunder



PHILANTHROPY.                      79
frowningly retorted. " A joke is wasted upon me, sir. Where
are they! Helena and Neville, come here! Mr. Crisparkle
has come down to meet you."
An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an unusualsly handsome lithe girl; much alike; both very dark, and very
rich in color; she, of almost the gipsy type; something untamed about them both; a certain air upon them of hunter
and huntress; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of
the chase, rather than the followers. Slender, supple, quick
of eye and limb; half shy, half defiant; fierce of look; an
indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole
expression, both of face and form, which might be equally
likened to the pause before a crouch, or a bound. The rough
mental notes made in the first five minutes by Mr. Crisparkle,
would have read thus, verbatim.
He invited Mr. Honeythunder to dinner, with a troubled
mind, (for the discomfiture of the dear old china shepherdess
lay heavy on it), and gave his arm to Helena Landless. Both
she and her brother, as they walked all together through the
ancient streets, took great delight in what he pointed out of
the Cathedral and the Monastery-ruin, and wondered-so his
notes ran on-much as if they were beautiful barbaric captives
brought from some wild tropical dominion. Mr. Honeythunder walked in the middle of the road, shouldering the natives
out of his way, and loudly developing a scheme he had, for
making a raid on all the unemployed persons in the United
Kingdom, laying them every one by the heels in jail, and forcing them on pain of prompt extermination to become philanthropists.
Mrs. Crisparkle had need of her own share of philanthropy
when she beheld this very large and very loud excrescence on
the little party. Always something in the nature of a Boil
upon the face of society, Mr. Honeythunder expanded into an
inflammatory Wen in Minor Canon Corner. Though it was
not literally true, as was facetiously charged against him by
public unbelievers, that he called aloud to his fellow-creatures:



80   THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Curse your souls and bodies, come here and be blessed!"
still his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the
difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.
You were to abolish military force, but you were first to bring
all commanding officers who had done their duty, to trial by
court martial for that offence, and shoot them. You were to
abolish war, but were to make converts by making war upon
them, and charging them with loving war as the apple of their
eye. You were to have no capital punishment, but were first
to sweep off the face of the earth all legislators, jurists, and
judges, who were of the contrary opinion. You were to have
universal concord, and were to get it by eliminating all the
people who wouldn't, or conscientiously couldn't, be concordant.
You were to love your brother as yourself, but after an indefinite interval of maligning him (very much as if you hated him),
and calling him all manner of names. Above all things, you
were to do nothing in private, or on your own account. You
were to go to the offices of the Haven of Philanthropy, and
put your name down as a Member and a Professing Philanthropist. Then, you were to pay up your subscription, get
your card of membership and your riband and medal, and were
evermore to live upon a platform, and evermore to say what
Mr. Honeythunder said, and what the Treasurer said, and
what the sub-Treasurer said, and what the Committee said,
and what the sub-Committee said, and what the Secretary said,
and what the Vice Secretary said. And this was usually said
in the unanimously carried resolution under hand and seal, to
the effect: " That this assembled Body of Professing Philanthropists views, with indignant scorn and contempt, not unmixed with utter detestation and loathing abhorrence,"-in short,
the baseness of all those who do not belong to it, and pledges itself to make as many obnoxious statements as possible about
them without being at all particular as to fact.
The dinner was a most doleful breakdown. The philaIr
thropist deranged the symmetry of the table, sat himself in
the way of the waiting, blocked up the thoroughfare, and drove



PHILANTHROPY.                      81
Mr. Tope (who assisted the parlor-maid), to the verge of distraction by passing plates and dishes on, over his own head.
Nobody could talk to anybody, because he held forth to everybody at once, as if the company had no individual existence,
but were a Meeting. He impounded the Reverend Mr. Septimus, as an official personage to be addressed, or kind of human peg to hang his oratorical hat on, and fell into the exasperating habit, common among such orators, of impersonating
him as a wicked and weak opponent. Thus, he would ask
"And will you, sir, now stultify yourself by telling me "and so forth, when the innocent man had not opened his lips,
nor meant to open them. Or he would say: "Now see, sir,
to what a position you are reduced. I will leave you no escape. After exhausting all the resources of fraud and falsehood, during years upon years; after exhibiting a combination of dastardly meanness with ensanguined daring, such as
the world has not often witnessed; you have now the hypocrisy to bend the knee before the most degraded of mankind, and to sue and whine and howl for mercy! "  Whereat
the unfortunate Minor Canon would look, in part indignant
and in part perplexed: while his worthy mother sat bridling,
with tears in her eyes, and the remainder of the party lapsed
into a sort of gelatinous state, in which there was no flavor or
solidity, and very little resistance.
But the gush of philanthropy that burst forth when the
departure of IMr. Honeythunder began to impend, must have
been highly gratifying to the feelings of that distinguished
man. His coffee was produced by the special activity of Mr.
Tope, a full hour before he wanted it. Mr. Crisparkle sat with
his watch in his hand, for about the same period, lest he should
overstay his time. The four young people were unanimous in
believing that the Cathedral clock struck three-quarters, when
it actually struck but one. Miss Twinkleton estimated the
distance to the omnibus at five-and-twenty minutes' walk,
when it was really five. The affectionate kindness of the
whole circle hustled him into his great-coat, and shoved him
5



82   THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
out into the moonlight, as if he were a fugitive traitor with
whom they sympathised, and a troop of horse were at the back
door. Mr. Crisparkle and his new charge, who took him to
the omnibus, were so fervent in their apprehensions of his
catching cold, that they shut him up in it instantly and left
him, with still half an hour to spare.
CHAPTER VII.
MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE.
"I KNOW very little of that gentleman, sir," said Neville to
the Minor Canon as they turned back.
"You know very little of your guardian?" the Minor
Canon repeated.
"Almost nothing."
"How came he     "
"To be my guardian?   I'll tell you, sir. I suppose you
know that we come (my sister and I) from Ceylon?"
Indeed, no."
" I wonder at that. We lived with a stepfather there. Our
mother died there, when we were little children. We have
had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian, and
he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat, and
clothes to wear. At his death, he passed us over to this man;
for no better reason that I know of, than his being a friend or
connection of his, whose name was always in print and catching his attention."
"That was lately, I suppose?"
Quite lately, sir. This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute
as well as a grinding one. It was well he died when he did,
or I might have killed him."
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked
at his hopeful pupil in consternation.



MORE CONFIDENCES THAN                ONE.      83
"I surprise you, sir?" he said, with a quick change to a
submissive manner.
" You shock me; unspeakably shock me."
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked
on, and then said: " You never saw him beat your sister. I
have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and I never
forgot it."
" Nothing," said Mr. Crisparkle, " not even a beloved and
beautiful sister's tears under dastardly ill-usage;" he becomes
less severe, in spite of himself, as his indignation rose; "could
justify those horrible expressions that you used."
"I am sorry I used them, and especially to you, sir. I
beg to recall them. But permit me to set you right on one
point. You spoke of my sister's tears. My sister would have
let him tear her to pieces, before she would have let him
believe that he could make her shed a tear."
Mr. Crisparkle reviewed those mental notes of his, and was
neither at all surprised to hear it, nor at all disposed to question it.
" Perhaps you will think it strange, sir "-this was said in
a hesitating voice-" that I should so soon ask you to allow
me to confide in you, and to have the kindness to hear a word
or two from me in my defence? "
" Defence? " Mr. Crisparkle repeated. "You are not on
your defence, Mr. Neville."
"I think I am, sir. At least I know I should be, if you
were better acquainted with my character.
" Well, Mr. Neville," was the rejoinder.  "What if you
leave me to find it out? "
"Since it is your pleasure, sir," answered the young man
with a quick change in his manner to sullen disappointment:
"since it is your pleasure to check me in my impulse, I must
submit."
There was that in the tone of this short speech which made
the conscientious man to whom it was addressed, uneasy. It
hinted to him that he might, without meaning it, turn aside a



84    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
trustfulness beneficial to a mis-shapen young mind and perhaps to his own power of directing and improving it. They
were within sight of the lights in his windows, and he
stopped.
"Let us turn back and take a turn or two up and down,
Mr. Neville, or you may not have time to finish what you
wish to say to me. You are hasty in thinking that I mean
to check you. Quite the contrary. I invite your confidence."
" You have invited it, sir, without knowing it, ever since I
came here. I say' ever since,' as if I had been here a week I
The truth is, we came here (my sister and I) to quarrel with
you, and affront you, and break away again."
"' Really? " said Mr. Crisparkle, at a dead loss for anything
else to say.
" You see, we could not know what you were beforehand,
sir; could we?"
"Clearly not," said Mr. Crisparkle.
"And having liked no one else with whom we have ever
been brought into contact, we had made up our minds not to
like you."
"Really? " said Mr. Crisparkle again.
"But we do like you, sir, and we see an unmistakeable difference between your house and your reception of us, and anything else we have ever known. This-and my happening to
be alone With you - and everything around us seeming so
quiet and peaceful after Mr. Honeythunder's departure-and
Cloisterham being so old and grave and beautiful, with the
moon shining on it-these things inclined me to open my
heart."
"I quite understand, Mr. Neville. And it is salutary to
listen to such influences."
"In describing my own imperfections, sir, I must ask you
Idot to suppose that I am describing my sister's.  She has
tome out of the disadvantages of our miserable life, as much
better than I am, as that Cathedral tower is higher than those
Cs.: mnies."



MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE.                    85
Mr. Crisparkle in his own breast was not so sure of this.
" I have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to suppress
a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret and
revengeful. I have been always tyrannically held down by
the strong hand. This has driven me, in my weakness, to the
resource of being false and mean.  I have been stinted of
education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life,
the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth. This has caused me to be utterly wanting in
I don't know what emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts-I have not even a name for the thing, you see!-that
you have had to work upon in other young men to whom you
have been accustomed."
"TThis is evidently true.  But this is not encouraging,"
thought Mr. Crisparkle as they turned again.
"And to finish with, sir: I have been brought up among abject
and servile dependents, of an inferior race, and I may easily
have contracted some affinity with them. Sometimes, I don't
know but that it may be a drop of what is tigerish in their
blood."
"As in the case of that remark just now," thought Mr.
Crisparkle.
" In a last word of reference to my sister, sir, (we are twin
children), you ought to know, to her honor, that nothing in our
misery ever subdued her, though it often cowed me. When we
ran away from it (we ran away four times in six years, to be soon
brought back and cruelly punished), the flight was always of
her planning and leading. Each time she dressed as a boy,
and showed the daring of a man. I take it we were seven years
old when we first decamped; but I remember, when I lost the
pocket-knife with which she was to have cut her hair short,
how desperately she tried to tear it out, or bite it off. I have
nothing further to say, sir, except that I hope you will bear
with me and make allowance for me."
"Of that, Mr. Neville, you may be sure," returned the
Minor Canon. "I don't preach more than I can help, and I



86   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
will not repay your confidence with a sermon. But I entreat
you to bear in mind, very seriously and steadily, that if I am
to do you any good, it can only be with your own assistance;
and that you can only render that, efficiently, by seeking aid
from Heaven."
"I will try to do my part, sir."
"And, Mr. Neville, I will try to do mine. Here is my
hand on it. May God bless our endeavors!"
They were now standing at his house-door, and a cheerful
sound of voices and laughter was heard within.
"We will take one more turn before going in," said Mr.
Crisparkle, "for I want to ask you a question. When you
said you were in a changed mind concerning me, you spoke,
not only for yourself, but for your sister too."
" Undoubtedly I did, sir."
"Excuse me, Mr. Neville, but I think you have had no opportunity of communicating with your sister, since I met you.
Mr. Honeythunder was very eloquent; but perhaps I may
venture to say, without ill-nature, that he rather monopolized
the occasion. May you not have answered for your sister
without sufficient warrant."
Neville shook his head with a proud smile.
" You don't know, sir, yet, what a complete understanding
can exist between my sister and me, though no spoken wordperhaps hardly as much as a look-may have passed between
us. She not only feels as I have described, but she very well
knows that I am taking this opportunity of speaking to you,
both for her and for myself."
Mr. Crisparkle looked in his face, with some incredulity;
but his face expressed such absolute and firm conviction of the
truth of what he said, that Mr. Crisparkle looked at the pavement, and mused, until they came to his door again.
" I will ask for one more turn, sir, this time," said the
young man with a rather heightened color rising in his face.
" But for Mr. Honeythunder's-I think you called it eloquence, sir? " (somewhat slyly).



MORE CONFIDENCES THAN               ONE.      87
"I-yes, I called it eloquence," said Mr. Crisparkle.
"But for Mr. Honeythunder's eloquence, I might have had
no need to ask you what I am going to ask you. This Mr.
Edwin Drood, sir: I think that's the name?"
"Quite correct," said Mr. Crisparkle. " D-r-double-o-d.
"Does he-or did he-read with you, sir? 
"Never, Mr. Neville. He comes here visiting his relation,
Mr. Jasper."
"Is Miss Bud his relation too, sir?"
(" Now, why should he ask that, with sudden superciliousness!" thought Mr. Crisparkle.) Then he explained, aloud,
what he knew of the little story of their betrothal.
"' Oh! That's it, is it? " said the young man. "I understand his air of proprietorship now! "
This was said so evidently to himself, or to anybody rather
than Mr. Crisparkle, that the latter instinctively felt as if to
notice it would be almost tantamount to noticing a passage in
a letter which he had read by chance over the writer's shoulder.
A moment afterwards they re-entered the house.
Mr. Jasper was seated at the piano as they came into his
drawing-room, and was accompanying Miss Rosebud while she
sang. It was a consequence of his playing the accompaniment
without notes, and of her being a heedless little creature very
apt to go wrong, that he followed her lips most attentively,
with his eyes as well as hands; carefully and softly hinting
the key-note from time to time. Standing with an arm drawn
round her, but with a face far more intent on Mr. Jasper than
on her singing, stood Helena between whom and her brother
an instantaneous recognition passed, in which Mr. Crisparkle
saw, or thought he saw, the understanding that had been
spoken of, flash out. Mr. Neville then took his admiring station, leaning against the piano, opposite the singer; Mr.
Crisparkle sat down by the china shepherdess; Edwin Drood
gallantly furled and unfurled Miss Twinkleton's fan; and
that lady passively claimed that sort of exhibitor's proprietorship in the accomplishment on view, which Mr. Tope, the
Verger, daily claimed in the Cathedral service.



88    THE   MYSTERY OF EDWIN          DROOD.
The song went on. It was a sorrowful strain of parting,
and the fresh young voice was very plaintive and tender. As
Jasper watched the pretty lips, and ever and again hinted the
one note, as though it were a low whisper from himself, the
voice became less steady, until all at once the singer broke into
a burst of tears, and shrieked out, with her hands over her
eyes: "I can't bear this! I am frightened    Take me
away!"
With one swift turn of her lithe figure, Helena laid the little
beauty on a sofa, as if she had never caught her up. Then,
on one knee beside her, and with one hand upon her rosy
mouth, while with the other she appealed to all the rest,
Helena said to them: "It's nothing; it's all over; don't
speak to her for one minute, and she is well!"
Jasper's hands had, in the same instant, lifted themselves
from the keys, and were now poised above them, as though he
waited to resume. In that attitude he yet sat quiet: not even
looking round, when all the rest had changed their places and
were reassuring one another.
"Pussy's not used to an audience; that's the fact," said
Edwin Drood. "She's got nervous, and couldn't hold out.
Besides, Jack, you are such a conscientious master, and require
so much, that I believe you make her afraid of you. No
wonder."
"No wonder," repeated Helena.
"There, Jack, you hear! You would be afraid of him,
under similar circumstances, wouldn't you, Miss Landless? 
"Not under any circumstances," returned Helena.
Jasper brought down his hands, looked over his shoulder,
and begged to thank Miss Landless for her vindication of his
character. Then he fell to dumbly playing, without striking
the notes, while his little pupil was taken to an open window
for air, and was otherwise petted and restored. When she was
brought back, his place was empty. "Jack's gone, Pussy,"
Edwin told her. I am more than half afraid he didn't like to
be charged with being the Monster who had frightened you."



MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE.                    89
But she answered never a word, and shivered, as if they had
made her a little too cold.
Miss Twinkleton now opining that indeed these were late
hours, Mrs. Crisparkle, for finding ourselves outside the walls
of the Nuns' House, and that we who undertook the formation of the future wives and mothers of England (the last
words in a lower voice, as requiring to be communicated in
confidence) were really bound (voice coming up again) to set a
better example than one of rakish habits, wrappers were put in
requisition, and the two young cavaliers volunteered to see the
ladies home. It was soon done, and the gate of the Nuns'
House closed upon them.
The boarders had retired, and only Mrs. Tisher in solitary
vigil awaited the new pupil. Her bedroom being within
Rosa's, very little introduction or explanation was necessary,
before she was placed in charge of her new friend, and left for
the night.
" This is a blessed relief, my dear," said Helena. "I have
been dreading all day, that I should be brought to bay at this
time."
" There are not many of us," returned Rosa, " and we are
good-natured girls; at least the others are; I can answer for
them."
"I can answer for you," laughed Helena, searching the
lovely little face with her dark fiery eyes, and tenderly cares -
ing the small figure. "You will be a friend to me, won't
you? 
" I hope so. But the idea of my being a friend to you seems
too absurd, though."
"Why?"
" Oh! I am such a mite of a thing, and you are so womanly
and handsome. You seem to have resolution and power
enough to crush me. I shrink into nothing by the side of your
presence even."
"I am a neglected creature, my dear, unacquainted with all
accomplishments, sensitively conscious that I have everything
to learn, and deeply ashamed to own my ignorance."



90   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN DROOD.
"And yet you acknowledge everything to me!" said Rosa.
My pretty one, can I help it? There is a fascination in
you."
C' Oh! Is there though?" pouted Rosa, half in jest and
half in earnest. " What a pity Master Eddy doesn't feel it
more!"
Of course her relations towards that young gentleman had
been already imparted, in Minor Canon Corner.
" Why, surely he must love you with all his heart!" cried
Helena, with an earnestness that threatened to blaze into
ferocity if he didn't.
" Eh?  Oh, well, I suppose he does," said Rosa, pouting
again; " I am sure I have no right to say he doesn't. Perhaps it's my fault. Perhaps I am not as nice to him as I
ought to be. I don't think I am. But it is so ridiculous!'
Helena's eyes demanded what was.
" We are," said Rosa, answering as if she had spoken.
" We are such a ridiculous couple. And we are always quarrelling."
"Why?"
"Because we both know we are ridiculous, my dear!"
Rosa gave that answer as if it were the most conclusive answer
in the world.
Helena's masterful look was intent upon her face for a few
moments, and then she impulsively put out both her hands and
said:
" You will be my friend and help me? "
Indeed, my dear, I will," replied Rosa, in a tone of affectionate childishness that went straight and true to her heart;
" I will be as good a friend as such a mite of a thing can be to
such a noble creature as you. And be a friend to me, please;
for I don't understand myself; and I want a friend who can
understand me, very much indeed."
Helena Landless kissed her, and retaining both her hands,
said:
"Who is Mr. Jasper?"



MORE    CONFIDENCES TIIAN           ONE.       91
Rosa turned aside her head in answering: "Eddy's uncle,
and my music-master."
You do not love him? "
"Ugh!"   She put her hands up to her face, and shook
with fear or horror.
" You know that he loves you?"
"Oh, don't, don't, don't!" cried Rosa, dropping on her
knees, and clinging to her new resource.'" Don't tell me of
it! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dreadful
ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as if he
could pass in through the wall when he is spoken of." She
actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him standing
in the shadow behind her.
"Try to tell me more about it, darling."
"Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold
me the while, and stay with me afterwards."
" My child! You speak as if he had threatened you in
some dark way."
"He has never spoken to me about-that. Never."
" What has he done? "
"He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has forced
me to understand him, without his saying a word; and he has
forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a threat. When
I play, he never moves his eyes from my hands. When I sing,
he never moves his eyes from my lips. When he corrects me,
and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a passage, he himself is
in the sounds, whispering that he pursues me as a lover, and
commanding me to keep his secret. I avoid his eyes, but he
forces me to see them without looking at them. Even when a
glaze comes over them (which is sometimes the case), and he
seems to wander away into a frightful sort of dream in which
he threatens most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that
he is sitting close at my side, more terrible to me then than
ever."
"What is this imagined threatening, pretty one? What
is threatened? "



92    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"I don't know. I have never even dared to think or wonder what it is."
"And was this all to-night? 
"This was all; except that to-night when he watched my
lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified I felt
ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed me,
and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never breathe
this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you said tonight that you would not be afraid of him, under any circumstances, and that gives me-who am so much afraid of himcourage to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am
too frightened to be left by myself."
The lustrous gipsy-face drooped over the clinging arms and
bosom, and the wild black hair fell down protectingly over the
childish form. There was a slumbering gleam of fire in the
intense dark eyes, though they were then softened with compassion and admiration. Let whomsoever it most concerned,
look well to it I
CHAPTER VIII.
DAGGERS DRAWN.
THE two young men, having seen the damsels, their charges,
enter the courtyard of the Nuns' House, and finding themselves
coldly stared at by the brazen door-plate, as if the battered old
beau with the glass in his eye were insolent, look at one
another, look along the perspective of the moonlit street, and
slowly walk away together.
"Do you stay here long, Mr. Drood? " says Neville.
"Not this time," is the careless answer. "I leave for London again, to-morrow. But I shall be here, off and on, until
next Midsummer; then I shall take my leave of Cloisterham,
and England too; for many a long day, I expect."
" Are you going abroad? "



DAGGERS DRAWN.                      93
"Going to wake up Egypt a little," is the condescending
answer.
"Are you reading?"
"Reading!" repeats Edwin Drood, with a touch of contempt. "No. Doing, working, engineering. My small patrimony was left a part of the capital of the Firm I am with,
by my father, a former partner; and I am a charge upon the
Firm until I come of age; and then I step into my modest
share in the concern. Jack-you met him at dinner-is, until
then, my guardian and trustee."
I heard from Mr. Crisparkle of your other good fortune."
" What do you mean by my other good fortune?"
Neville has made his remark in a watchfully advancing, and
yet furtive and shy manner, very expressive of that peculiar
air already noticed, of being at once hunter and hunted. Edwin has make his retort with an abruptness not at all polite.
They stop and interchange a rather heated look.
" I hope," says Neville, " there is no offence, Mr. Drood, in
my innocently referring to your betrothal? "
"By George!" cries Edwin, leading on again at a somewhat quicker pace. "Everybody in this chattering old Cloisterham refers to it. I wonder no Public House has been set
up, with my portrait for the sign of The Betrothed's Head.
Or Pussy's portrait. One or the other."
" I am not accountable for Mr. Crisparkle's mentioning the
matter to me, quite openly," Neville begins.
"No; that's true; you are not," Edwin Drood assents.
But," resumes Neville,'I am accountable for mentioning
it to you. And I did so, on the supposition that you could
not fail to be highly proud of it."
Now, there are these two curious touches of human nature
working the secret springs of this dialogue. Neville Landless
is already enough impressed by Little Rosebud, to feel indignant that Edwin Drood (far below her) should hold his prize
so lightly. Edwin Drood is already enough impressed by
Helena, to feel indignant that Helena's brother (far below her),



94   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
should dispose of him so coolly, and put him out of the way so
entirely.
However, the last remark had better be answered. So, says
Edwin:
" I don't know, Mr. Neville," (adopting that mode of address
from Mr. Crisparkle), " that what people are proudest of, they
usually talk most about; I don't know either, that what they
are proudest of, they most like other people to talk about.
But I live a busy life, and I speak under correction by you
readers, who ought to know everything, and I dare say do."
By this time they have both become savage; Mr. Neville out
in the open; Edwin Drood under the transparent cover of a
popular tune, and a stop now and then to pretend to admire
picturesque effects in the moonlight before him.
" It does not seem to me very civil in you," remarks Neville,
at length, " to reflect upon a stranger who comes here, not
having had your advantages to try to make up for lost time.
But, to be sure, 1 was not brought up in'busy life' and my
ideas of civility were formed among Heathens."
" Perhaps, the best civility, whatever kind of people we are
brought up among," retorts Edwin Drood, "is to mind our
own business. If you will set me that example, I promise to
follow it."
"Do you know that you take a great deal too much upon
yourself," is the angry rejoinder; "and that in the part of
the world I came from, you would be called to account for
it?"
" By whom, for instance? " asks Edwin Drood, coming to a
halt, and surveying the other with a look of disdain.
But, here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin's shoulder,
and Jasper stands between them. For, it would seem that he,
too, has strolled round by the Nuns' House, and has come ul
behind them on the shadowy side of the road.
" Ned, Ned, Ned!" he says. " We must have no more of
this. I don't like this. I have overheard high words betweei
you two. Remember, my dear boy, you are almost in the posi



DAGGERS      DRAWNT.                 95
tion of host to-night. You belong, as it were, to the place,
and in a manner represent it towards a stranger. Mr. Neville
is a stranger, and you should respect the obligations of hospitality. And, Mr. Neville:" laying his left hand on the inner
shoulder of that young gentleman, and thus walking on between them, hand to shoulder on either side: "you will pardon
me; but I appeal to you to govern your temper too. Now,
what is amiss?  But why ask! Let there be nothing amiss,
and the question is superfluous. We are all three on a good
understanding, are we not? "
After a silent struggle between the two young men who
shall speak last, Edwin Drood strikes in with: " So far as I
am concerned, Jack, there is no anger in me."
"Nor in me," says Neville Landless, though not so freely;
or perhaps so carelessly. "But if Mr. Drood knew all that
lies behind me, far away from here, he might know better how
it is that sharp-edged words have sharp edges to wound me."
"Perhaps," says Jasper, in a smoothing manner, "we had
better not qualify our good understanding. We had better
not say anything having the appearance of a remonstrance or
condition; it might not seem generous. Frankly and freely,
you see there is no anger in Ned. Frankly and freely, there
is no anger in you, Mr. Neville? "
" None at all, Mr. Jasper." Still, not quite so frankly or so
freely; or, be it said once again, not quite so carelessly perhaps.
" All over then! Now, my bachelor gate-house is a few
yards from here, and the heater is on the fire, and the wine
and glasses are on the table, and it is not a stone's throw from
Minor Canon Corner. Ned, you are up and away to-morrow.
We will carry Mr. Neville in with us, to take a stirrup-cup."
"With all my heart, Jack."
"And with all mine, Mr. Jasper."  Neville feels it impossible to say less, but would rather not go. He has an impression upon him that he has lost hold of his temper; feels that
Edwin Drood's coolness so far from being infectious, makes
him red hot.



96    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
Mr. Jasper, still walking in the centre, hand to shoulder on
either side, beautifully turns the Refrain of a drinking-song,
and they all go up to his rooms. There, the first object visible, when he adds the light of a lamp to that of the fire, is the
portrait over the chimneypiece. It is not an object calculated
to improve the understanding between the two young men, as
rather awkwardly reviving the subject of their difference.
Accordingly, they both glance at it consciously, but say nothing. Jasper, however (who would appear from his conduct to
have gained but an imperfect clue to the cause of their late
high words), directly calls attention to it.
"You recognize that picture, Mr. Neville?" shading the
lamp to throw the light upon it.
" I recognize it, but it is far from flattering the original."
"Oh, you are hard upon it! It was done by Ned, who
made me a present of it."
" I am sorry for that, Mr. Drood."  Neville apologizes, with
a real intention to apologize; "if I had known I was in the
artist's presence —— "
" Oh, a joke, sir, a mere joke," Edwin cuts in, with a provoking yawn. "A little humoring of Pussy's points! I'm
going to paint her gravely, one of these days, if she's good."
The air of leisurely patronage and indifference with which
this is said, as the speaker throws himself back in a chair,
and clasps his hands at the back of his head, as a rest for it,
is very exasperating to the excitable and excited Neville.
Jasper looks observantly from the one to the other, slightly
smiles, and turns his back to mix a jug of mulled wine at the
fire. It seems to require much mixing and compounding.
"I suppose, Mr. Neville," says Edwin, quick to resent the
indignant protest against himself in the face of young Landless, which is fully as visible as the portrait, or the fire, or the
lamp: "I suppose that if you painted the picture of your
lady love-"
"I can't paint," is the hasty interruption.
"That's your misfortune, and not your fault. You would if



DAGGERS DRAWN.                       97
you could. But if you could, I suppose you would make her
(no matter what she was in reality), Juno, Minerva, Diana,
and Venus, all in one. Eh? "
" I have no lady love, and I can't say."
"If I were to try my hand," says Edwin, with a boyish
boastfulness getting up in him, " on a portrait of Miss Landless-in earnest, mind you; in earnest-you should see what
I could do!"
" My sister's consent to sit for it being first got, I suppose?
As it never will be got, I am afraid I shall never see what you
can do. I must bear the loss."
Jasper turns round from the fire, fills a large goblet glass
for Neville, fills a large goblet glass for Edwin, and hands
each his own; then fills for himself, saying:
" Come, Mr. Neville, we are to drink to my Nephew, Ned.
As it is his foot that is in the stirrup-metaphorically-our
stirrup-cup is to be devoted to him. Ned, my dearest fellow,
my love! "
Jasper sets the example of nearly emptying his glass, and
Neville follows it.  Edwin Drood says, "Thank you both
very much," and follows the double example.
"Look at him!" cries Jasper, stretching out his hand,
admiringly and tenderly, though rallyingly too. "See where
he lounges so easily, Mr. Neville! The world is all before
him where to choose. A life of stirring work and interest, a
life of change and excitement, a life of domestic ease and love!
Look at him!"
Edwin Drood's face has become quickly and remarkably
flushed by the wine; so has the face of Neville Landless.
Edwin still sits thrown back in his chair, making that rest of
clasped hands for his head.
"See how little he heeds it all!" Jasper proceeds in a
bantering vein. "It is hardly worth his while to pluck the
golden fruit that hangs ripe on the tree for him. And yet
consider the contrast, Mr. Neville. You and I have no prospect of stirring work and interest, or of change and excite6



98    THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
ment, or of domestic ease and love. You and I have no prospect (unless you are more fortunate than I am, which may
easily be), but the tedious, unchanging round of this dull
place."
" Upon my soul, Jack," says Edwin, complacently, " I feel
quite apologetic for having my way smoothed as you describe.
But you know what I know, Jack, and it may not be so very
easy as it seems, after all. May it, Pussy'?"  To the portrait, with a snap of his thumb and finger. "We have got
to hit it off yet; haven't we, Pussy? You know what I
mean, Jack."
His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jasper, quiet,
and self-possessed, looks to Neville, as expecting his answer
or comment. When Neville speaks, his speech is also thick
and indistinct.
" It might have been better for Mr. Drood to have known
some hardships," he says, defiantly.
"Pray," retorts Edwin, turning merely his eyes in that
direction, "pray why might it have been better for Mr.
Drood to have known some hardships? "
" Aye," Jasper assents with an air of interest; "let us
know why? "
" Because they might have made him more sensible," says
Neville, " of good fortune that is not by any means necessarily the result of his own merits."
Mr. Jasper quickly looks at his nephew for his rejoinder.
"Have you known hardships, may I ask?" says Edwin
Drood, sitting upright.
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to the other for his retort.
"I have."
"And what have they made you sensible of?"
Mr. Jasper's play of eyes between the two, holds good
throughout the dialogue, to the end.
"I have told you once before to-night."
"You have done nothing of the sort."
" I tell you I have. That you take a great deal too much
upon yourself."



DAGGERS DRAWN.
"You added something else to that, if I remember?
"Yes, I did say something else."
"Say it again."
"I said that in the part of the world I came from, you would
be called to account for it."
"Only there?" cries Edwin Drood, with a contemptuous
laugh. "A long way off, I believe? Yes; I see! That part
of the world is at a safe distance."
"Say here, then," rejoins the other, rising in a fury.
"Say anywhere! Your vanity is intolerable, your conceit is
beyond endurance, you talk as if you were some rare and precious prize, instead of a common boaster. You are a common
fellow, and a common boaster."
" Pooh, pooh," says Edwin Drood, equally furious, but more
collected; " how should you know? You may know a black
common fellow, or a black common boaster, when you see him
(and no doubt you have a large acquaintance that way); but
you are no judge of white men."
This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville to
that violent degree, that he flings the dregs of his wine at
Edwin Drood, and is in the act of flinging the goblet after it,
when his arm is caught in the nick of time by Jasper.
"Ned, my dear fellow!" he cries in a loud voice; "I entreat you, I command you, to be still! " There has been a rush
of all the three, and a clattering of glasses and overturning of
chairs. "Mr. Neville, for shame! Give this glass to me.
Open your hand, sir. I WILL have it!"
But Neville throws him off, and pauses for an instant, in a
raging passion, with the goblet yet in his uplifted hand.
Then, he dashes it down under the grate, with such force that
the broken splinters fly out again in a shower; and he leaves
the house.
When he first emerges into the night air, nothing around
him is still or steady; nothing around him shows like what
it is; he only knows that he stands with a bare head in the
midst of a blood-red whirl, waiting to be struggled with, and
to struggle to the death.



100   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
But, nothing happening, and the moon looking down upon
him as if he were dead after a fit of wrath, he holds his stea.mhammer beating head and heart, and staggers away. Then,
he becomes half conscious of having heard himself bolted and
barred out, like a dangerous animal; and thinks what shall
he do?
Some wildly passionate ideas of the river, dissolve under
the spell of the moonlight on the Cathedral and the graves,
and the remembrance of his sister, and the thought of what
he owes to the good man who has but that very day won his
confidence and given him his pledge. He repairs to Minor
Canon Corner, and knocks softly at the door.
It is Mr. Crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early
household, very softly touching his piano and practising his
favorite parts in concerted vocal music. The south wind that
goes where it lists, by way of Minor Canon Corner on a still
night, is not more subdued than Mr. Crisparkle at such times,
regardful of the slumbers of the china shepherdess.
His knock is immediately answered by Mr. Crisparkle himself. When he opens the door, candle in hand, his cheerful
face falls, and disappointed amazement is in it.
" Mr. Neville! In this disorder! Where have you been?"
"I have been to Mr. Jasper's, sir. With his nephew."
"' Come in."
The Minor Canon props him by the elbow with a strong
hand (in a strictly scientific manner, worthy of his morning
trainings), and turns him into his own little book-room, and
shuts the door.
I have begun ill, sir. I have begun dreadfully ill."
"Too true. You are not sober, Mr. Neville."
"I am afraid I am not, sir, though I can satisfy you at
another time that I have had very little indeed to drink, and
that it overcame me in the strangest and most sudden manner."
Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville," says the Minor Canon, shaking
his head with a sorrowful smile; " I have heard that said be.
fore."



DAGGERS      DRAWN.                 1(
"I think-my mind is much confused, but I think-it is
equally true of Mr. Jasper's nephew, sir."
"Very likely," is the dry rejoinder.
"We quarrelled, sir. He insulted me most grossly. He
had heated that tigerish blood I told you of to-day, before
then."
Mr. Neville," rejoins the Minor Canon, mildly, but firmly:
"I request you not to speak to me with that clenched right
hand. Unclench it, if you please."
"He goaded me, sir," pursues the young man, instantly
obeying, "beyond my power of endurance. I cannot say
whether or no he meant it at first, but he did it. He certainly
meant it at last. In short, sir," with an irrepressible outburst,
" in the passion into which he lashed me, I would have cut him
down if I could, and I tried to do it."
" You have clenched that hand again," is Mr. Crisparkle's
quiet commentary.
" I beg your pardon, sir."
" You know your room, for I showed it to you before dinner;
but I will accompany you to it once more. Your arm, if you
please. Softly, for the house is all a-bed."
Scooping his hand into the same scientific elbow-rest as before, and backing it up with the inert strength of his arm, as
skilfully as a Police Expert, and with an apparent repose quite
unattainable by Novices, Mr. Crisparkle conducts his pupil to
the pleasant and orderly old room prepared for him. Arrived
there, the young man throws himself into a chair, and, flinging his arms upon his reading-table, rests his head upon them
with an air of wretched self-reproach.
The gentle Minor Canon has had it in his thoughts to leave
the room, without a word. But, looking round at the door,
and seeing this dejected figure, he turns back to it, touches it
with a mild hand, and says " Good night! "  A sob is his only
acknowledgment. He might have had many a worse; perhaps, could have had few better.
Another soft knock at the outer door, attracts his attention



102   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
as he goes down stairs. He opens it to Mr. Jasper, holding
in his hand the pupil's hat.
"We have had an awful scene with him," says Jasper, in a
low voice.
"Has it been so bad as that?
Murderous!"
Mr. Crisparkle remonstrates: "No, no, no. Do not use
such strong words."
" He might have laid my dear boy dead at my feet. It is
no fault of his, that he did not. But that I was, through the
mercy of God, swift and strong with him, he would have cut
him down on my hearth."
The phrase smites home. " Ah! " thinks Mr. Crisparkle.
" His own words!"
"' Seeing what I have seen to-night, and hearing what I
heard," adds Jasper, with great earnestness, "I shall never
know peace of mind when there is danger of those two coming together with no one else to interfere. It was horrible.
There is something of the tiger in his dark blood."
"     Ah! " thinks Mr. Crisparkle, " So he said! "
"You, my dear sir," pursues Jasper, taking his hand, "even
you, have accepted a dangerous charge."
" You need have no fear for me, Jasper," returns Mr. Crisparkle, with a quiet smile. " I have none for myself."' I have none for myself," returns Jasper, with an emphasis
on the last pronoun, " because I am not, nor am I in the way
of being, the object of hostility. But you may be, and my
dear boy has been. Good night! "
Mr. Crisparkle goes in, with the hat that has so easily, so
almost imperceptibly, acquired the right to be hung up in his
hall; hangs it up; and goes thoughtfully to bed.



BIRDS    IN  THE    BUSH              103
CHAPTER IX.
BIRDS IN THE BUSH.
ROSA, having no relation that she knew of in the world,
had, from the seventh year of her age, known no home but
the Nuns' House, and no mother but Miss Twinkleton. Her
remembrance of her own mother was of a pretty little creature
like herself (not much older than herself it seemed to her),
who had been brought home in her father's arms, drowned.
The fatal accident had happened at a party of pleasure. Every fold and color in the pretty summer dress, and even the
long wet hair, with scattered petals of ruined flowers still
clinging to it, as the dead young figure, in its sad, sad beauty
lay upon the bed, were fixed indelibly in Rosa's recollection.
So were the wild despair and subsequent bowed-down grief of
her poor young father, who died broken-hearted on the first
anniversary of that hard day.
The betrothal of Rosa grew out of the soothing of his year
of mental distress by his fast friend and old college companion, Drood: who likewise had been left a widower in his
youth. But he, too, went the silent road into which all earthly
pilgrimages merge, some sooner, and some later; and thus the
young couple had come to be as they were.
The atmosphere of pity surrounding the little orphan girl
when she first came to Cloisterham, had never cleared away.
It had taken brighter hues as she grew older, happier, prettier;
now it had been golden, now roseate, and now azure; but it
had always adorned her with some soft light of its own. The
general desire to console and caress her, had caused her to be
treated in the beginning as a child much younger than her
years; the same desire had caused her to be still petted when
she was a child no longer. Who should be her favorite, who
should anticipate this or that small present, or do her this or
that small service; who should take her home for the holidays;



104   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
who should write to her the oftenest when they were separated,
and whom she would most rejoice to see again when they were
reunited; even these gentle rivalries were not without their
slight dashes of bitterness in the Nuns' House. Well for the
poor Nuns in their day, if they hid no harder strife under their
veils and rosaries!
Thus Rosa had grown to be an amiable, giddy, wilful, winning little creature; spoilt, in the sense of counting upon
kindness from all around her; but not in the sense of repaying it with indifference. Possessing an exhaustless well of
affection in her nature, its sparkling waters had freshened and
brightened the Nuns' House for years, and yet its depths had
never yet been moved; what might betide when that came to
pass; what developing changes might fall upon the heedless
head, and light heart then; remained to be seen.
By what means the news that there had been a quarrel between the two young men over-night, involving even some
kind of onslaught by Mr. Neville upon Edwin Drood, got
into Miss Twinkleton's establishment before breakfast, it is
impossible to say. Whether it was brought in by the birds of
the air, or came blowing in with the very air itself, when the
casement windows were set open; whether the baker brought
it kneaded into the bread, or the milkman delivered it as part
of the adulteration of his milk; or the housemaids, beating
the dust out of their mats against the gateposts, received it in
exchange deposited on the mats by the town atmosphere; certain it is that the news permeated every gable of the old
building before Miss Twinkleton was down, and that Miss
Twinkleton herself received it through Mrs. Tisher, while yet
in the act of dressing; or (as she might have expressed the
phrase to a parent or guardian of a mythological turn), of
sacrificing to the Graces.
Miss Landless's brother had thrown a bottle at Mr. Edwin
Drood.
Miss Landless's brother had thrown a knife at Mr. Edwin
Drood.



BIRDS IN     THE    BUSH.             105
A knife became suggestive of a fork, and Miss Landless's
brother had thrown a fork at Mr. Edwin Drood.
As in the governing precedent of Peter Piper, alleged to
have picked the peck of pickled pepper, it was held physically
desirable to have evidence of the existence of the peck of
pickled pepper which Peter Piper was alleged to have picked:
so, in this case, it was held psychologically important to know
Why Miss Landless's brother threw a bottle, knife, or forkor bottle, knife, and fork-for the cook had been given to understand it was all three-at Mr. Edwin Drood?
Well, then. Miss Landless's brother had said he admired
Miss Bud. Mr. Edwin Drood had said to Miss Landless's
brother that he had no business to admire Miss Bud. Miss
Landless's brother had then "up'd " (this was the cook's exact
information), with the bottle, knife, fork, and decanter (the
decanter now coolly flying at everybody's head, without the
least introduction), and thrown them all at Mr. Edwin Drood.
Poor little Rosa put a forefinger into each of her ears when
these rumors began to circulate, and retired into a corner,
beseeching not to be told any more; but Miss Landless, begging permission of Miss Twinkleton to go and speak with her
brother, and pretty plainly showing that she would take it if it
were not given, struck out the more definite course of going
to Mr. Crisparkle's for accurate intelligence.
When she came back (being first closeted with Miss Twinkleton, in order that anything objectionable in her tidings
might be retained by that discreet filter), she imparted to
Rosa only, what had taken place; dwelling with a flushed
cheek on the provocation her brother had received, but almost
limiting it to that last gross affront as crowning "some other
words between them,' and, out of consideration for her new
friend, passing lightly over the fact that the other words had
originated in her lover's taking things in general so very easily.
To Rosa direct, she brought a petition from her brother that
she would forgive him; and, having delivered it with sisterly
earnestness, made an end of the subject.



106   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN     DROOD.
It was reserved for Miss Twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the Nuns' House. That lady, therefore, entering
in a stately manner what plebeians might have called the
school-room, but what, in the patrician language of the head
of the Nuns' House, was euphuistically, not to say roundaboutedly, denominated "the apartment allotted to study,"
and saying with a forensic air "Ladies! " all arose. Mrs.
Tisher at the same time grouped herself behind her chief, as
representing Queen Elizabeth's first historical female friend at
Tilbury Fort. Miss Twinkleton then proceeded to remark
that Rumor, Ladies, had been represented by the Bard of
Avon-needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that
bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand
upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we
have no ornithological authority,-Rumor, Ladies, had been
represented by that bard-hem!" who drew
The celebrated Jew,"
as painted full of tongues. Rumor in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will honor me with her attention) was no exception to
the great limner's portrait of Rumor elsewhere. A slight
fracas between two young gentlemen occurring last night
within a hundred miles of these peaceful walls (Miss Ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the kindness to
write out this evening, in the original language, the first four
fables of our vivacious neighbor, Monsieur La Fontaine) had
been very grossly exaggerated by Rumor's voice. In the first
alarm and anxiety arising from our sympathy with a sweet
young friend, not wholly to be dissociated from one of the
gladiators in the bloodless arena in question (the impropriety
of Miss Reynolds's appearing to stab herself in the band with
a pin, is far too obvious, and too glaringly unladylike, to be
pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit theme. Responsible in



BIRDS    IN  THE    BUSH.             107
quiries having assured us that it was but one of those "airy
nothings " pointed at by the Poet (whose name and date of
birth Miss Giggles will supply within half an hour), we would
now discard the subject, and concentrate our minds upon the
grateful labors of the day.
But the subject so survived all day, nevertheless, that Miss
Ferdinand got into new trouble by surreptitiously clapping on
a paper moustache at dinner-time, and going through the motions of aiming a water-bottle at Miss Giggles, who drew a
table-spoon in defence.
Now, Rosa thought of this unlucky quarrel a great deal, and
thought of it with an uncomfortable feeling that she was
involved in it, as cause, or consequence, or what not, through
being in a false position altogether as to her marriage engagement. Never free from such uneasiness when she was with
her affianced husband, it was not likely that she would be free
from it when they were apart. To-day, too, she was cast in
upon herself, and deprived of the relief of talking freely with
her new friend, because the quarrel had been with Helena's
brother, and Helena undisguisedly avoided the subject as a
delicate and difficult one to herself. At this critical time, of
all times, Rosa's guardian was announced as having come to
see her.
Mr. Grewgious had been well selected for his trust, as a
man of incorruptible integrity, but certainly for no other appropriate quality discernible on the surface. He was an arid,
sandy man, who, if he had been put into a grinding-mill,
looked as if he would have ground immediately into high-dried
snuff. He had a scanty flat crop of hair, in color and consistency like some very mangy yellow fur tippet; it was so unlike hair, that it must have been a wig, but for the stupendous
improbability of anybody's voluntarily sporting such a head.
The little play of feature that his face presented, was cut deep
into it, in a few hard curves that made it more like work; and
he had certain notches in his forehead, which looked as though
Nature had been about to touch them into sensibility or re



108   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN       DROOD.
finement when she had impatiently thrown away the chisel,
and said: " I really cannot be worried to finish off this man;
let him go as he is."
With too great length of throat at his upper end, and too
much ankle-bone and heel at his lower; with an awkward and
hesitating manner; with a shambling walk, and with what is
called a near sight-which perhaps prevented his observing
how much white cotton stocking he displayed to the public eye,
in contrast with his black suit-Mr. Grewgious still had some
strange capacity in him of making on the whole an agreeable
impression.
Mr. Grewgious was discovered by his ward, much discomfited
by being in Miss Twinkleton's company in Miss Twinkleton's
own sacred room. Dim forebodings of being examined in
something, and not coming well out of it, seemed to oppress
the poor gentleman when found in these circumstances.
"My dear, how do you do?    I am glad to see you. My
dear, how much improved you are. Permit me to hand you a
chair, my dear."
Miss Twinkleton rose at her little writing-table, saying,
with general sweetness, as to the polite Universe; "Will you
permit me to retire? "
" By no means madam, on my account. I beg that you will
not move."
"' I must entreat permission to move," returned Miss Twinkleton, repeating the word with a charming grace; " but I will
not withdraw, since you are so obliging. If I wheel my desk
to this corner window, shall I be in the way?"
"Madam! In the way!"
"You are very kind. Rosa, my dear, you will be under no
restraint, I am sure."
Here Mr. Grewgious, left by the fire with Rosa, said again:
" My dear, how do you do? I am glad to see you, my dear."
And having waited for her to sit down, sat down himself.
" My visits," said Mr. Grewgious, "are, like those of the
angels-not that I compare myself to an angel.""No, sir," said Rosa.



BIRDS IN     THE BUSH.                109
"Not by any means," assented Mr. Grewgious. "I merely
refer to my visits, which are few and far between. The angels are, we know very well, upstairs."
Miss Twinkleton looked round with a kind of stiff stare.
"I refer, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, laying his hand on
Rosa's, as the possibility thrilled through his frame of his
otherwise seeming to take the awful liberty of calling Miss
Twinkleton my dear; " I refer to the other young ladies."
Miss Twinkleton resumed her writing.
Mr. Grewgious, with a sense of not having managed his
opening point quite as neatly as he might have desired,
smoothed his head from back to front as if he had just dived,
and were pressing the water out-this smoothing action however superfluous, was habitual with him-and took a pocketbook from his coat-pocket, and a stump of black-lead pencil
from his waistcoat pocket.
" I made," he said, turning the leaves: "I made a guiding
memorandum or so-as I usually do, for I have no conversational powers whatever-to which I will, with your permission,
my dear, refer.'Well and happy.' Truly. You are well
and happy, my dear? You look so."
"Yes, indeed, sir," answered Rosa.
" For which," said Mr. Grewgious, with a bend of his head
towards the corner window, "our warmest acknowledgments
are due, and I am sure are rendered, to the maternal kindness
and the constant care and consideration of the lady whom I
have now the honor to see before me."
This point, again, made but a lame departure from Mr.
Grewgious, and never got to its destination; for, Miss Twinkleton, feeling that the courtesies required her to be by this time
quite outside the conversation, was biting the end of her pen,
and looking upward, as waiting for the descent of an idea
from any member of the Celestial Nine who might have one
to spare.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his smooth head again, and then
made another reference to his pocket-book; lining out'well
and happy' as disposed of.



110   THE MYSTERY        CF EDWIN      DROOD.
"'Pounds, shillings, and pence'is my next note. A dry
subject for: young lady, but an important subject too. Life
is pounds, shillings, and pence. Death is-"  A sudden
recollection of the death of her two parents seemed to stop him,
an I lhe said in a softer tone, and evidently inserting the negative as an after-thought: " Death is not pounds, shillings, and
pence."
His voice was as hard and dry as himself, and Fancy might
have ground it straight, like himself, into high-dried snuff.
And yet, through the very limited means of expression that he
possessed, he seemed to express kindness. If Nature had but
finished him off, kindness might have been recognisable in his
face at this moment. But if the notches in his forehead
wouldn't fuse together, and if his face would work and couldn't
play, what could he do, poor man!
"' Pounds, shillings, and pence.' You find your allowances
always sufficient for your wants, my dear? "
Rosa wanted for nothing, and therefore it was ample.
" And you are not in debt? "
Rosa laughed at the idea of being in debt. It seemed, to
her inexperience, a comical vagary of the imagination. Mr.
Grewgious stretched his near sight to be sure that this was her
view of the case. " Ah! " he said, as comment, with a furtive
glance towards Miss Twinkleton, and lining out pounds, shillings, and pence: "I spoke of having got among the angels!
So I did!"
Rosa felt what his next memorandum would prove to be, and
was blushing and folding a crease in her dress with one embarrassed hand, long before he found it.
"'Marriage.' Hem!" Mr. Grewgious carried his smoothing hand down over his eyes and nose, and even chin, before
drawing his chair a little nearer, and speaking a little more
confidentially: " I now touch, my dear, upon the point that is
the direct cause of my troubling you with the present visit.
Otherwise, being a particularly Angular man, I should not
have intruded here. I am the last man to intrude into a



BIRDS    IN  THE BUSH.                111
sphere for which I am so entirely unfitted. I feel, on these
premises, as if I was a bear-with the cramp-in a youthful
Cotillon."
His ungainliness gave him enough of the air of his simile
to set Rosa off laughing heartily.
" It strikes you in the same light," said Mr. Grewgious,
with perfect calmness. "Just so. To return to my memorandum. Mr. Edwin has been to and fro here, as was arranged. You have mentioned that, in your quarterly letter
to me. And you like him, and he likes you."
"I like him very much, sir," rejoined Rosa.
" So I said, my dear," returned her guardian, for whose ear
the timid emphasis was much too fine. "Good. And you
correspond."
"' We write to one another," said Rosa, pouting, as she recalled their epistolary differences.
" Such is the meaning that I attach to the word'correspond'
in this application, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious. " Good.
All goes well, time works on, and at this next Christmas timo
it will become necessary, as a matter of form, to give the exemplary lady in the corner window, to whom we are so much
indebted, business notice of your departure in the ensuing
balf-year. Your relations with her, are far more than business relations no doubt; but a residue of business remains in
them, and business is business ever. I am a particularly Angular man," proceeded Mr. Grewgious, as if it suddenly occurred to him to mention it, "and I am not used to give anything away. If, for these two reasons, some competent Proxy
would give you away, I should take it very kindly."
Rosa intimated, with her eyes on the ground, that she
thought a substitute might be found, if required.
" Surely, surely," said Mr. Grewgious. " For instance, the
gentleman who teaches Dancing here-he would know how to
do it with graceful propriety. He would advance and retire
in a manner satisfactory to the feelings of the officiating clergyman, and of yourself, and the bridegroom, and all parties



112   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN       DROOD.
concerned. I am-I am a particularly Angular man," said
Mr. Grewgious, as if he had made up his mind to screw it out
at last: " and should only blunder."
Rosa sat still and silent. Perhaps her mind had not got
quite so far as the ceremony yet, but was lagging on the way
there.
"Memorandum.'Will.' Now, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, referring to his notes, disposing of'marriage' with his
pencil, and taking a paper from his pocket: "although I have
before possessed you with the contents of your father's will, I
think it right at this time to leave a certified copy of it in
your hands. And although Mr. Edwin is also aware of its contents, I think it right at this time likewise to place a certified
copy of it in Mr. Jasper's hands-"
"Not in his own?" asked Rosa, looking up quickly.
"Cannot the copy go to Eddy himself? "
"Why, yes, my dear, if you particularly wish it; but I
spoke of Mr. Jasper as being his trustee."
" I do particularly wish it, if you please," said Rosa, hurriedly and earnestly; " I don't like Mr. Jasper to come between us, in any way."
" It is natural, I suppose," said Mr. Grewgious, " that your
young husband should be all in all. Yes. You observe that
I say, I suppose. The fact is, I am a particularly Unnatural
man, and I don't know from my own knowledge."
Rosa looked at him with some wonder.
"I mean," he explained " that young ways were never my
ways. I was the only offspring of parents far advanced in life,
and I half believe I was born advanced in life myself. No
personality is intended towards the name you will so soon
change, when I remark that while the general growth of
people seem to have come into existence, buds, I seem to have
come into existence a chip. I was a chip-and a very dry
one-when I first became aware of myself. Respecting the
other certified copy, your wish shall be complied with. Respecting your inheritance, I think you know all. It is an



BIRDS IN     THE   BUSH.             113
annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds. The savings upon
that annuity, and some other items to your credit, all duly carried to account, with vouchers, will place you in possession of
a lump-sum of money, rather exceeding Seventeen Hundred
Pounds. I am empowered to advance the cost of your preparations for your marriage out of that fund. All is told."
"Will you please tell me," said Rosa, taking the paper
with a prettily knitted brow, but not opening it: " whether
I am right in what I am going to say? I can understand
what you tell me, so very much better than what I read in
law-writings. My poor papa and Eddy's father made their
agreement together, as very dear and firm and fast friends,
in order that we, too, might be very dear and firm and fast
friends after them?"
" Just so."
"For the lasting good of both of us, and the lasting happiness of both of us?"
"Just so."
"That we might be to one another even much more than
they had been to one another?"
"Just so."
"It was not bound upon Eddy, and it was not bound upon
me, by any forfeit, in case  "
"Don't be agitated, my dear. In the case that it brings
tears into your affectionate eyes even to picture to yourselfin the case of your not marrying one another-no, no forfeiture
on either side. You would then have been my ward until you
were of age. No worse would have befallen you. Bad enough
perhaps!"
"And Eddy?"
" He would have come into his partnership derived from his
father, and into its arrears to his credit (if any), on attaining
his majority, just as now."
Rosa with her perplexed face and knitted brow, bit the corner of her attested copy, as she sat with her head on one side,
7



114   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOl).
looking abstractedly on the floor, and smoothing it with her
foot.
"In short," said Mr. Grewgious, " this betrothal is a wish,
a sentiment, a friendly project, tenderly expressed on both
sides. That it was strongly felt, and that there was a lively
hope that it would prosper, there can be no doubt. When you
were both children, you began to be accustomed to it, and it
has prospered. But circumstances alter cases; and I made
this visit to-day, partly, indeed principally, to discharge myself of the duty of telling you, my dear, that two young people
can only be betrothed in marriage (except as a matter of convenience, and therefore mockery and misery), of their own free
will, their own attachment, and their own assurance (it may
or may not prove a mistaken one, but we must take our chance
of that), that they are suited to each other and will make each
other happy. Is it to be supposed, for example, that if either
of your fathers were living now, and had any mistrust on that
subject, his mind would not be changed by the change of circumstances involved in the change of your years? Untenable,
unreasonable, inconclusive, and preposterous!"
Mr. Grewgious said all this, as if he were reading it aloud;
or, still more, as if he were repeating a lesson. So expressionless of any approach of spontaneity were his face and manner.
"I have now, my dear," he added, blurring out'Will'
with his pencil, "discharged myself of what is doubtless a
formal duty in this case, but still a duty in such a case.
Memorandum,'Wishes:' My dear, is there any wish of yours
that I can further? "
Rosa shook her head, with an almost plaintive air of hesitation in want of help.
" Is there any instruction that I can take from you with
reference to your affairs? "
" I-I should like to settle them with Eddy first, if you
please," said Rosa, plaiting the crease in her dress.
"Surely. Surely," returned Mr. Grewgious.  "You two
should be of one mind in all things. Is the young gentleman
expected shortly? "



BIRDS IN     THE BUSH.                116
"He has gone away only this morning. He will be back at
Christmas."
" Nothing could happen better. You will, on his return at
Christmas, arrange all matters of detail with him; you will
then communicate with me; and I will discharge myself (as a
mere business acquittance) of my business responsibilities
towards the accomplished lady in the corner window. They
will accrue at that season." Blurring pencil once again.
" Memorandum' Leave.' Yes. I will now, my dear, take my
leave."
"Could I," said Rosa, rising, as he jerked out of his chair
in his ungainly way: " could I ask you, most kindly to come
to me at Christmas, if I had anything particular to say to
you? "
"Why, certainly, certainly," he rejoined; apparently-if
such a word can be used of one who had no apparent lights or
shadows about him-complimented by the question. "As a
particularly Angular man, I do not fit smoothly into the social
circle, and consequently I have no other engagement at
Christmas-time than to partake, on the twenty-fifth, of a boiled
turkey and celery sauce with a-with a particularly Angular
clerk I have the good fortune to possess, whose father, being a
Norfolk farmer, sends him up (the turkey up), as a present to
me, from the neighborhood of Norwich. I should be quite
proud of your wishing to see me, my dear. As a professional
Receiver of rents, so very few people do wish to see me, that
the novelty would be bracing."
For his ready acquiescence, the grateful Rosa put her hands
upon his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and instantly kissed him.
" Lord bless me! " cried Mr. Grewgious. "* Thank you, my
dear!  The honor is almost equal to the pleasure.  Miss
Twinkleton, Madam, I have had a most satisfactory conversation with my ward, and I will now release you from the incumbrance of my presence."
"Nay, sir," rejoined Miss Twinkleton, rising with a gracious condescension: "say not incumbrance. Not so, by any
means. I cannot permit you to say so."



116   TH.E MYSTERY       OF EDWIN       DROOD.
"Thank you, madam. I have read in the newspapers,"
said Mr. Grewgious, stammering a little, "that when a distinguished visitor (not that I am one: far from it), goes to a
school (not that this is one: far from it), he asks for a holiday, or some sort of grace. It being now the afternoon in the
-College-of which you are the eminent head, the young
ladies might gain nothing, except in name, by having the rest
of the day allowed them. But if there is any young lady at
all under a cloud, might I solicit-?"
" Ah, Mr. Grewgious, Mr. Grewgious!" cried Miss Twinkleton, with a chastely-rallying forefinger. " Oh, you gentlemen, you gentlemen! Fie for shame, that you are so hard
upon us poor maligned disciplinarians of our sex, for your
sakes! But as Miss Ferdinand is at present weighed down by
an incubus "-Miss Twinkleton might have said a pen-andink-ubus of writing out Mr. La Fontaine-" go to her Rosa,
my dear, and tell her the penalty is remitted, in deference to
the intercession of your guardian, Mr. Grewgious."
Miss Twinkleton here achieved a courtesy, suggestive of
marvels happening to her respected legs, and which she came
out of nobly, three yards behind her starting-point.
As he held it incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper
before leaving Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the Gate
House, and climbed its postern stair. But Mr. Jasper's door
being closed, and presenting on a slip of paper the word " Cathedral," the fact of its being service-time was borne into the
mind of Mr. Grewgious. So, he descended the stair again, and,
crossing the Close, paused at the great western folding-door of
the Cathedral, which stood open on the fine and bright, though
short-lived, afternoon, for the airing of the place.
"Dear me," said Mr. Grewgious, peeping in, "it's like
looking down the throat of Old Time."
Old Time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and
vault; and gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners; and
damps began to rise from green patches of stone; and jewels,
cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained glass by the



BIRDS    IN  THE BUSH.                117
declining sun, began to perish. Within the grill-gate of the
chancel, up the steps surmounted loomingly by the fast darkening organ, white robes could be dimly seen, and one feeble
voice, rising and falling in a cracked monotonous mutter, could
at intervals be faintly heard. In the free outer air, the river,
the green pastures, and the brown arable lands, the teeming
hills and dales, were reddened by the sunset; while the distant
little windows in windmills and farm homesteads, shone,
patches of bright beaten gold. In the Cathedral, all became
grey, murky, and sepulchral, and the cracked monotonous mutter went on like a dying voice, until the organ and the choir
burst forth, and drowned it in a sea of music. Then, the sea
fell, and the dying voice made another feeble effort, and then
the sea rose high; and beat its life out, and lashed the roof, and
surged among the arches, and pierced the heights of the great
tower; and then the sea was dry, and all was still.
" Mr. Grewgious had by that time walked to the chancelsteps, where he met the living waters coming out.
"Nothing is the matter?"   Thus Jasper accosted him,
rather quickly. "You have not been sent for? "
" Not at all, not at all. I came down of my own accord. I
have been to my pretty ward's, and am now homeward bound
again."
"You found her thriving? "
"Blooming indeed. Most blooming. I merely came to tell
her, seriously, what a betrothal by deceased parents is."
" And what is it-according to your judgment? "
Mr. Grewgious noticed the whiteness of the lips that asked
the question, and put it down to the chilling account of the
Catledral.
" I merely came to tell her that it could not be considered
binding, against any such reason for its dissolution as a want
of affection, or want of disposition to carry it into effect, on
the side of either party."
" May I ask, had you any especial reason for telling her
that?"



118   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
Mr. Grewgious answered somewhat sharply: " The especial reason of doing my duty, sir. Simply that." Then he
added: "Come, Mr. Jasper; I know your affection for your
nephew, and that you are quick to feel on his behalf. I assure
you that this implies not the least doubt of, or disrespect to,
your nephew."
"You could not," returned Jasper, with a friendly pressure
of his arm, as they walked on side by side, "speak more
handsomely."
Mr. Grewgious pulled off his hat to smooth his head, and,
having smoothed it, nodded it contentedly, and put his hat on
again.
" I will wager," said Jasper, smiling-his lips were still so
white that he was conscious of it, and bit and moistened them
while speaking: " I will wager that she hinted no wish to be
released from Ned."
" And you will win your wager, if you do," retorted Mr.
Grewgious. " We should allow some margin for little maidenly delicacies in a young motherless creature, under such circumstances, I suppose; it is not in my line; what do you
think?"
"There can be no doubt of it."
" I am glad you say so. Because," proceeded Mr. Grewgious, who had all this time very knowingly felt his way round
to action on his remembrance of what she had said of Jasper
himself: "because she seems to have some little delicate
instinct that all preliminary arrangements had best be made
between Mr. Edwin Drood and herself, don't you see? She
don't want us, don't you know? "
Jasper touched himself on the breast, and said, somewhat
indistinctly: " You mean me."
Mr. Grewgious touched himself on the breast, and said:
"I mean us. Therefore, let them have their little discussions
and councils together,'when Mr. Edwin Drood comes back
here at Christmas, and then you and I will step in, and put
the final touches to the business."



SMOOTHING       THE    WAY.            119
"So, you settled with her that you would come back at
Christmas? " observed Jasper. " I see! Mr. Grewgious, as
you quite fairly said just now, there is such an exceptional
attachment between my nephew and me, that I am more sensitive for the dear, fortunate, happy, happy fellow than for myself. But it is only right that the young lady should be considered, as you have pointed out, and that I should accept my
cue from you. I accept it. I understand that at Christmas
they will complete their preparations for May, and that their
marriage will be put in final train by themselves, and that
nothing will remain for us but to put ourselves in train also,
and have everything ready for our formal release from our
trusts, on Edwin's birthday."
" That is my understanding," assented Mr. Grewgious, as
they shook hands to part. " God bless them both!"
"God save them both! " cried Jasper.
"I said, bless them," remarked the former, looking back
over his shoulder.
" I said, save them," returned the latter. "Is there any
difference? "
CHAPTER X.
SMOOTHING THE WAY.
IT has been often enough remarked that women have a curious power of divining the characters of men, which would
seem to be innate and instinctive; seeing that it is arrived at
through no patient process of reasoning, that it can give no
satisfactory or sufficient account of itself, and that it pronounces in the most confident manner even against accumulated
observation on the part of the other sex. But it has not been
quite so often remarked that this power (fallible, like every
other human attribute), is for the most part absolutely incapa



120   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
ble of self-revision; and that when it has delivered an adverse
opinion which by all human lights is subsequently proved to
have failed, it is undistinguishable from prejudice, in respect
of its determination not to be corrected. Nay, the very possibility of contradiction or disproof, however remote, communicates to this feminine judgment from the first, in nine cases
out of ten, the weakness attendant on the testimony of an
interested witness: so personally and strongly does the fair
diviner connect herself with her divination.
" Now, don't you think, Ma dear," said the Minor Canon to
his mother one day as she sat at her knitting in his little
book-room, " that you are rather hard on Mr. Neville?"' No, I do not, Sept," returned the old lady.
"Let us discuss it, Ma."
"I have no objection to discuss it, Sept. I trust, my dear,
I am always open to discussion." There was a vibration in
the old lady's cap, as though she internally added: " and I
should like to see the discussion that would change my
mind!"
"Very good, Ma," said her conciliatory son. "There is
nothing like being open to discussion."
"I hope not, my dear," returned the old lady, evidently
shut to it.
" Well! Mr. Neville, on that unfortunate occasion, commits
himself under provocation."
" And under mulled wine," added the old lady.
"I must admit the wine. Though I believe the two young
men were much alike in that regard."
"I don't! " said the old lady.
"Why not, Ma?."
"Because I don't," said the old lady. "Still, I am quite
open to discussion."
" But, my dear Ma, I cannot see how we are to discuss, if
you take that line."
" Blame Mr. Neville for it, Sept, and not me," said the old
lady, with stately severity.



SMOOTHING        THE   WAY.             121
" My dear Ma! Why Mr. Neville?"
"Because," said Mrs. Crisparkle, retiring on first principles, "he came home intoxicated, and did great discredit to
this house, and showed great disrespect to this family."
"That is not to be denied, Ma. He was then, and he is
now, very sorry for it."
" But for Mr. Jasper's well-bred consideration in coming up
to me next day, after service, in the Nave itself, with his gown
still on, and expressing his hope that I had not been greatly
alarmed or had my rest violently broken, I believe I might
never have heard of that disgraceful transaction," said the old
lady.
" To be candid, Ma, I think I should have kept it from you
if I could: though I had not decidedly made up my mind.
I was following Jasper out, to confer with him on the subject,
and to consider the expediency of his and my jointly hushing
the thing up on all accounts, when I found him speaking to
you. Then it was too late."
"Too late, indeed, Sept. He was still as pale as gentlemanly ashes at what had taken place in his rooms over-night.
" If I had kept it from you, Ma, you may be sure it would
have been for your peace and quiet, and for the good of the
young men, and in my best discharge of my duty according
to my lights."
The old lady immediately walked across the room and kissed
him; saying, " Of course, my dear Sept, I am sure of that."
" However, it became the town-talk," said Mr. Crisparkle,
rubbing his ear, as his mother resumed her seat, and her knitting, " and passed out of my power."
" And I said then, Sept," returned the old lady, " that I
thought ill of Mr. Neville. And I say now, that I think ill
of Mr. Neville. And I said then, and I say now, that I hope
Mr. Neville may come to good, but I don't believe he will."
Here the cap vibrated again, considerably.
"I am sorry to hear you say so, Ma-  "
"I am sorry to say so, my dear," interposed the old lady,
knitting on firmly, " but I can't help it."



122   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" -For," pursued the Minor Canon, " it is undeniable that
Mr. Neville is exceedingly industrious and attentive, and that
he improves apace, and that he has-I hope I may say-an
attachment to me."
" There is no merit in the last article, my dear," said the
old lady, quickly; "and if he says there is, I think the worse
of him for the boast."
" But, my dear Ma, he never said there was."
"Perhaps not," returned the old lady; "still, I don't see
that it greatly signifies."
There was no impatience in the pleasant look with which
Mr. Crisparkle contemplated the pretty old piece of china as
it knitted; but there was, certainly, a humorous sense of its
not being a piece of china to argue with very closely.
" Besides, Sept. Ask yourself what he would be without
his sister. You know what an influence she has over him;
you know what a capacity she has; you know that whatever
he reads with you, he reads with her. Give her her fair share
of your praise, and how much do you leave for him? "
At these words Mr. Crisparkle fell into a little reverie, in
which he thought of several things. He thought of the time
he had seen the brother and sister together in deep converse
over one of his own old college books; now, in the rimy mornings, when he made those sharpening pilgrimages to Cloisterham Weir; now, in the sombre evenings, when he faced the
wind at sunset, having climbed his favorite outlook, a beetling
fragment of monastery ruin; and the two studious figures
passed below him along the margin of the river, in which the
town fires and lights already shone, making the landscape
bleaker. He thought how the consciousness had stolen upon
him that in teaching one, he was teaching two; and how he
had almost insensibly adapted his explanations to both minds
-that with which his own was daily in contact, and that
which he only approached through it. He thought of the gossip that had reached him from the Nuns' House, to the effect
that Helena, whom he had mistrusted as so proud and fierce,



SMOOTHING THE          WAY.            123
submitted herself to the fairy-bride (as he called her), and
learnt from her what she knew. He thought of the picturesque alliance between those two, externally so very different.
He thought —perhaps most of all —could it be that these
things were yet but so many weeks old, and had become an
integral part of his life?
As, whenever the Reverend Septimus fell a-musing, his
good mother took it to be an infallible sign that he "wanted
support," the blooming old lady made all haste to the diningroom closet, to produce from it the support embodied in a
glass of Constantia and a home-made biscuit. It was a most
wonderful closet, worthy of Cloisterham and of Minor Canon
Corner. Above it, a portrait of Handel in a flowing wig
beamed down at the spectator, with a knowing air of being
up to the contents of the closet, and a musical air of intending to combine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue. No
common closet with a vulgar door on hinges openable all at
once, and leaving nothing to be disclosed by degrees, this rare
closet had a lock in mid-air, where two perpendicular slides met:
the one falling down, and the other pushing up. The upper
slide, on being pulled down (leaving the lower a double mystery), revealed deep shelves of pickle-jars, jam-pots, tin cannisters, spice-boxes, and agreeably outlandish vessels of blue
and white, the luscious lodgings of preserved tamarinds and
ginger. Every benevolent inhabitant of this retreat had his
name inscribed upon his stomach. The pickles, in a uniform of
rich brown double-breasted buttoned coat, and yellow or sombre drab continuations, announced their portly forms, in
printed capitals, as Walnut, Gherkin, Onion, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and other members of that noble family. The
jams, as being of a less masculine temperament, and as wearing curlpapers, announced themselves in feminine caligraphy,
like a soft whisper, to be Raspberry, Gooseberry, Apricot,
Plum, Damson, Apple, and Peach. The scene closing on
these charmers, and the lower slide ascending, oranges were
revealed, attended by a mighty japanned sugar-box, to temper



124   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
their acerbity if unripe. Home-made biscuits waited at the
Court of these Powers, accompanied by a goodly fragment of
plum-cake, and various slender ladies' fingers, to be dipped into
sweet wine and kissed. Lowest of all, a compact leaden vault
enshrined the sweet wine and a stock of cordials: whence
issued whispers of Seville Orange, Lemon, Almond, and Carraway seed. There was a crowning air upon this closet of
closets, of having been for ages hummed through by the Cathedral bell and organ, until those venerable bees had made
sublimated honey of everything in store; and it was always
observed that every dipper among the shelves (deep, as has
been noticed, and swallowing up head, shoulders, and elbows),
came forth again mellow-faced, and seeming to have undergone a saccharine transfiguration.
The Reverend Septimus yielded himself up quite as willing
a victim to a nauseous medicinal herb-closet, also presided
over by the china shepherdess, as to this glorious cupboard.
To what amazing infusions of gentian, peppermint, gilliflower,
sage, parsley, thyme, rue, rosemary, and dandelion, did his
courageous stomach submit itself! In what wonderful wrappers
enclosing layers of dried leaves, would he swathe his rosy and
contented face, if his mother suspected him of a toothache!
What botanical blotches would he cheerfully stick upon his
cheek, or forehead, if the dear old lady convicted him of an
imperceptible pimple there! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated on an upper staircase-landing: a low and narrow whitewashed cell, where bunches of dried leaves hung
from rusty hooks in the ceiling, and were spread out upon
shelves, in company with portentous bottles: would the Reverend Septimus submissively be led, like the highly-popular
lamb who has so long and unresistingly been led to the
slaughter, and there would he, unlike that lamb, bore nobody
but himself. Not even doing that much, so that the old lady
were busy and pleased, he would quietly swallow what was
given him, merely taking a corrective dip of hands and face
into the great bowl of dried rose-leaves, and into the other



SMOOTHING THE          WAY.            125
great bowl of dried lavender, and then would go out, as confident in the sweetening powers of Cloisterham Weir and a
wholesome mind, as Lady Macbeth was hopeless of all the
seas that roll.
In the present instance the good Minor Canon took his glass
of Constantia with an excellent grace, and, so supported to
his mother's satisfaction, applied himself to the remaining
duties of the day. In their orderly and punctual progress
they brought round Vesper Service and twilight. The Cathedral being very cold, he set off for a brisk trot after service;
the trot to end in a charge at his favorite fragment of ruin,
which was to be carried by storm, without a pause for breath.
He carried it in a masterly manner, and, not breathed even
then, stood looking down upon the river. The river at Cloisterham is sufficiently near the sea to throw up oftentimes a
quantity of sea-weed. An unusual quantity had come in with
the last tide, and this, and the confusion of the water, and the
restless dipping and flapping of the noisy gulls, and an angry
light out seaward beyond the brown-sailed barges that were
turning back, foreshadowed a stormy night. In his mind he
was contrasting the wild and noisy sea with the quiet harbor
of Minor Canon Corner, when Helena and Neville Landless
passed below him.  He had had the two together in his
thoughts all day, and at once climbed down to speak to them
together. The footing was rough in an uncertain light for
any tread save that of a good climber; but the Minor Canon
was as good a climber as most men, and stood beside them
before a great many good climbers would have been half-way
down.
" A wild evening, Miss Landless! Do you not find your
usual walk with your brother too exposed and cold for the time
of year? Or at all events, when the sun is down, and the
weather is driving in from the sea? "
Helena thought not. It was their favorite walk. It was
very retired.
" It is very retired," assented Mr. Crisparkle, laying hold of



126   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN       DROOD.
his opportunity straightway, and walking on with them. "It
is a place of all others where one can speak without interruption, as I wish to do. Mr. Neville, I believe you tell your
sister everything that passes between us?"
"Everything, sir."
"Consequently," said Mr. Crisparkle, " your sister is aware
that I have repeatedly urged you to make some kind of apology
for that unfortunate occurrence which befell, on the night of
your arrival here."
In saying it he looked to her, and not to him; therefore it
was she, and not he, who replied:
" Yes."
"I call it unfortunate, Miss Helena," resumed Mr. Crisparkle, " forasmuch as it certainly has engendered a prejudice
against Neville. There is a notion about, that he is a dangerously passionate fellow, of an uncontrollable and furious ternper: he is really avoided as such."
"' I have no doubt he is, poor fellow," said Helena, with a
look of proud compassion at her brother, expressing a deep
sense of his being ungenerously treated. "I should be quite
sure of it, from your saying so: but what you tell me is confirmed by suppressed hints and references that I meet with
every day."
" Now," Mr. Crisparkle again resumed, in a tone of mild
though firm persuasion, "is not this to be regretted, and
ought it not to be amended? These are early days of Neville's
in Cloisterham, and I have no fear of his outliving such a
prejudice, and proving himself to have been misunderstood.
But how much wiser to take action at once, than to trust to
uncertain time! Besides; apart from its being politic, it is
right. For there can be no question that Neville was wrong."
" He was provoked," Helena submitted.
"He was the assailant," Mr. Crisparkle submitted.
They walked on in silence, until Helena raised her eyes to
the Minor Canon's face, and said, almost reproachfully: "Oh,
Mr. Crisparkle, would you have Neville throw himself at



SMOOTHING THE WAY.                      127
young Drood's feet, or at Mr. Jasper's, who maligns him every
day! In your heart you cannot mean it. From your heart
you could not do it, if his case were yours."
" I have represented to Mr. Crisparkle, Helena," said Neville, with a glance of deference towards his tutor, " that if
I could do it from my heart, I would. But I cannot, and I
revolt from the pretence. You forget, however, that to pup
the case to Mr. Crisparkle as his own, is to suppose Mr. Crisparkle to have done what I did."
"I ask his pardon," said Helena.
"You see," remarked Mr. Crisparkle, again laying hold of
his opportunity, though with a moderate and delicate touch,
"you both instinctively acknowledge that Neville did wrong!
Then why stop short, and not otherwise acknowledge it? "
"Is there no difference," asked Helena, with a little faltering in her manner, " between submission to a generous spirit,
and submission to a base or trivial one?"
Before the worthy Minor Canon was quite ready with his
argument in reference to this nice distinction, Neville struck
in:
"Help me to clear myself with Mr. Crisparkle, Helena.
Help me to convince him that I cannot be the first to make
concessions without mockery and falsehood. My nature must
be changed before I can do so, and it is not changed. I am
sensible of inexpressible affront, and deliberate aggravation of
inexpressible affront, and I am angry. The plain truth is, I
am still as angry when I recall that night as I was that
night."
" Neville," hinted the Minor Canon, with a steady countenance, " you have repeated that former action of your hands,
which I so much dislike."
" I am sorry for it, sir, but it was involuntary. I confessed
that I was still as angry."
"And I confess," said Mr. Crisparkle, "that I hoped for
better things."
"I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but it would be far worse



128   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
to deceive you, and I should deceive you grossly if I pretended
that you had softened me in this respect. The time may come
when your powerful influence will do even that with the diffi-'cult pupil whose antecedents you know; but it has not come
yet. Is this so, and in spite of my struggles against myself,
Helena?"
She, whose dark eyes were watching the effect of what he
said on Mr. Crisparkle's face, replied-to Mr. Crisparkle: not
to him: "It is so."  After a short pause, she answered the
slightest look of inquiry conceivable, in her brother's eyes,
with as slight an affirmative bend of her own head; and he
went on:
" I have never yet had the courage to say to you, sir, what
in full openness I ought to have said when you first talked
with me on this subject. It is not easy to say, and I have
been withheld by a fear of its seeming ridiculous, which is
very strong upon me down to this last moment, and might,
but for my sister, prevent my being quite open with you even
now.-I admire Miss Bud, sir, so very much, that I cannot
bear her being treated with conceit or indifference; and even
if I did not feel that I had an injury against young Drood on
my own account, I should feel that I had an injury against
him on hers."
Mr. Crisparkle, in utter amazement, looked at Helena for
corroboration, and met in her expressiveTace full corroboration,
and a plea for advice.
" The young lady of whom you speak is, as you know, Mr.
Neville, shortly to be married," said Mr. Crisparkle, gravely;
"therefore your admiration, if it be of that special nature
which you seem to indicate, is outrageously misplaced. Moreover, it is monstrous that you should take upon yourself to be
the young lady's champion against her chosen husband. Besides, you have seen them only once. The young lady has
become your sister's friend; and I wonder that your sister,
even on her behalf, has not checked you in this irrational and
culpable fancy."



SMOOTHING THE WAY.                     129
"She has tried, sir, but uselessly. Husband or no husband,
that fellow is incapable of the feeling with which I am inspired towards the beautiful young creature whom he treats
like a doll. I say he is as incapable of it, as he is unworthy
of her. I say she is sacrificed in being bestowed upon him.
I say that I love her, and despise and hate him! " This with
a face so flushed, and a gesture so violent, that his sister
crossed to his side, and caught his arm, remonstrating, " Neville, Neville!"
Thus recalled to himself, he quickly became sensible of having lost the guard he had set upon his passionate tendency,
and covered his face with his hand, as one repentant, and
wretched.
Mr. Crisparkle, watching him attentively, and at the same
time meditating how to proceed, walked on for some paces in
silence. Then he spoke.
" Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville, I am sorely grieved to see in you
more traces of a character as sullen, angry, and wild, as the
night now closing in. They are of too serious an aspect to
leave me the resource of treating the infatuation you have disclosed, as undeserving serious consideration. I give it very
serious consideration, and I speak to you accordingly. This
feud between you and young Drood must not go on. I cannot
permit it to go on, any longer, knowing what I now know
from you, and you living under my roof. Whatever prejudiced and unauthorized constructions your blind and envious
wrath may put upon his character, it is a frank, good-natured
character. I know I can trust to it for that. Now, pray observe what I am about to say. On reflection, and on your sister's representation, I am willing to admit that, in making
peace with young D)rood, you have a right to be met half way.
I will engage that you shall be, and even that young Drood
shall make the first advance. This condition fulfilled, you
will pledge me the honor of a Christian gentleman that the
quarrel is for ever at an end on your side. What may be in
your heart when you give him your hand, can only be known
8



130   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN DROOD.
to the Searcher of all hearts; but it will never go well with
you, if there be any treachery there. So far, as to that; next
as to what I must again speak of as your infatuation. I understand it to have been confided to me, and to be known to
no other person save your sister and yourself. Do I understand aright? "
Helena answered in a low voice: " It is only known to us
three who are here together."
"It is not at all known to the young lady, your friend?"
"On my soul, no!"
"I require you, then, to give me your similar and solemn
pledge, Mr. Neville, that it shall remain the secret it is, and
that you will take no other action whatsoever upon it than
endeavoring (and that most earnestly) to erase it from your
mind. I will not tell you that it will soon pass; I will not tell
you that it is the fancy of the moment; I will not tell you
that such caprices have their rise and fall among the young
and ardent every hour; I will leave you undisturbed in the
belief that it has few parallels or none, that it will abide with
you a long time, and that it will be very difficult to conquer.
So much the more weight shall I attach to the pledge I require from you, when it is unreservedly given."
The young man twice or thrice essayed to speak, but failed.
" Let me leave you with your sister, whom it is time you
took home," said Mr. Crisparkle. "You will find me alone in
my room by-and-by."
"Pray do not leave us yet," Helena implored him.
" Another minute."
"I should not," said Neville, pressing his hand upon his
face, "have needed so much as another minute, if you had
been less patient with me, Mr. Crisparkle, less considerate of
me, and less unpretendingly good and true. Oh, if in my
childhood I had known such a guide!"
" Follow your guide now, Neville," murmured Helena, " and
follow him to Heaven!"
There was that in her tone which broke the good Minor



SMOOTHING THE          WAY.            131
Canon's voice, or it would have repudiated her exaltation of
him. As it was, he laid a finger on his lips, and looked towards her brother.
" To say that I give both pledges, Mr. Crisparkle, out of
my innermost heart, and to say that there is no treachery in
it, is to say nothing!"  Thus Neville, greatly moved. "I
beg your forgiveness for my miserable lapse into a burst of
passion."
"Not mine, Neville, not mine. You know with whom forgiveness lies, as the highest attribute conceivable. Miss Helena, you and your brother are twin children. You came into
this world with the same dispositions, and you passed your
younger days together surrounded by the same adverse circumstances. What you have overcome in yourself, can you
not overcome in him? You see the rock that lies in his
course. Who but you can keep him clear of it? 
" Who but you, sir? " replied Helena. " What is my influence, or my weak wisdom, compared with yours! "
"You have the wisdom of Love," returned the Minor Canon,
" and it was the highest wisdom ever known upon this earth,
remember. As to mine-but the less said of that commonplace commodity the better. Good night! "
She took the hand he offered her, and gratefully and almost
reverently raised it to her lips.
" Tut!" said the Minor Canon, softly, "I am much overpaid! "  And turned away.
Retracing his steps towards the Cathedral Close, he tried,
as he went along in the dark, to think out the best means of
bringing to pass what he had promised to effect, and what
must somehow be done. " I shall probably be asked to marry
them," he reflected, " and I would they were married and
gone! But this presses first."  He debated principally,
whether he should write to young Drood, or whether he should
speak to Jasper. The consciousness of being popular with the
whole Cathedral establishment inclined him to the latter
course, and the well-timed sight of the lighted gatehouse



132   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
decided him to take it. " I will strike while the iron is hot,"
he said, "and see him now."
Jasper was lying asleep on a couch before the fire, when,
having ascended the postern-stair, and received no answer to
his knock at the door, Mr. Crisparkle gently turned the handle
and looked in. Long afterwards he had cause to remember
how Jasper sprang from the couch in a delirious state between
sleeping and waking, crying out: " What is the matter? Who
did it?"
{" It is only I, Jasper? I am sorry to have disturbed you."
The glare of his eyes settled down into a look of recognition,
and he moved a chair or two, to make a way to the fireside.
" I was dreaming at a great rate, and am glad to be disturbed from an indigestive after-dinner sleep. Not to mention
that you are always welcome."
" Thank you. I am not confident," returned Mr. Crisparkle
as he sat himself down in the easy chair placed for him; " that
my subject will at first sight be quite as welcome as myself;
but I am a minister of peace, and I pursue my subject in the
interests of peace. In a word, Jasper, I want to establish
peace between these two young fellows."
A very perplexed expression took hold of Mr. Jasper's face;
a very perplexing expression too, for Mr. Crisparkle could
make nothing of it.
"How?" was Jasper's inquiry, in a low and slow voice,
after a silence.
" For the'How' I come to you. I want to ask you to do
me the great favor and service of interposing with your nephew
(I have already interposed with Mr. Neville), and getting him
to write you a short note, in his lively way, saying that he is
willing to shake hands. I know what a good-natured fellow
he is, and what influence you have with him. And without
in the least defending Mr. Neville, we must all admit that he
was bitterly stung.'
Jasper turned that perplexed face towards the fire. Mr.
Crisparkle continuing to observe it, found it even more per



SMOOTHING        THE    WAY.            133
plexing than before, inasmuch as it seemed to denote (which
could hardly be) some close internal calculation.
"I know that you are not prepossessed in Mr. Neville's
favor," the Minor Canon was going on, when Jasper stopped
him:
"You have cause to say so. I am not, indeed."
" Undoubtedly, and I admit his lamentable violence of temper, though I hope he and I will get the better of it between
us. But I have exacted a very solemn promise from him as
to his future demeanor towards your nephew, if you do kindly
interpose; and I am sure he will keep it."
" You are always responsible and trustworthy, Mr. Crisparkle. Do you really feel sure that you can answer for him
so confidently?"
"I do."
The perplexed and perplexing look vanished.
"' Then you relieve my mind of a great dread, and a heavy
weight," said Jasper; " I will do it."
Mr. Crisparkle, delighted by the swiftness and completeness
of his success, acknowledged it in the handsomest terms.
" I will do it," repeated Jasper, " for the comfort of having
your guarantee against my vague and unfounded fears. You
will laugh-but do you keep a Diary? "
" A line for a day; not more."
"A line for a day would be quite as much as my uneventful
life would need, Heaven knows," said Jasper, taking a book
from a desk; "but that my Diary is, in fact, a Diary of
Ned's life too. You will laugh at this entry; you will guess
when it was made:
Past midnight.-After what I have just now seen, I have a morbid
dread upon me of some horrible consequences resulting to my dear
boy, that I cannot reason with or in any way contend against. All my
efforts are vain. The demoniacal passion of this Neville Landless, his
strength in his fury, and his savage rage for the destruction of its object, appal me. So profound is the impression, that twice since have I
gone into my dear boy's room, to assure myself of his sleeping safely,
and not lying dead in his blood.



134   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" Here is another entry next morning:
Ned up and away. Light-hearted and unsuspicious as ever. He
laughed when I cautioned him, and said he was as good a man as Neville Landless any day. I told him that might be, but he was not as
bad a man. He continued to make light of it, but I travelled with
him as far as I could, and left him most unwillingly. I am unable to
shake off these dark intangible presentiments of evil-if feelings
founded upon staring facts are to be so called.
" Again and again," said Jasper, in conclusion, twirling the
leaves of the book before putting it by, " I have relapsed into
these moods, as other entries show. But I have now your
assurance at my back, and shall put it in my book, and make
it an antidote to my black humors."
"Such an antidote, I hope," returned Mr. Crisparkle, "as
will induce you before long to consign the black humors to the
flames. I ought to be the last to find any fault with you this
evening, when you have met my wishes so freely; but I must
say, Jasper, that your devotion to your nephew has made you
exaggerative here."
"You are my witness," said Jasper, shrugging his shoulders, " what my state of mind honestly was, that night, before
I sat down to write, and in what words I expressed it. You
remember objecting to a word I used, as being too strong?
It was a stronger word than any in my Diary."
" Well, well. Try the antidote," rejoined Mr. Crisparkle,
" and may it give you a brighter and better view of the case!
We will discuss it no more, now. I have to thank you for
myself, and I thank you sincerely."
"You shall find," said Jasper, as they shook hands, "that
I will not do the thing you wish me to do, by halves. I will
take care that Ned, giving way at all, shall give way thoroughly."
On the third day after this conversation, he called on Mr.
Crisparkle with the following letter:
"MY DEAR JACK,
"I am touched by your account of your interview with
Mr. Crisparkle, whom I much respect and esteem. At once I



A  PICTURE      AND   A  RING.           135
openly say that I forgot myself on that occasion quite as much
as Mr. Landless did, and that I wish that byegone to be a bygone, and all to be right again.
" Look here, dear old boy. Ask Mr. Landless to dinner on
Christmas Eve (the better the day the better the deed), and let
there be only we three, and let us shake hands all round there
and then, and say no more about it.
"My Dear Jack,
"Ever your most affectionate,
" EDWIN DROOD.
"P.S.-Love to Miss Pussy at the next music lesson."
" You expect Mr. Neville, then? " said Mr. Crisparkle.
"I count upon his coming," said Mr. Jasper.
CHAPTER XI.
A PICTURE AND A RING.
BEHIND the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where
certain gabled houses some centuries of age still stand looking
on the public way, as if disconsolately looking for the Old
Bourne that has long run dry, is a little nook composed of
two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn. It is one of
those nooks, the turning into which out of the clashing street,
imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put
cotton in his ears, and velvet soles on his boots. It is one of
those nooks where a few smoky sparrows twitter in smoky
trees, as though they called to one another, "Let us play at
country," and where a few feet of garden mould and a few
yards of gravel enable them to do that refreshing violence to
their tiny understandings. Moreover, it is one of those nooks
which are legal nooks; and it contains a little Hall with a
little lantern in its roof: to what obstructive purposes devoted,
and at whose expense, this history knoweth not.



136   THE   MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
In the days when Cloisterham took offence at the existence
of a railroad afar off, as menacing that sensitive constitution,
the property of us Britons: the odd fortune of which sacred
institutions it is to be in exactly equal degrees croaked about,
trembled for, and boasted of, whatever happens to anything,
anywhere in the world: in those days no neighboring architecture of lofty proportions had arisen to overshadow Staple
Inn. The westering sun bestowed bright glances on it, and
the south-west wind blew into it unimpeded.
Neither wind nor sun, however, favored Staple Inn, one
December afternoon towards six o'clock, when it was filled with
fog, and candles shed murky and blurred rays through the
windows of all its then-occupied sets of chambers; notably,
from a set of chambers in a corner house in the little inner
quadrangle, presenting in black and white over its ugly portal
the mysterious inscription:
P
J        T
1747.
In which set of chambers, never having troubled his head
about the inscription, unless to bethink himself at odd times
on glancing up at it, that haply it might mean Perhaps John
Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler, sat Mr. Grewgious writing by
his fire.
Who could have told, by looking at Mr. Grewgious, whether
he had ever known ambition or disappointment? He had been
bred to the Bar, and had laid himself out for chamber practice;
to draw deeds; " convey the wise it call," as Pistol says. But
Conveyancing and he had made such a very indifferent marriage of it that they had separated by consent-if there can be
said to be separation where there has never been coming together.
No. Coy Conveyancing would not come to Mr. Grewgious.
She was wooed, not won, and they went their several ways.
But an Arbitration being blown towards him by some unac



A  PICTURE      AND A    RING.           137
countable wind, and he gaining great credit in it as one indefatigable in seeking out right and doing right, a pretty fat Receivership was next blown into his pocket by a wind more
traceable to its source. So, by chance, he had found his niche.
Receiver and Agent now, to two rich estates, and deputing
their legal business, in an amount worth having, to a firm of
solicitors on the floor below, he had snuffed out his ambition
(supposing him to have ever lighted it) and had settled down
with his snuffers for the rest of his life under the dry vine and
fig-tree of P. J. T., who planted in seventeen-forty-seven.
Many accounts and account-books, many files of correspondence, and several strong boxes, garnished Mr. Grewgious's
room. They can scarcely be represented as having lumbered
it, so conscientious and precise was their orderly arrangement.
The apprehension of dying suddenly, and leaving one fact or
one figure with any incompleteness or obscurity attaching to
it, would have stretched Mr. Grewgious stone dead any day.
The largest fidelity to a trust was the life-blood of the man.
There are sorts of life-blood that course more quickly, more
gaily, more attractively; but there is no better sort in circulation.
There was no luxury in his room. Even its comforts were
limited to its being dry and warm, and having a snug though
faded fireside. What may be called its private life was confined to the hearth, and an easy chair, and an old-fashioned
occasional round table that was brought out upon the rug after
business hours, from a corner where it elsewise remained
turned up like a shining mahogany shield. Behind it, when
standing thus on the defensive, was a closet, usually containing something good to drink. An outer room was the clerk's
room; Mr. Grewgious's sleeping-room was across the common
stair; and he held some not empty cellarage at the bottom of
the common stair. Three hundred days in the year, at least,
he crossed over to the hotel in Furnival's Inn for his dinner,
and after dinner crossed back again, to make the most of these
simplicities until it should become broad business day once
more, with P. J. T., date seventeen-forty-seven.



138   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
As Mr. Grewgious sat and wrote by his fire that afternoon,
so did the clerk of Mr. Grewgious sit and write by his fire. A
pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark
eyes that wholly wanted lustre, and a dissatisfied doughy
complexion, that seemed to ask to be sent to the baker's, this
attendant was a mysterious being, possessed of some strange
power over Mr. Grewgious. As though he had been called
into existence, like a fabulous Familiar, by a magic spell
which had failed when required to dismiss him, he stuck tight
to Mr. Grewgious's stool, although Mr. Grewgious's comfort
and convenience would manifestly have been advanced by dispossessing him. A gloomy person with tangled locks, and a
general air of having been reared under the shadow of that
baleful tree of Java which has given shelter to more lies than
the whole botanical kingdom, Mr. Grewgious, nevertheless,
treated him with unaccountable consideration.
" Now, Bazzard," said Mr. Grewgious, on the entrance of
his clerk: looking up from his papers as he arranged them
for the night: " what is in the wind besides fog?"
" Mr. Drood," said Bazzard.
-" What of him? "
"' Has called," said Bazzard.
"You might have shown him in."
" I am doing it," said Bazzard.
The visitor came in accordingly.
"Dear me!" said Mr. Grewgious, looking round his pair
of office candles. " I thought you had called and merely left
your name, and gone. How do you do, Mr. Edwin? Dear me,
you're choking!"
" It's this fog," returned Edwin; "And it makes my eyes
smart, like Cayenne pepper."
" Is it really so bad as that? Pray undo your wrappers.
It's fortunate I have so good a fire; but Mr. Bazzard has
taken care of me."
"No I haven't," said Mr. Bazzard at the door.
" Ai! Then it follows that I must have taken care of my



A  PICTURE      AND    A  RING.          139
self without observing it," said Mr. Grewgious. "Pray be
seated in my chair. No. I beg I Coming out of such an atmosphere, in my chair."
Edwin took the easy chair in the corner; and the fog he
had brought in with him, and the fog he took off with his
great-coat and neck-shawl, was speedily licked up by the eager
fire.
"I look," said Edwin, smiling, "as if I had come to stop."
"'-By-the-by," cried Mr. Grewgious; "excuse my interrupting you; do stop. The fog may clear in an hour or two.
We can have dinner in from just across Holborn. You had
better take your cayenne pepper here than outside; pray stop
and dine."
" You are very kind," said Edwin, glancing about him, as
though attracted by the notion of a new and relishing sort of
gipsy-party.
"Not at all," said Mr. Grewgious; " you are very kind to
join issue with a bachelor in chambers, and take pot-luck.
And I'll ask," said Mr. Grewgious, dropping his voice, and
speaking with a twinkling eye, as if inspired with a bright
thought: " I'll ask Bazzard. He mightn't like it else. Bazzard!"
Bazzard reappeared.
"Dine presently with Mr. Drood and me."
"If I am ordered to dine, of course I will, sir," was the
gloomy answer.
" Save the man!" cried Mr. Grewgious. "You are not
ordered; you're invited."
"Thank you, sir," said Bazzard; " in that case I don't care
if I do."
" That's arranged. And perhaps you wouldn't mind," said
Mr. Grewgious, 1" stepping over to the hotel in Furnival's, and
asking them to send in materials for laying the cloth. For
dinner we'll have a tureen of the hottest and strongest soup
available, and we'll have the best made-dish that can be recommended, and we'll have a joint (such as a haunch of mutton),



140   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
and we'll have a goose, or a turkey, or any little stuffed thing
of that sort that may happen to be in the bill of fare-in
short, we'll have whatever there is on hand."
These liberal directions Mr. Grewgious issued with his usual
air of reading an inventory, or repeating a lesson, or doing
anything else by rote. Bazzard, after drawing out the round
table, withdrew to execute them.
" I was a little delicate, you see," said Mr. Grewgious, in a
lower tone, after his clerk's departure, "about employing him
in the foraging or commissariat department. Because lie
mightn't like it."
" He seems to have his own way, sir," remarked Edwin.
"His own way? " returned Mr. Grewgious. " Oh dear no!
Poor fellow, you quite mistake him. If he had his own way,
he wouldn't be here."
" I wonder where he would be! " Edwin thought. But he
only thought it, because Mr. Grewgious came and stood himself with his back to the other corner of the fire, and his
shoulder-blades against the chimneypiece, and collected his
skirts for easy conversation.
" I take it, without having the gift of prophecy, that you
have done me the favor of looking in'to mention that you are
going down yonder-where I can tell you, you are expectedand to offer to execute any little commission from me to my
charming ward, and perhaps to sharpen me up a bit in any
proceedings? Eh, Mr. Edwin? "' I called, sir, before going down, as an act of attention."
"Of attention!" said Mr. Grewgious.  Ah! of course, not
of impatience?"
"Impatience, sir?"
Mr. Grewgious had meant to be arch-not that he in the
remotest degree expressed that meaning-and had brought
himself into scarcely supportable proximity with the fire, as
if to burn the fullest effect of his archness into himself, as
other subtle impressions are burnt into hard metals. But lis
archness suddenly flying before the composed face and man



A  PICTURE      AND   A   RING.          141
ner of his visitor, and only the fire remaining, he started and
rubbed himself.
"I have lately been down yonder," said Mr. Grewgious,
rearranging his skirts; "and that was what I referred to,
when I said I could tell you you are expected.
" Indeed, sir! Yes; I knew that Pussy was looking out
for me."
" Do you keep a cat down there? " asked Mr. Grewgious.
Edwin colored a little, as he explained: " I call Rosa
Pussy."
"Oh, really," said Mr. Grewgious, smoothing down his
head; "that's very affable."
Edwin glanced at his face, uncertain whether or no he seriously objected to the appellation. But Edwin might as well
have glanced at the face of a clock.
" A pet name, sir," he explained again.
"Umps," said Mr. Grewgious, with a nod. But with such
an extraordinary compromise between an unqualified assent
and a qualified dissent, that his visitor was much disconcerted.
"Did PRosa —" Edwin began, by way of recovering
himself.
" PRosa? " repeated Mr. Grewgious.
"I was going to say Pussy, and changed my mind;-did
she tell you anything about the Landlesses? "'"No," said Mr. Grewgions. "What is the Landlesses?
An estate? A villa? A farm?"
" A brother and sister. The sister is at the Nuns' House,
and has become a great friend of P  "
"PRosa's," Mr. Grewgious struck in, with a fixed face.
"She is a strikingly handsome girl, sir, and I thought she
might have been described to you, or presented to you, perhaps?"
"Neither," said Mr. Grewgious. "But here is Bazzard."
Bazzard returned, accompanied by two waiters-an immovable waiter, and a flying waiter; and the three brought in



142   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN     DROOD.
with them as much fog as gave a new roar to the fire. The
flying waiter, who had brought everything on his shoulders,
laid the cloth with amazing rapidity and dexterity; while the
immovable waiter, who had brought nothing, found fault with
him. The flying waiter then highly polished all the glasses
he had brought, and the immovable waiter looked through
them. The flying waiter then flew across Holborn for the
soup, and flew back again, and then took another flight for the
made-dish, and flew back again, and then took another flight
for the joint and poultry, and flew back again, and between
whiles took supplementary flights for a great variety of articles,
as it was discovered from time to time that the immovable
waiter had forgotten them all. But let the flying waiter
cleave the air as he might, he was always reproached on his
return by the immovable waiter for bringing fog with him,
and being out of breath. At the conclusion of the repast, by
which time the flying waiter was severely blown, the immovable waiter gathered up the tablecloth under his arm with a
grand air, and having sternly (not to say with indignation)
looked on at the flying waiter while he sat clean glasses round,
directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, conveying: " Let it be clearly understood between us that the
reward is mine, and that Nil is the claim of this slave," and
pushed the flying waiter before him out of the room.
It was like a highly finished miniature painting representing My Lords of the Circumlocutional Department, Commandership-in-Chief of any sort, Government. It was quite
an edifying little picture to be hung on the line in the National Gallery.
As the fog had been the proximate cause of this sumptuous
repast, so the fog served for its general sauce. To hear the
outdoor clerks, sneezing, wheezing, and beating their feet on
the gravel was a zest far surpassing Dr. Kitchener's. To bid,
with a shiver, the unfortunate flying waiter shut the door
before he had opened it, was a condiment of a profounder
flavor than Harvey. And here let it be noticed, parentheti



A  PICTURE AND        A  RING.          148
cally, that the leg of this young man in its application to the
door, evinced the finest sense of touch: always preceding
himself and tray (with something of an angling air about it),
by some seconds: and always lingering after he and the tray
had disappeared, like Macbeth's leg when accompanying him
off the stage with reluctance to the assassination of Duncan.
The host had gone below to the cellar, and had brought up
bottles of ruby, straw-colored, and golden, drinks, which had
ripened long ago in lands where no fogs are, and had since
lain slumbering in the shade. Sparkling and tingling after
so long a nap, they pushed at their corks to help the corkscrew
(ike prisoners helping rioters to force their gates), and danced
out gaily. If P. J. T. in seventeen-forty-seven, or in any
other year of his period, drank such wines —then, for a certainty, P. J. T. was Pretty Jolly Too.
Externally, Mr. Grewgious showed no signs of being mellowed by these glowing vintages. Instead of his drinking
them, they might have been poured over him in his high-dried
Snuff form, and run to waste, for any lights and shades they
caused to flicker over his face. Neither was his manner
influenced. But, in his wooden way, he had observant eyes
for Edwin; and when, at the end of dinner, he motioned Edwin back to his own easy chair in the fireside corner, and Edwin
luxuriously sank into it after very brief remonstrance, Mr.
Grewgious, as he turned his seat round towards the fire too,
and smoothed his head and face, might have been seen looking at his visitor between his smoothing fingers.
" Bazzard! " said Mr. Grewgious, suddenly turning to him.
"I follow you, sir," returned Bazzard; who had done his
work of consuming meat and drink, in a workmanlike manner,
though mostly in speechlessness.
" I drink to you, Bazzard; Mr. Edwin, success to Mr. Bazzadrd!"
" Success to Mr. Bazzard!" echoed Edwin, with a totally
unfounded appearance of enthusiasm, and with the unspoken
addition:-" What in, I wonder!'



144   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" And May!" pursued Mr. Grewgious-" I am not at liberty to be definite-May! —my conversational powers are so
very limited that I know I shall not come well out of thisMay!-it ought to be put imaginatively, but I have no imagination-May!-the thorn of anxiety is as nearly the mark
as I am likely to get-May it come out at last! "
Mr. Bazzard with a frowning smile at the fire, put a hand
into his tangled locks, as if the thorn of anxiety were there;
then into his waistcoat, as if it were there; then into his
pockets, as if it were there. In all these movements he was
closely followed by the eyes of Edwin, as if that young gentleman expected to see the thorn in action. It was not produced, however, and Mr. Bazzard merely said: " I follow you,
sir, and I thank you."
"I am going," said Mr. Grewgious, jingling his glass on
the table, with one hand, and bending aside under cover of
the other, to whisper to Edwin, "to drink to my ward. But
I put Bazzard first. He mightn't like it else."
This was said with a mysterious wink; or what would have
been a wink if, in Mr. Grewgious's hands, it could have been
quick enough. So Edwin winked responsively, without the
least idea what he meant by doing so.
"And now," said Mr. Grewgious, " I devote a bumper to
the fair and fascinating Miss Rosa. Bazzard, the fair and
fascinating Miss Rosa."' I follow you, sir," said Bazzard, " and I pledge you "
"And so do I! " said Edwin.
"Lord bless me!" cried Mr. Grewgions, breaking the blank
silence which of course ensued: though why these pauses
should come upon us when we have performed any small social
rite, not directly inducive of self-examination or mental despondency, who can tell! " I am a particularly Angular man,
and yet I fancy (if I may use the word, not having a morsel
of fancy), that I could draw a picture of a true lover's state of
mind, to-night."
" Let us follow you, sir," said Bazzard, " and have the picture."



A  PICTURE      AND A    RING.          145
" Mr. Edwin will correct it where it's wrong," resumed Mr.
Grewgious, " and will throw in a few touches from the life. I
dare say it is wrong in many particulars, and wants many
touches from the life, for I was born a Chip, and have neither
soft sympathies nor soft experiences. Well! I hazard the
guess that the true lover's mind is completely permeated by
the beloved object of his affections. I hazard the guess that
her dear name is precious to him, cannot be heard or repeated
without emotion, and is preserved sacred. If he has any distinguishing appellation of fondness for her, it is reserved for
her, and is not for common ears. A name that it would be a
privilege to call her by, being alone with her own bright self,
it would be a liberty, a coldness, an insensibility, almost a
breach of good faith, to flaunt elsewhere."
It was wonderful to see Mr. Grewgious sitting bolt upright,
with his hands on his knees, continuously chopping this discourse out of himself: much as a charity boy with a very
good memory might get his catechism said: and evincing no
correspondent emotion whatever, unless in a certain occasional
little tingling perceptible at the end of his nose.
"My picture," Mr. Grewgious proceeded, " goes on to represent (under correction from you, Mr. Edwin,) the true lover
as ever impatient to be in the presence or vicinity of the beloved object of his affections; as caring very little for his
ease in any other society; and as constantly seeking that. If
I was to say seeking that, as a bird seeks its nest, I should
make an ass of myself, because that would trench upon what
I understand to be poetry; and I am so far from trenching
upon poetry at any time, that I never, to my knowledge, got
within ten thousand miles of it. And I am besides totally
unacquainted with the habits of birds, except the birds of
Staple Inn, who seek their nests on ledges, and in the gutterpipes and chimneypots, not constructed for them by the beneficent hand of Nature. I beg, therefore, to be understood as
foregoing the bird's-nest. But my picture does represent the
true lover as having no existence separable from that of the
9



146 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
beloved object of his affections, and as living at once a doubled
life and a halved life. And if I do not clearly express what I
mean by that, it is either for the reason that having no conversational powers, I cannot express what I mean, or that having
no meaning, I do not mean what I fail to express. Which, to
the best of my belief, is not the case."
Edwin had turned red and turned white, as certain points
of this picture came into the light. He now sat looking at
the fire, and bit his lip.
" The speculations of an Angular man," resumed Mr. Grewgious, still sitting and speaking exactly as before, " are probably erroneous on so globular a topic. But I figure to myself
(subject, as before, to Mr. Edwin's corrections), that there can
be no coolness, no lassitude, no doubt, no indifference, no half
fire and half smoke state of mind, in a real lover. Pray, am
I at all near the mark in my picture? "
As abrupt in his conclusion as in his commencement and
progress, he jerked this inquiry at Edwin, and stopped when
one might have supposed him in the middle of his oration.
"' I should say, sir," stammered Edwin, "as you refer the
question to me  "
"Yes," said Mr. Grewgious, "I refer it to you, as an
authority."
"I should say then, sir," Edwin went on, embarrassed,
" that the picture you have drawn, is generally correct; but I
submit that perhaps you may be rather hard upon the unlucky
lover."
"Likely so," assented Mr. Grewgious, " likely so. I am a
hard man in the grain."
" He may not show," said Edwin, "all he feels; or he may
not -"
There he stopped so long, to find the rest of his sentence,
that Mr. Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thousand times
the greater, by unexpectedly striking in with:
"No to be sure; he may not!"
After that, they all sat silent; the silence of Mr. Bazzard
being occasioned by slumber.



A  PICTURE     AND    A  RING.          147
" His responsibility is very great though," said Mr. Grewgious, at length, with his eyes on the fire.
Edwin nodded assent, with his eyes on the fire.
"And let him be sure that he trifles with no one," said Mr.
Grewgious; " neither with himself, nor with any other."
Edwin bit his lip again, and still sat looking at the fire.
" He must not make a plaything of a treasure. Woe betide
him if he does! Let him take that well to heart," said Mr.
Grewgious.
Though he said these things in short sentences, much as the
supposititious charity boy just now referred to, might have
repeated a verse or two from the Book of Proverbs, there was
something dreamy (for so literal a man) in the way in which
he now shook his right forefinger at the live coals in the grate,
and again fell silent.
But not for long. As he sat upright and stiff in his chair,
he suddenly rapped his knees, like the carved image of some
queer Joss or other coming out of its reverie, and said: " We
must finish this bottle, Mr. Edwin. Let me help you. I'll
help Bazzard, too, though he is asleep. He mightn't like it
else."
He helped them both, and helped himself, and drained his
glass, and stood it bottom upward on the table, as though he
had just caught a bluebottle in it.
" And now, Mr. Edwin," he proceeded, wiping his mouth
and hands upon his handkerchief: "to a little piece of business. You received from me, the other day, a certified copy
of Miss Rosa's father's will. You knew its contents before,
but you received it from me as a matter of business. I should
have sent it to Mr. Jasper, but for Miss Rosa's wishing it to
come straight to you, in preference. You received it?"
" Quite safely, sir."
"'You should have acknowledged its receipt," said Mr.
Grewgious, "business being business all the world over.
However, you did not."
"I meant to have acknowledged it when I first came in this
evening, sir."



148   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN     DROOD.
"Not a business-like acknowledgment," returned Mr.
Grewgious; "however, let that pass. Now, in that document
you have observed a few words of kindly allusion to its being
left to me to discharge a little trust, confided to me in conversation, at such time as I in my discretion may think best."
" Yes, sir."
" Mr. Edwin, it came into my mind just now, when I was
looking at the fire, that I could, in my discretion, acquit myself of that trust at no better time than the present. Favor
me with your attention, half a minute."
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, singled out by the
candle-light the key he wanted, and then, with a candle in his
hand, went to a bureau or escritoire, unlocked it, touched the
spring of a little secret drawer, and took from it an ordinary
ring-case made for a single ring.  With this in his hand, he
returned to his chair. As he held it up for the young man to
see, his hand trembled.
" Mr. Edwin, this rose of diamonds and rubies delicately set
in gold, was a ring belonging to Miss Rosa's mother. It was
removed from her dead hand, in my presence, with such distracted grief as I hope it may never be my lot to contemplate
again. Hard man as I am, I am not hard enough for that.
See how bright these stones shine! " opening the case. " And
yet the eyes that were so much brighter, and that so often
looked upon them with a light and a proud heart, have been
ashes among ashes, and dust among dust, some years! If I
had any imagination (which it is needless to say I have not),
I might imagine that the lasting beauty of these stones was
almost cruel."
He closed the case again as he spoke.
" This ring was given to the young lady who was drowned
so early in her beautiful and happy career, by her husband,
when they first plighted their faith to one another. It was he
who removed it from her unconscious hand, and it was he who,
when his death drew very near, placed it in mine. The trust
in which I received it, was, that, you and Miss Rosa growing



A  PICTURE      AND   A   RING.          149
to manhood and womanhood, and your betrothal prospering
and coming to maturity, I should give it to you to place upon
her finger. Failing those desired results, it was to remain in
my possession."
Some trouble was in the young man's face, and some indecision was in the action of his hand, as Mr. Grewgious, looking
steadfastly at him, gave him the ring.
"Your placing it on her finger," said Mr. Grewgious, "will
be the solemn seal upon your strict fidelity to the living and
the dead. You are going to her, to make the last irrevocable
preparations for your marriage. Take it with you."
The young man took the little case, and placed it in his
breast.
"If anything should be amiss, if anything should be even
slightly wrong, between you; if you should have any secret
consciousness that you are committing yourself to this step for
no higher reason than because you have long been accustomed
to look forward to it; then," said Mr. Grewgious, " I charge
you once more, by the living and by the dead, to bring that ring
back to me! "
Here Bazzard awoke himself by his own snoring; and, as is
usual in such cases, sat apoplectically staring at vacancy, as
defying vacancy to accuse him of having been asleep.
"Bazzard! " said Mr. Grewgious, harder than ever.
"I follow you, sir," said Bazzard, " and I have been following you."
"In discharge of a trust, I have handed Mr. Edwin Drood
a ring of diamonds and rubies. You see? "
Edwin reproduced the little case, and opened it; and Bazzard looked into it.
"I follow you both, sir," returned Bazzard, "and I witness the transaction."
Evidently anxious to get away and be alone, Edwin Drood
now resumed his outer clothing, muttering something about
time and appointments. The fog was reported no clearer (by
the flying waiter, who alighted from a speculative flight in the



150   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
coffee interest), but he went out into it; and Bazzard, after
his manner, "followed" him.
Mr. Grewgious, left alone, walked softly and slowly to and
fro, for an hour and more. He was restless to-night, and
seemed dispirited.
" I hope I have done right," he said. "The appeal to him
seemed necessary. It was hard to lose the ring, and yet it
must have gone from me very soon."
He closed the empty little drawer with a sigh, and shut and
locked the escritoire, and came back to the solitary fireside.
" Her ring," he went on. "Will it come back to me? My
mind hangs about her ring very uneasily to-night. But that
is explainable. I have had it so long, and I have prized it so
much! I wonder —"
He was in a wondering mood as well as a restless; for,
though he checked himself at that point, and took another
walk, he resumed his wondering when he sat down again.
" I wonder (for the ten thousandth time, and what a weak
fool I, for what can it signify now!) whether he confided the
charge of their orphan child to me, because he knew — Good
God, how like her mother she has become!' I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that some
one doted on her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he
struck in and won her. I wonder whether it ever crept into
his mind who that unfortunate some one was!
" I wonder whether I shall sleep to-night! At all events, I
will shut out the world with the bedclothes, and try."
Mr. Grewgious crossed the staircase to his raw and foggy
bed-room, and was soon ready for bed. Dimly catching sight
of his face in the misty looking-glass, he held his candle to it
for a moment.
" A likely some one, you, to come into anybody's thoughts
in such an aspect!" he exclaimed. "There, there! there!
Get to bed, poor man, and cease to jabber! "
With that, he extinguished his light, pulled up the bedclothes around him, and with another sigh shut out the world.



A  NIGHT WITH        DURDLES.            151
And yet there are such unexplored romantic nooks in the unlikeliest men, that even old tinderous and touch-woody P. J. T.
Possibly Jabbered Thus, at some odd times, in or about
seventeen-forty-seven.
CHAPTER XII.
A NIGHT WITH DURDLES.
WHEN Mr. Sapsea has nothing better to do, towards evening, and finds the contemplation of his own profundity becoming a little monotonous in spite of the vastness of the subject,
he often takes an airing in the Cathedral Close and thereabout. He likes to pass the churchyard with a swelling air
of proprietorship, and to encourage in his breast a sort of benignant-landlord feeling, in that he has been bountiful towards
that meritorious tenant, Mrs. Sapsea, and has publicly given
her a prize. He likes to see a stray face or two looking in
through the railings, and perhaps reading his inscription.
Should he meet a stranger coming from the churchyard with
a quick step, he is morally convinced that the stranger is
" with a blush retiring," as monumentally directed.
Mr. Sapsea's importance has received enhancement, for he
has become Mayor of Cloisterham. Without mayors and
many of them, it cannot be disputed that the whole framework of society-Mr. Sapsea is confident that he invented that
forcible figure-would fall to pieces. Mayors have been
knighted for " going up " with addresses: explosive machines
intrepidly discharging shot and shell into the English Grammar. Mr. Sapsea may " go up " with an address. Rise, Sir
Thomas Sapsea! Of such is the salt of the earth.
Mr. Sapsea has improved the acquaintance of Mr. Jasper,
since their first meeting to partake of port, epitaph, backgammon, beef, and salad. Mr. Sapsea has been received at the



162   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
Gate House with kindred hospitality; and on that occasion
Mr. Jasper seated himself at the piano, and sang to him, tickling his ears-figuratively, long enough to present a considerable area for tickling. What Mr. Sapsea likes in that young
man, is, that he is always ready to profit by the wisdom of
his elders, and that he is sound, sir, at the core. In proof of
which, he sang to Mr. Sapsea that evening, no kickshaw ditties,
favorites with national enemies, but gave him the genuine
George the Third home-brewed; exhorting him (as " my brave
boys") to reduce to a smashed condition all other islands but
this island, and all continents, peninsulas, isthmuses, promontories, and other geographical forms of land soever, besides
sweeping the seas in all directions. In short, he rendered it
pretty clear that Providence made a distinct mistake in originating so small a nation of hearts of oak, and so many other
verminous peoples.
Mr. Sapsea, walking slowly this moist evening near the
church-yard with his hands behind him, on the look out for a
blushing and retiring stranger, turns a corner, and comes instead into the goodly presence of the Dean, conversing with
the Verger and Mr. Jasper. Mr. Sapsea makes his obeisance,
and is instantly stricken far more ecclesiastical than any Archbishop of York, or Canterbury.
" You are evidently going to write a book about us, Mr.
Jasper," quoth the Dean; " to write a book about us. Well!
We are very ancient, and we ought to make a good book.
We are not so richly endowed in possessions as in age; but
perhaps you will put that in your book, among other things,
and call attention to our wrongs."
Mr. Tope, as in duty bound, is greatly entertained by this.
" I really have no intention at all, sir," replies Jasper, " of
turning author, or archeologist. It is but a whim of mine.
And even for my whim, Mr. Sapsea here is more accountable
than I am."
"How so, Mr. Mayor?" says the Dean, with a nod of
good-natured recognition of his Fetch. "How is that, Mr.
Mayor? "



A  NIGIT WITH        DURDLES.             153
"I am not aware," Mr. Sapsea remarks, looking about him
for information, " to what the Very Reverend the Dean does
me the honor of referring." And then falls to studying his
original in minute points of detail.
"Durdles," Mr. Tope hints.
"Ay! " the Dean echoes; " Durdles, Durdles!"
" The truth is, sir," explains Jasper, "that my curiosity
in the man was first really stimulated by Mr. Sapsea. Mr.
Sapsea's knowledge of mankind, and power of drawing out
whatever is recluse or odd around him, first led to my bestowing a second thought upon the man: though of course I had
met him constantly about. You would not be surprised by
this, Mr. Dean, if you had seen Mr. Sapsea deal with him in
his own parlor, as I did."
"Oh!" cries Sapsea, picking up the ball thrown to him
with ineffable complacency and pomposity; "yes, yes. The
Very Reverend the Dean refers to that? Yes. I happened to
bring Durdles and Mr. Jasper together. I regard Durdles as
a Character."
"' A character, Mr. Sapsea, that with a few skilful touches
you turn inside out," says Jasper.
"Nay, not quite that," returns the lumbering auctioneer.
"I may have a little influence over him, perhaps; and a little
insight into his character, perhaps. The Very Reverend the
Dean will please to bear in mind that I have seen the world."
Here Mr. Sapsea gets a little behind the Dean, to inspect his
coat-buttons.
" Well!" says the Dean, looking about him to see what has
become of his copyist: " I hope, Mr. Mayor, you will use your
study and knowledge of Durdles to the good purpose of exhorting him not to break our worthy and respected Choir-Master's
neck; we cannot afford it; his head and voice are much too
valuable to us."
Mr. Tope is again highly entertaining, and, having fallen
into respectful convulsions of laughter, subsides into a deferential murmur, importing that surely any gentleman would deem



154   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
it a pleasure and an honor to have his neck broken, in return
for such a compliment from such a source.
" I will take it upon myself, sir," observes Sapsea, loftily,
"to answer for Mr. Jasper's neck. I will tell Durdles to be
careful of it. He will mind what I say. How is it at present
endangered? " he inquires, looking about him with magnificent patronage.
"Only by my making a moonlight expedition with Durdles
among the tombs, vaults, towers, and ruins," returns Jasper.
"You remember suggesting when you brought us together,
that, as a lover of the picturesque, it might be worth my
while?"
" I remember!" replies the auctioneer. And the solemn
idiot really believes that he does remember.
"Profiting by your hint," pursues Jasper, "I have had
some day-rambles with the extraordinary old fellow, and we
are to make a moonlight hole-and-corner exploration to-night."
"And here he is," says the Dean.
Durdles, with his dinner-bundle in his hand, is indeed
beheld slouching towards them. Slouching nearer, and perceiving the Dean, he pulls off his hat, and is slouching away
with it under his arm, when Mr. Sapsea stops him.' Mind you take care of my friend," is the injunction Mr.
Sapsea lays upon him.
" What friend o' yourn is dead?" asks Durdles.  "No
orders has come in for any friend o' yourn."' I mean my live friend, there."
"Oh! Him? " says Durdles. " He can take care of himself, can Mister Jarsper."
*' But do you take care of him too," says Sapsea.
Whom Durdles (there being a command in his tone), surlily surveys from head to foot.
" With submission to his Reverence the Dean, if you'll mind
what concerns you, Mr. Sapsea, Durdles he'll mind what concerns him."
"You're out of temper," says Mr. Sapsea, winking to the



A  NIGHT WITH        DUliDLES.            155
company to observe how smoothly he will manage him. "My
friend concerns me, and Mr. Jasper is my friend. And you
are my friend."
" Don't you get into a bad habit of boasting," retorts Durdles, with a grave cautionary nod. " It'll grow upon you."
" You are out of temper," says Sapsea again; reddening,
but again winking to the company.
"I own to it," returns Durdles; "I don't like liberties."
Mr. Sapsea winks a third wink to the company, as who
should say: "I think you will agree with me that I have
settled his business;" and stalks out of the controversy.
Durdles then gives the Dean a good evening, and adding,
as he puts his hat on, " You'll find me at home, Mister Jarsper,
as agreed, when you want me; I'm a going home to clean myself," soon slouches out of sight. This going home to clean
himself is one of the man's incomprehensible compromises with
inexorable facts; he, and his hat, and his boots, and his clothes,
never showing any trace of cleaning, but being uniformly in
one condition of dust and grit.
The lamplighter now dotting the quiet Close with specks of
light, and running at a great rate up and down his little ladder
with that object-his little ladder under the sacred shadow of
whose inconvenience generations had grown up, and which all
Cloisterham would have stood aghast at the idea of abolishing
-the Dean withdraws to his dinner, Mr. Tope to his tea, and
Mr. Jasper to his piano. There, with no light but that of the
fire, he sits chanting choir-music in a low and beautiful voice,
for two or three hours; in short, until it has been for some
time dark, and the moon is about to rise.
Then, he closes his piano softly, softly changes his coat for a
pea-jacket with a goodly wicker-cased bottle in its largest
pocket, and, putting on a low-crowned flap-brimmed hat, goes
softly out. Why does he move so softly to-night? No outward reason is apparent for it. Can there be any sympathetic
reason crouching darkly within him?
Repairing to Durdles's unfinished house, or hole in the city



156   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
wall, and seeing a light within it, he softly picks his course
among the gravestones, monuments, and stony lumber of the
yard, already touched here and there, sidewise, by the rising
moon. The two journeymen have left their two great saws
sticking in their blocks of stone; and two skeleton journeymen out of the Dance of Death might be grinning in the
shadow of their sheltering sentry-boxes, about to slash away
at cutting out the gravestones of the next two people destined
to die in Cloisterham. Likely enough, the two think little of
that now, being alive, and perhaps merry. Curious, to make
a guess at the two;-or say at one of the two!
"Ho! Durdles!"
The light moves, and he appears with it at the door. He
would seem to have been "cleaning himself" with the aid of
a bottle, jug, and tumbler; for no other cleansing instruments
are visible in the bare brick room with rafters overhead and
no plastered ceiling, into which he shows his visitor.
"Are you ready? "
" I am ready, Mister Jarsper. Let the old uns come out if
they dare, when we go among their tombs. My spirits is
ready for'em."' Do you mean animal spirits, or ardent?"
"The one's the t'other," answers Durdles, "and I mean'em both."
He takes a lantern from a hook, puts a match or two in his
pocket wherewith to light it, should there be need, and they
go out together, dinner-bundle and all.
Surely an unaccountable sort of expedition! That Durdles
himself, who is always prowling among old graves and ruins,
like a Ghoule-that he should be stealing forth to climb, and
dive, and wander without an object, is nothing extraordinary;
but that the Choir Master or any one else should hold it worth
his while to be with him, and to study moonlight effects in
such company, is another affair. Surely an unaccountable
sort of expedition therefore!
"'Ware that there mound by the yard-gate, Mister Jarsper."



A  NIGHT     WITH    DURDLES.            157
"I see it. What is it?"
Lime."
Mr. Jasper stops, and waits for him to come up, for he lags
behind. " What you call quick-lime? "
"Ay!" says Durdles; "quick enough to eat your boots.
With a little handy stirring, quick enough to eat your bones."
They go on, presently passing the red windows of the Travellers' Twopenny, and emerging into the clear moonlight of
the Monks' Vineyard. This crossed, they come to Minor
Canon Corner: of which the greater part lies in shadow until
the moon shall rise higher in the sky.
The sound of a closing house-door strikes their ears, and
two men come out. These are Mr. Crisparkle and Neville.
Jasper, with a strange and sudden smile upon his face, lays
the palm of his hand upon the breast of Durdles, stopping
him where he stands.
At that end of Minor Canon Corner the shadow is profound
in the existing state of the light: at that end, too, there is a
piece of old dwarf wall, breast high, the only remaining
boundary of what was once a garden, but is now the thoroughfare. Jasper and Durdles would have turned this wall in
another instant; but, stopping so short, stand behind it.
" Those two are only sauntering," Jasper whispers; " they
will go out into the moonlight soon. Let us keep quiet here,
or they will detain us, or want to join us, or what not."
Durdles nods assent, and falls to munching some fragments
from his bundle. Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the
wall, and, with his chin resting on them, watches. He takes
no note whatever of the Minor Canon, but watches Neville, as
though his eyes were at the trigger of a loaded rifle, and he
had covered him, and were going to fire. A sense of destructive power is so expressed in his face, that even Durdles
pauses in his munching, and looks at him, with an unmunched something in his cheek.
Meanwhile Mr. Crisparkle and Neville walk to and fro,
quietly talking together. What they say, cannot be heard



158   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN       DROOD.
consecutively; but Mr. Jasper has already distinguished his
own name more than once.
"This is the first day of the week," Mr. Crisparkle can be
distinctly heard to observe, as they turn back; " and the last
day of the week is Christmas Eve."
" You may be certain of me, sir."
The echoes were favorable at those points, but as the two
approach, the sound of their talking becomes confused again.
The word "Confidence," shattered by the echoes, but still
capable of being pieced together, is uttered by Mr. Crisparkle.
As they draw still nearer, this fragment of a reply is heard:
"Not deserved yet, but shall be, sir."  As they turn away
again, Jasper again hears his own name, in connection with
the words from Mr. Crisparkle: " Remember that I said I
answered for you confidently." Then the sound of their talk
becomes confused again; they halting for a little while, and
some earnest action on the part of Neville succeeding. When
they move once more, Mr. Crisparkle is seen to look up at the
sky, and to point before him. Then they slowly disappear;
passing out into the moonlight at the opposite end of the Corner.
It is not until they are gone, that Mr. Jasper moves. But
then he turns to Durdles, and bursts into a fit of laughter.
Durdles, who still has that suspended something in his cheek,
and who sees nothing to laugh at, stares at him until Mr.
Jasper lays his face down on his arms to have his laugh out.
Then Durdles bolts the something, as if desperately resigning
himself to indigestion.
Among these secluded nooks there is very little stir or
movement after dark. There is little enough in the high-tide
of the day, but there is next to none at night. Besides that
the cheerfully frequented High Street lies nearly parallel to
the spot (the old Cathedral rising between the two), and is the
natural channel in which the Cloisterham traffic flows, a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, and
the churchyard, after dark, which not many people care to en



A  NIGHT     WITH    DURDLES.            159
counter. Ask the first hundred citizens of Cloisterham, met
at random in the streets at noon, if they believed in Ghosts,
they would tell you no; but put them to choose at night between these eerie Precincts and the thoroughfare of shops, and
you would find that ninety-nine declared for the longer round
and the more frequented way. The cause of this is not to be
found in any local superstition that attaches to the Precincts
-albeit a mysterious lady, with a child in her arms and a rope
dangling from her neck, has been seen flitting about there by
sundry witnesses as intangible as herself-but it is to be
sought in the innate shrinking of dust with the breath of life
in it, from dust out of which the breath of life has passed; also,
in the widely diffused, and almost as widely unacknowledged,
reflection: " If the dead do, under any circumstances, become
visible to the living, these are such likely surroundings for the
purpose that I, the living, will get out of them as soon. as I
can."
Hence, when Mr. Jasper and Durdles pause to glance
around them, before descending into the crypt by a small side
door of which the latter has a key, the whole expanse of
moonlight in their view is utterly deserted. One might fancy
that the tide of life was stemmed by Mr. Jasper's own Gatehouse. The murmur of the tide is heard beyond; but no
wave passes the archway, over which his lamp burns red
behind his curtain, as if the building were a Lighthouse.
They enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged
steps, and are down in the Crypt. The lantern is not wanted,
for the moonlight strikes in at the groined windows, bare of
glass, the broken frames for which cast patterns on the ground.
The heavy pillars which support the roof engender masses of
black shade, but between them there are lanes of light. Up
and down these lanes, they walk, Durdles discoursing of the
"old uns " he yet counts on disinterring, and slapping a wall,
in which he considers " a whole family on'em" to be stoned
and earthed up, just as if he were a familiar friend of the
family. The taciturnity of Durdles is for the time overcome



160   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
by Mr. Jasper's wicker bottle, which circulates freely;-in the
sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freely into Mr.
Durdles's circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth
once, and casts forth the rinsing.
They are to ascend the great Tower. On the steps by which
they rise to the Cathedral, Durdles pauses for new store of
breath. The steps are very dark, but out of the darkness
they can see the lanes of light they have traversed. Durdles
seats himself upon a step. Mr. Jasper seats himself upon
another. The odor from the wicker bottle (which has somehow passed into Durdles's keeping), soon intimates that the
cork has been taken out; but this is not ascertainable through
the sense of sight, since neither can descry the other. And
yet, in talking, they turn to one another, as though their faces
could commune together.
".This is good stuff, Mister Jarsper!"
It is very good stuff, I hope. I bought it on purpose."
"They don't show, you see, the old uns don't, Mister Jarsper! "
" It would be a more confused world than it is, if they
could."
" Well, it would lead towards a mixing of things," Durdles
acquiesces: pausing on the remark, as if the idea of ghosts
had not previously presented itself to him in a merely inconvenient light, domestically, or chronologically.' But do you
think there may be Ghosts of other things, though not of men
and women?"
" What things? Flower-beds and watering-pots? Horses
and harness? "
"No. Sounds."
What sounds? 
" Cries."
"What cries do you mean?  Chairs to mend?"
"No. I mean screeches. Now, I'll tell you, Mister Jarsper. Wait a bit till I put the bottle right." Here the cork
is evidently taken out again, and replaced again. "There!



A NIGHT     WITH     DURDLES.            101
Now it's right! This time last year, only a few days later, I
happened to have been doing what was correct by the season,
in the way of giving it the welcome it had a right to expect,
when them townboys set on me at their worst. At length I
gave'em the slip, and turned in here. And here I fell asleep,
And what woke me? The ghost of a cry. The ghost of one
terrific shriek, which shriek was followed by the ghost of the
howl of a dog: a long dismal woeful howl, such as a dog gives
when a person's dead. That was my last Christmas Eve."
" What do you mean? " is the very abrupt, and, one might
say, fierce retort.
" I mean that I made inquiries everywhere about, and that
no living ears but mine heard either that cry or that howl.
So I say they was both ghosts; though why they came to me,
I've never made out."
" I thought you were another kind of a man," says Jasper,
scornfully.
"So I thought, myself," answers Durdles with his usual
composure; " and yet I was picked out for it."
Jasper had risen suddenly, when he asked him what he
meant, and he now says, " Come; we shall freeze here; lead
the way."
Durdles complies, not'over-steadily; opens the door at the
top of the steps with the key he has already used; and so
emerges on the Cathedral level, in a passage at the side of the
chancel. Here, the moonlight is so very bright again that
the colors of the nearest stained-glass window are thrown
upon their faces. The appearance of the unconscious Durdles, holding the door open for his companion to follow, as if
from the grave, is ghastly enough, with a purple band across
his face, and a yellow splash upon his brow; but he bears the
close scrutiny of his companion in an insensible way, although
it is prolonged while the latter fumbles among his pockets for
a key confided to him that will open an iron gate so to enable
them to pass to the staircase of the great tower.
"That and the bottle are enough for you to carry," he says,
10



162   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
giving it to Durdles; "hand your bundle to me; I am younger and longer-winded than you." Durdles hesitates for a moment between bundle and bottle; but gives the preference to
the bottle as being by far the better company, and consigns the
dry weight to his fellow-explorer.
Then they go up the winding staircase of the great tower,
toilsomely, turning and turning, and lowering their heads to
avoid the stairs above, or the rough stone pivot around which
they twist. Durdles has lighted his lantern, by drawing from
the cold hard wall a spark of that mysterious fire which lurks
in everything, and, guided by this speck, they clamber up
among the cobwebs and the dust. Their way lies through
strange places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level lowarched galleries, whence they can look down into the moonlit
nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, shows the dim
angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch
their progress. Anon, they turn into narrower and steeper
staircases, and the night air begins to blow upon them, and the
chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes
the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their light behind a stair-for it blows fresh up here-they
look down on Cloisterham, fair to see in the moonlight; its
ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead, at the tower's
base; its moss-softened red-tiled roofs and red-brick houses of
the living, clustered beyond; its river winding down from the
mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already
heaving with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the
sea.
Once again, an unaccountable expedition this! Jasper (always moving softly with no visible reason) contemplates the
scene, and especially that stillest part of it which the Cathedral
overshadows. But he contemplates Durdles quite as curiously,
and Durdles is by times conscious of his watchful eyes.
Only by times, because Durdles is growing drowsy. As
aeronauts lighten the load they carry, when they wish to rise,



A  NIGHT     WITH    DURDLES.            163
similarly Durdles has lightened the wicker bottle in coming up.
Snatches of sleep surprise him on his legs, and stop him in his
talk. A mild fit of calenture seizes him, in which he deems
that the ground, so far below, is on a level with the tower, and
would as lief walk off the tower into the air as not. Such is
his state when they begin to come down. And as aeronauts
make themselves heavier when they wish to descend, similarly
Durdles charges himself with more liquid from the wicker
bottle, that he may come down the better.
The iron gate attained and locked-but not before Durdles
has tumbled twice, and cut an eyebrow open once-they descend into the crypt again, with the intent of issuing forth as
they entered. But, while returning among those lanes of
light, Durdles becomes so very uncertain, both of foot and
speech, that he half drops, half throwns himself down, by one
of the heavy pillars, scarcely less heavy than itself, and indistinctly appeals to his companion for forty winks of a second
each.
" If you will have it so, or must have it so," replies Jasper,' I'll not leave you here. Take them, while I walk to and fro."
Durdles is asleep at once; and in his sleep he dreams a dream.
It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of
the domains of dreamland, and their wonderful productions;
it is only remarkable for being unusually restless, and unusually real. He dreams of lying there, asleep, and yet counting
his companion's footsteps as he walks to and fro. He dreams
that the footsteps die away into distance of time and of space,
and that something touches him, and that something falls from
his hand. Then something clinks and gropes about, and he
dreams that he is alone for so long a time, that the lanes of
light take new directions as the moon advances in her course.
From succeeding unconsciousness, he passes into a dream of
slow uneasiness from cold; and painfully awakes to a perception of the lanes of light-really changed, much as he had
dreamed-and Jasper walking among them, beating his hands
and feet.



164   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"Holloa! " Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed.
"Awake at last? " says Jasper, coming up to him. "Do
you know that your forties have stretched into thousands?"
N No."
"They have though."
What's the time? "
Hark! The bells are going in the Tower!"
They strike four quarters, and then the great bell strikes.
"Two!" cries Durdles, scrambling up; "why didn't you
try to wake me, Mister Jarsper? "
"I did. I might as well have tried to wake the dead:your own family of dead, up in the corner there."
"Did you touch me?"
"Touch you? Yes. Shook you."
As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he
looks down on the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door
lying close to where he himself lay.
" I dropped you, did I? " he says, picking it up, and recalling that part of his dream. As he gathers himself again into
an upright position, or into a position as nearly upright as he
ever maintains, he is again conscious of being watched by his
companion.
" Well?" says Jasper, smiling. "Are you quite ready?
Pray don't hurry."
"Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and.I'm with
you."
As he ties it afresh, he is once more conscious that he is very
narrowly observed.
" What do you suspect me of, Mister Jarsper?" he asks,
with drunken displeasure. "Let them as has any suspicions
of Durdles, name'em."
"I've no suspicions of you, my good Mr. Durdles; but I
have suspicions that my bottle was filled with something stiffer
than either of us supposed. And I also have suspicions," Jasber adds, taking it from the pavement and turning it bottom
upward, "that it's empty."



A  NIGHT     WITH    DURDLES.             165
Durdles condescends to laugh at this. Continuing to
chuckle when his laugh is over, as though remonstrant with
himself on his drinking powers, he rolls to the door and unlocks
it. They both pass out, and Durdles relocks it, and pockets
his key.
"A thousand thanks for a curious and interesting night,"
says Jasper, giving him his hand; " you can make your own
way home?"
"I should think so!" answers Durdles. "If you was to
offer Durdles the affront to show him  his way home, he
wouldn't go home.
Durdles wouldn't go home till morning,
And then Durdles wouldn't go home,
Durdles wouldn't." This, with the utmost defiance.
"Good-night, then."
"Good-night, Mister Jarsper."
Each is turning his own way, when a sharp whistle rends
the silence, and the jargon is yelped out:
"Widdy widdy wen!
I-ket-ches-Im-out-ar-ter-ten.
Widdy widdy wy!
Then-E-don't-go-then-I-shyWiddy Widdy Wake-cock warning!"
Instantly afterwards, a rapid fire of stones rattles at the Cathedral wall, and the hideous small boy is beheld opposite, dancing in the moonlight.
"What! Is that baby-devil on the watch there!" cries Jasper in a fury: so quickly roused, and so violent, that he seems
an older devil himself. "I shall shed the blood of that Impish wretch! I know I shall do it!"  Regardless of the fire,
though it hits him more than once, he rushes at Deputy, collars him, and tries to bring him across. But Deputy is not to
be so easily brought across. With a diabolical insight into
the strongest part of his position, he is no sooner taken by the
throat than he curls up his legs, forces his assailant to hang
him, as it were, and gurgles in his throat, and screws his body,



166   THE   MYSTERY OF EDWIN            DROOD.
and twists, as already undergoing the first agonies of strangulation. There is nothing for it but to drop him. He instantly
gets himself together, backs over to Durdles, and cries to his
assailant, gnashing the great gap in front of his mouth with
rage and malice:
I'll blind yer, s'elp me! I'll stone yer eyes out, s'elp me!
If I don't have yer eyesight, bellows me!"  At the same time
dodging behind Durdles, and snarling at Jasper, now from this
side of him, and now from that: prepared, if pounced upon, to
dart away in all manner of curvilinear directions, and, if run
down after all, to grovel in the dust, and cry: "Now, hit me
when I'm down! Do it! "
" Don't hurt the boy, Mister Jarsper," urges Durdles, shielding him. "Recollect yourself."
" He followed us to-night, when we first came here!
" Yer lie, I didn't I" replies Deputy, in his one form of polite contradiction.
"He has been prowling near us ever since!"
" Yer lie, I haven't," returns Deputy. "I'd only jist come
out for my'elth when I see you two a coming out of the Kinfreederel. If" I-ket-ches-Im-out-ar-ter-ten,"
(with the usual rhythm and dance, though dodging behina
Durdles), " it ain't my fault, is it? "
" Take him home, then," retorts Jasper, ferociously, though
with a strong check upon himself, " and let my eyes be rid of
the sight of you!"
Deputy, with another sharp whistle, at once expressing his
relief, and his commencement of a milder stoning of Mr. Durdles, begins stoning that respectable gentleman home, as if he
were a reluctant ox. Mr. Jasper goes to his Gate House,
brooding. And thus, as everything comes to an end, the unaccountable expedition comes to an end-for the time.



BOTH    AT   THEIR    BEST.            167
CHAPTER XIII.
BOTH AT THEIR BEST.
MIss TWINKLETON'S establishment was about to undergo
a serene hush. The Christmas recess was at hand. What
had once, and at no remote period been called, even by the
erudite Miss Twinkleton herself, "the half;" but what was
now called, as being more elegant and more strictly collegiate;
"the term," would expire to-morrow. A noticeable relaxation
of discipline had for some few days pervaded the Nuns'
House. Club suppers had occurred in the bedrooms, and a
dressed tongue had been carved with a pair of scissors, and
handed round with the curling-tongs. Portions of marmalade
had likewise been distributed on a service of plates constructed
of curlpaper; and cowslip wine had been quaffed from the
small squat measuring glass in which little Rickitts (a junior
of weakly constitution), took her steel drops daily.  The
housemaids had been bribed with various fragments of riband,
and sundry pairs of shoes, more or less down at heel, to make
no mention of crumbs in the beds; the airiest costumes had
been worn on these festive occasions; and the daring Miss
Ferdinand had even surprised the company with a sprightly
solo on the comb-and-curlpaper, until suffocated in her own
pillow by two flowing-haired executioners.
Nor were these the only tokens of dispersal. Boxes appeared in the bedrooms (where they were capital at other
times), and a surprising amount of packing took place, out of
all proportion to the amount packed. Largesse, in the form
of odds and ends of cold cream and pomatum, and also of
hairpins, was freely distributed among the attendants. On
charges of inviolable secresy, confidences were interchanged
respecting golden youth of England expected to call, "at
home," on the first opportunity. Miss Giggles, (deficient in
sentiment) did indeed profess that she, for her part, acknowl



168   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
edged such homage by making faces at the golden youth; but
this young lady was outvoted by an immense majority.
On the last night before a recess, it was always expressly
made a point of honor that nobody should go to sleep, and
that Ghosts should be encouraged by all possible means.
This compact invariably broke down, and all the young ladies
went to sleep very soon, and got up very early.
The concluding ceremony came off at twelve o'clock on the
day of departure; when Miss Twinkleton, supported by Mrs.
Tisher, held a Drawing-Room in her own apartment (the
globes already covered with brown holland), where glasses of
white wine, and plates of cut pound-cake were discovered on
the table. Miss Twinkleton then said, Ladies, another revolving year had brought us round to that festive period at
which the first feelings of our nature bounded in ourMiss Twinkleton was annually going to add "bosoms," but
annually stopped on the brink of that expression, and substituted "hearts."  Hearts; our hearts. Hem! Again a revolving year, ladies, had brought us to a pause in our studies
-let us hope our greatly advanced studies-and, like the mariner in his bark, the warrior in his tent, the captive in his
dungebn, and the traveller in his various conveyances, we
yearned for home. Did we say, on such an occasion, in the
opening words of Mr. Addison's impressive tragedy:
"The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, th' important day-?"
Not so. From horizon to zenith all was couleur de rose, for
all was redolent of our relations and friends. Might we find
them prospering as we expected; might they find us prospering as they expected! Ladies, we would now, with our love
to one another, wish one another good-bye, and happiness,
until we met again. And when the time should come for our
resumption of those pursuits which (here a general depression
set in all round), pursuits which, pursuits which;-then let us
ever remember what was said by the Spartan General, in



BOTH    AT   THEIR BEST.               169
words too trite for repetition, at the battle it were superfluous to specify.
The handmaidens of the establishment, in their best caps,
then handed the trays, and the young ladies sipped and
crumbled, and the bespoken coaches began to choke the street.
Then, leave-taking was not long about, and Miss Twinkleton,
in saluting each young lady's cheek, confided to her an exceedingly neat letter, addressed to her next friend at law, " with
Miss Twinkleton's best compliments" in the corner.  This
missive she handed with an air as if it had not the least connection with the bill, but were something in the nature of a
delicate and joyful surprise.
So many times had Rosa seen such dispersals, and so very
little did she know of any other Home, that she was contented
to remain where she was, and was even better contented than
ever before, having her latest friend with her. And yet her
latest friendship had a blank place in it of which she could not
fail to be sensible. Helena Landless, having been a party to
her brother's revelation about Rosa, and having entered into
that compact of silence with Mr. Crisparkle, shrank from any
allusion to Edwin Drood's name. Why she so avoided it, was
mysterious to Rosa, but she perfectly perceived the fact. But
for the fact, she might have relieved her own little perplexed
heart of some of its doubts and hesitations, by taking Helena
into her confidence. As it was, she had no such vent: she
could only ponder on her own difficulties, and wonder more
and more why this avoidance of Edwin's name should last,
now that she knew-for so much Helena had told her-that a
good understanding was to be re-established between the two
young men, when Edwin came down.
It would have made a pretty picture, so many pretty girls
kissing Rosa in the cold porch of the Nuns' House, and that
sunny little creature peeping out of it (unconscious of sly
faces carved on spout and gable peeping at her), and waving
farewells to the departing coaches, as if she represented the
spirit of rosy youth abiding in the place to keep it bright and



170   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
warm in its desertion. The hoarse High street became musical with the cry, in various silvery voices, "Good-bye, Rosebud, Darling! " and the effigy of Mr. Sapsea's father over the
opposite doorway, seemed to say to mankind: " Gentlemen,
favor me with your attention to this charming little last lot
left behind, and bid with a spirit worthy of the occasion!"
Then the staid street, so unwontedly sparkling, youthful, and
fresh f6r a few rippling moments, ran dry, and Cloisterham
was itself again.
If Rosebud in her bower now waited Edwin Drood's coming
with an uneasy heart, Edwin for his part was uneasy too.
With far less force of purpose in his composition than the
childish beauty, crowned by acclamation fairy queen of Miss
Twinkleton's establishment, he had a conscience, and Mr.
Grewgious had pricked it. That gentleman's steady convictions of what was right and what was wrong in such a case as
his, were neither to be frowned aside, nor laughed aside. They
would not be moved. But for the dinner in Staple Inn, and
but for the ring he carried in the breast-pocket of his coat, he
would have drifted into their wedding-day without another
pause for real thought, loosely trusting that all would go well,
left alone. But that serious putting him on his truth to the
living and the dead had brought him to a check. He must
either give the ring to Rosa, or he must take it back. Once
put into this narrowed way of action, it was curious that he
began to consider Rosa's claims upon him more unselfishly
than he had ever considered them before, and began to be less
sure of himself than he had ever been in all his easy-going
days.
" I will be guided by what she says, and by how we get on,"
was his decision, walking from the Gate House to the Nuns'
House. "Whatever comes of it, I will bear his words in mind,
and try to be true to the living and the dead."
Rosa was dressed for walking. She expected him. It was
a bright frosty day, and Miss Twinkleton had already graciously sanctioned fresh air. Thus they got out together be



BOTH    AT   THEIR     BEST.           171
fore it became necessary for either Miss Twinkleton, or the
Deputy High Priest, Mrs. Tisher, to lay even so much as one
of those usual offerings on the shrine of Propriety.
" My dear Eddy," said Rosa, when they had turned out of
the High Street, and had got among the quiet walks in the
neighborhood of the Cathedral and the river: " I want to say
something very serious to you. I have been thinking about
it for a long, long time."
" I want to be serious with you too, Rosa dear. I mean to
be serious and earnest."
"Thank you, Eddy. And you will not think me unkind
because I begin, will you? You will not think I speak for
myself only, because I speak first?  That would not be
generous; would it? And I know you are generous! "
He said, "I hope I am not ungenerous to you, Rosa." He
called her Pussy no more. Never again.
"And there is no fear," pursued Rosa, " of our quarrelling,
is there? Because, Eddy," clasping her hand on his arm,
"we have so much reason to be very lenient to each other!"
" We will be, Rosa."
" That's a dear good boy! Eddy, let us be courageous. Let
us change to brother and sister from this day forth."
"Never be husband and wife?"
" Never!"
Neither spoke again for a little while. But after that
pause he said, with some effort:
" Of course I know that this has been in both our minds,
Rosa, and of course I am in honor bound to confess freely that
ft does not originate with you."
"No, nor with you, dear," she returned, with pathetic earnestness. "It has sprung up between us. You are not truly
happy in our engagement; I am not truly happy in'it. 0,
I am so sorry, so sorry!"  And there she broke into tears.
"I am deeply sorry too, Rosa. Deeply sorry for you."
"And I for you, poor boy! And I for you!"
This pure young feeling, this gentle and forbearing feeling



172   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
of each towards the other, brought with it its reward in a
softening light that seemed to shine on their position. The
relations between them did not look wilful, or capricious, or a
failure, in such a light; they became elevated into something
more self-denying, honorable, affectionate, and true.
" If we knew yesterday," said Rosa, as she dried her eyes,
" and we did know yesterday, and on many, many yesterdays,
that we were far from right together in those relations which
were not of our own choosing, what better could we do to-day
than change them? It is natural that we should be sorry, and
you see how sorry we both are; but how much better to be
sorry now than then!"
"When, Rosa?"
"When it would be too late. And then we should be
angry, besides."
Another silence fell upon them.
"And you know," said Rosa, innocently, "you couldn't
like me then; and you can always like me now, for I shall not
be a drag upon you, or a worry to you. And I can always
like you now, and your sister will not tease or trifle with you.
I often did when I was not your sister, and I beg your pardon for it."
"Don't let us come to thatE Rosa; or I shall want more
pardoning than I like to think of."
"No, indeed, Eddy; you are too hard, my generous boy,
upon yourself. Let us sit down, brother, on these ruins, and
let me tell you how it was with us. I think I know, for I
have considered about it very much since you were here, last
time. You liked me, didn't you? You thought I was. nice
little thing?"
" Everybody thinks that, Rosa."
"Do they? "  She knitted her brow musingly for a moment, and then flashed out with the bright little induction;
"Well; but say they do. Surely it was not enough that you
should think of me, only as other people did; now, was it?"
The point was not to be got over. It was not enough.



BOTH    AT   THEIR    BEST.           178
"And that is just what I mean; that is just how it was
with us," said Rosa. "You liked me very well, and you had
grown used to me, and had grown used to the idea of our
being married. You accepted the situation as an inevitable
kind of thing, didn't you? It was to be, you thought, and
why discuss or dispute it? "
It was new and strange to him to have himself presented to
himself so clearly, in a glass of her holding up. He had
always patronized her, in his superiority to her share of
woman's wit. Was that but another instance of something
radically amiss in the terms on which they had been gliding
towards a life-long bondage?
"All this that I say of you, is true of me as well, Eddy.
Unless it was, I might not be bold enough to say it. Only,
the difference between us was, that by little and little there
crept into my mind a habit of thinking about it, instead of
dismissing it. My life is not so busy as yours, you see, and I
have not so many things to think of. So I thought about it
very much, and I cried about it very much too (though that
was not your fault, poor boy); when all at once my guardian
came down, to prepare for my leaving the Nuns' House. I
tried to hint to him that I was not quite settled in my mind,
but I hesitated and failed, and he didn't understand me. But
he is a good, good man. And he put before me so kindly, and
yet so strongly, how seriously we ought to consider, in our circumstances, that I resolved to speak to you the next moment
we were alone and grave. And if I seemed to come to it easily
just now, because I came to it all at once, don't think it was
so really, Eddy, for 0, it was very, very hard, and 0, I am
very, very sorry! "
Her full heart broke into tears again. He put his arm
about her waist, and they walked by the river side together.
"t Your guardian has spoken to me too, Rosa dear. I saw
him before I left London." His right hand was in his breast,
seeking the ring; but he checked it as he thought; " If I am
to take it back, why should I tell her of it?"



174   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN     DROOD.
" And that made you more serious about it, didn't it, Eddy?
And if I had not spoken to you, as I have, you would have
spoken to me? I hope you can tell me so? I don't like it to
be all my doing, though it is so much better for us."
"Yes, I should have spoken; I should have put everything
before you; I came intending to do it. But I never could
have spoken to you as you have spoken to me, Rosa."
" Don't say you mean so coldly or unkindly, Eddy, please,
if you can help it."
" I mean so sensibly and delicately, so wisely and affectionately."
" That's my dear brother!"  She kissed his hand in a little
rapture. "The dear girls will be dreadfully disappointed,"
added Rosa, laughing, with the dew-drops glistening in her
bright eyes. " They have looked forward to it so, poor pets!"
" Ah! But I fear it will be a worse disappointment to
Jack," said Edwin Drood, with a start. "I never thought of
Jack!"
Her swift and intent look at him as he said the words,
could no more be recalled than a flash of lightning can. But
it appeared as though she would have instantly recalled it, if
she could; for she looked down, confused, and breathed
quickly.
" You don't doubt it's being a blow to Jack, Rosa?"
She merely replied, and that, evasively and hurriedly: Why
should she? She had not thought about it. He seemed, to
her, to have so little to do with it.
" My dear child! Can you suppose that any one so wrapped
up in another-Mrs. Tope's expression: not mine-as Jack is
in me, could fail to be struck all of a heap by such a sudden
and complete change in my life? I say sudden, because it
will be sudden to him, you know."
She nodded twice or thrice, and her lips parted as if she
would have assented. But she uttered no sound, and her
breathing was no slower.
" How shall I tell Jack!" said Edwin, ruminating. If he



BOTH    AT   THEIR    BEST.            175
had been less occupied with the thought, he must have seen
her singular emotion. "I never thought of Jack. It must be
broken to him, before the town crier knows it. I dine with
the dear fellow to-morrow and next day-Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day-but it would never do to spoil his feast days.
He always worries about me, and moddley-coddleys in the
merest trifles. The news is sure to overset him. How on
earth shall this be broken to Jack! "
" He must be told, I suppose? " said Rosa.
My dear Rosa! Who ought to be in our confidence, if
not Jack? "
"My guardian promised to come down, if I should write
and ask him. I am going to do so. Would you like to leave
it to him?"
"A bright idea!" cried Edwin. "The other trustee.
Nothing more natural. He comes down, he goes to Jack, he
relates what we have agreed upon, and he states our case better
than we could. He has already spoken feelingly to you, he
has already spoken feelingly to me, and he'll put the whole
thing feelingly to Jack. That's it! I am not a coward, Rosa,
but to tell you a secret, I am a little afraid of Jack."
" No, no! You are not afraid of him? " cried Rosa, turning white and clasping her hands.
" Why, sister Rosa, sister Rosa, what do you see from the
turret? " said Edwin, rallying her. " My dear girl!"
"You frightened me."
" Most unintentionally, but I am as sorry as if I had meant
to do it. Could you possibly suppose for a moment, from any
loose way of speaking of mine, that I was literally afraid of
the dear fond fellow? What I mean is, that he is subject to
a kind of paroxysm, or fit-I saw him in it once-and I don't
know but that so great a surprise, coming upon him direct
from me whom he is so wrapped up in, might bring it on perhaps. Which-and this is the secret I was going to tell you
-is another reason for your guardian's making the communication. IIe is so steady, precise, and exact, that he will talk



176   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
Jack's thoughts into shape, in no time: whereas with me
Jack is always impulsive and hurried, and, I may say, almost
womanish."
Rosa seemed convinced. Perhaps from her own very different point of view of "Jack," she felt comforted and protected
by the interposition of Mr. Grewgious between herself and
him.
And now, Edwin Drood's right hand closed again upon the
ring in its little case, and again was checked by the consideration: " It is certain, now, that I am to give it back to him;
then why should I tell her of it? " That pretty sympathetic
nature which could be so sorry for him in the blight of their
childish hopes of happiness together, and could so quietly find
itself alone in a new world to weave fresh wreaths of'such
flowers as it might prove to bear, the old world's flowers being
withered, would be grieved by those sorrowful jewels; and to
what purpose? Why should it be? They were but a sign
of broken joys and baseless projects; in their very beauty,
they were (as the unlikeliest of men had said), almost a cruel
satire on the loves, hopes, plans, of humanity, which are able
to forecast nothing, and are so much brittle dust. Let them
be. He would restore them to her guardian when he came
down; he in his turn would restore them to the cabinet from
which he had unwillingly taken them; and there, like old
letters or old vows, or other records of old aspirations come to
nothing, they would be disregarded, until, being valuable,
they were sold into circulation again, to repeat their former
round.
Let them be. Let them lie unspoken of, in his breast.
However distinctly or indistinctly he entertained these
thoughts, he arrived at the conclusion, Let them be. Among
the mighty store of wonderful chains that are for ever forging
day and night, in the vast iron-works of time and circumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment of that
small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of heaven and
earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold and drag.



BOTH    AT THEIR      BEST.            177
They walked on by the river. They began to speak of their
separate plans. He would quicken his departure from England, and she would remain where she was, at least as long as
Helena remained. The poor dear girls should have their disappointment broken to them gently, and, as the first preliminary, Miss Twinkleton should be confided in by Rosa, even
in advance of the reappearance of Mr. Grewgious. It should
be made clear in all quarters that she and Edwin were the
best of friends. There had never been so serene an understanding between them since they were first affianced. And
yet there was one reservation on each side; on hers, that she
intended through her guardian to withdraw herself immediately from the tuition of her music-master; on his, that he
did already entertain some wandering speculations whether it
might ever come to pass that he would know more of Miss
Landless.
The bright frosty day declined as they walked and spoke
together. The sun dipped in the river far behind them, and
the old city lay red before them, as their walk drew to a close.
The moaning water cast its seaweed duskily at their feet, when
they turned to leave its.margin; and the rooks hovered above
them with hoarse cries, darker splashes in the darkening air.
" I will prepare Jack for my flitting soon," said Edwin, in
a low voice, " and I will but see your guardian when he comes,
then go before they speak together. It will be better done
without my being by. Don't you think so?"
Yes."
"We know we have done right, Rosa?"
" Yes."
"We know we are better so, even now?"
"And shall be far, far better so, by-and-bye."
Still, there was that lingering tenderness in their hearts
towards the old position they were relinquishing, that they
prolonged their parting. When they came among the elm
trees by the cathedral, where they had last sat together, they
stopped, as by consent, and Rosa raised her face to his, as she
11



178    THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
had never raised it in the old days;-for they were old
already.
"God bless you, dear! Good-bye! "
"God bless you, dear! Good-bye! "
They kissed each other, fervently.
"Now, please take me home, Eddy, and let me be by myself."
" Don't look round, Rosa," he cautioned her, as he drew
her arm through his, and led her away.  "Didn't you see
Jack?"
"'No! Where?"
"Under the trees. He saw us, as we took leave of each
other. Poor fellow! he little thinks we have parted. This
will be a blow to him, I am much afraid!"
She hurried on, without resting, and hurried on until they
had passed under the Gate House into the street; once there,
she asked:
"- Has he followed us? You can look without seeming to.
Is he behind? "
"No. Yes! he is! He has just passed out under the
gateway. The dear sympathetic old fellow likes to keep us in
sight. I am afraid he will be bitterly disappointed!"
She pulled hurriedly at the handle of the hoarse old bell,
and the gate soon opened. Before going in, she gave him one
last wide wondering look, as if she would have asked him with
imploring emphasis: "0! don't you understand?"    And
out of that look he vanished from her view.
CHAPTER XIV.
WHEN SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN?
CHRISTMAS EVE in Cloisterham. A few strange faces in
the streets; a few other faces, half strange and half familiar,



SHALL     THESE THREE MEET AGAIN?                179
once the faces of Cloisterham children, now the faces of men
and women who come back from the outer world at long intervals to find the city wonderfully shrunken in size, as if it had
not washed by any means well in the meanwhile. To these,
the striking of the Cathedral clock, and the cawing of the
rooks from the Cathedral tower, are like voices of their nursery
time. To such as these, it has happened in their dying hours
afar off, that they have imagined their chamber floor, to be
strewn with the autumnal leaves fallen from the elm trees in
the close: so have the rustling sounds and fresh scents of their
earliest impressions revived, when the circle of their lives was
very nearly traced, and the beginning and the end were drawing close together.
Seasonable tokens are about. Red berries shine here and
there in the lattices of Minor Canon Corner; Mr. and Mrs. Tope
are daintily sticking sprigs of holly into the carvings and
sconces of the cathedral stalls, as if they were sticking them into
the coat-buttonholes of the Dean and Chapter. Lavish profusion is in the shops: particularly in the articles of currants,
raisins, spices, candied peel, and moist sugar. An unusual air
of gallantry and dissipation is abroad; evinced in an immense
bunch of mistletoe hanging in the greengrocer's shop doorway, and a poor little Twelfth Cake, culminating in the figure
of a Harlequin-such a very poor little Twelfth Cake, that one
would rather call it a Twenty Fourth-Cake, or a Forty-Eighth
Cake-to be raffled for at the pastrycook's, terms one shilling
per member. Public amusements are not wanting. The
Wax-Work which made so deep an impression on the reflective mind of the Emperor of Ctina is to be seen by particular
desire during Christmas Week only, on the premises of the
bankrupt livery-stable keeper up the lane; and a new grand
comic Christmas pantomime is to be produced at the Theatre:
the latter heralded by the portrait of Signor Jacksonini the
clown, saying "How do you do to-morrow?" quite as large
as life, and almost as miserably. In short, Cloisterham is up
and doing: though from this description the High School and



180   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD,
Miss Twinkleton's are to be excluded. From the former establishment, the scholars have gone home, every one of them
in love with one of Miss Twinkleton's young ladies, (who
knows nothing about it); and only the handmaidens flutter
occasionally in the windows of the latter. It is noticed, bythe-bye, that these damsels become, within the limits of decorum, more skittish when thus entrusted with the concrete representation of their sex, than when dividing the representation with Miss Twinkleton's young ladies.
Three are to meet at the Gate House to-night. How does
each one of the three get through the day?
Neville Landless, though absolved from his books for the
time by Mr. Crisparkle-whose fresh nature is by no means
insensible to the charms of a holiday-reads and writes in his
quiet room, with a concentrated air, until it is two hours past
noon. He then sets himself to clearing his table, to arranging his books, and to tearing up and burning his stray papers.
He makes a clean sweep of all untidy accumulations, puts all
his drawers in order, and leaves no note or scrap of paper undestroyed, save such memoranda as bear directly on his studies.
This done, he turns to his wardrobe, selects a few articles of
ordinary wear-among them, change of stout shoes and socks
for walking-and packs these in a knapsack. This knapsack
is new, and he bought it in the High Street yesterday. He
also purchased, at the same time and at the same place, a
heavy walking-stick: strong in the handle for the grip of the
hand, and iron-shod. He tries this, swings it, poises it, and
lays it by, with the knapsack, on a window-seat. By this
time his arrangements are complete.
He dresses for going out, and is in the act of going-indeed
has left his room, and has met the Minor Canon on the staircase, coming out of his bedroom upon the same story-when
he turns back again for his walking-stick, thinking he will
carry it now. Mr. Crisparkle, who has paused on the staircase, sees it in his hand on his immediately reappearing, takes



SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN?                  181
it from him, and asks him with a smile how he chooses a
stick?
"Really I don't know that I understand the subject," he
answers. " I chose it for its weight."
"Much too heavy, Neville; much too heavy."
"To rest upon in a long walk, sir? "
"Rest upon? " repeats Mr. Crisparkle, throwing himself
into pedestrian form. "You don't rest upon it; you merely
balance with it."
"I shall know better, with practice, sir. I have not lived
in a walking country, you know."
"True," says Mr. Crisparkle. "Get into a little training,
and we will have a few score miles together. I should leave
you nowhere now. Do you come back before dinner? "
"I think not, as we dine early."
Mr. Crisparkle gives him a bright nod and a cheerful goodbye: expressing (not without intention), absolute confidence
and ease.
Neville repairs to the Nuns' House, and requests that Miss
Landless may be informed that her brother is there, by appointment. He waits at the gate, not even crossing the
threshold; for he is on his parole not to put himself in Rosa's
way.
His sister is at least as mindful of the obligation they have
taken on themselves, as he can be, and loses not a moment in
joining him. They meet affectionately, avoid lingering there,
and walk towards the upper inland country.
" I am not going to tread upon forbidden ground, Helena,"
says Neville, when they have walked some distance and are
turning; "you will understand in another moment that I cannot help referring to-what shall I say-my infatuation."
" Had you not better avoid it, Neville? You know that I
can hear nothing."
"You can hear, my dear, what Mr. Crisparkle has heard,
and heard with approval."
" Yes; I can hear so much."



182   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"Well, it is this. I am not only unsettled and unhappy
myself, but I am conscious of unsettling and interfering with
other people. How do I know that, but for my unfortunate
presence, you, and-and-the rest of that former party, our
engaging guardian excepted, might be dining cheerfully in
Minor Canon Corner to-morrow? Indeed it probably would
be so. I can see too well that I am not high in the old lady's
opinion, and it is easy to understand what an irksome clog I
must be upon the hospitalities of her orderly house-especially
at this time of year-when I must be kept asunder from this
person, and there is such a reason for my not being brought
into contact with that person, and an unfavorable reputation
has preceded me with such another person, and so on. I have
put this very gently to Mr. Crisparkle, for you know his selfdenying ways; but still I have put it. What I have laid
much greater stress upon at the same time, is, that I am engaged in a miserable struggle with myself, and that a little
change and absence may enable me to come through it the
better. So, the weather being bright and hard, I am going
on a walking expedition, and intend taking myself out of
everybody's way (my own included, I hope), to-morrow morning."
"When to come back?"
" In a fortnight."
" And going quite alone?"
" I am much better without company, even if there were any
one but you to bear me company, my dear Helena."
" Mr. Crisparkle entirely agrees, you say? "
"Entirely. I am not sure but that at first he was inclined
to think it rather a moody scheme, and one that might do a
brooding mind harm. But we took a moonlight walk, last
Monday night, to talk it over at leisure, and I represented the
case to him as it really is. I showed him that I do want to
conquer myself, and that, this evening well got over, it is
surely better that I should be away from here just now, than
here. I could hardly help meeting certain people walking



SHALL THESE        THREE    MEET    AGAIN?      183
together here, and that could do no good, and is certainly not
the way to forget. A fortnight hence, that chance will probably be over, for the time; and when it again arises for the last
time, why, I can again go away. Further, I really do feel
hopeful of bracing exercise and wholesome fatigue. You know
that Mr. Crisparkle allows such things their full weight in the
preservation of his own sound mind in his own sound body,
and that his just spirit is not likely to maintain one set of
natural laws for himself and another for me. He yielded to my
view of the matter, when convinced that I was honestly in earnest, and so, with his full consent, I start to-morrow morning.
Early enough to be not only out of the streets, but out of hearing of the bells, when the good people go to church."
Helena thinks it over, and thinks well of it. Mr. Crisparkle doing so, she would do so; but she does originally, out of
her own mind, think well of it, as a healthy project, denoting
a sincere endeavor, and an active attempt at self-correction.
She is inclined to pity him, poor fellow, for going away solitary
on the great Christmas festival; but she feels it much more to
the purpose to encourage him.  And she does encourage him.
He will write to her?
He will write to her every alternate day, and tell her all his
adventures.
Does he send clothes on, in advance of him?
" My dear Helena, no. Travel like a pilgrim, with wallet
and staff. My wallet-or my knapsack-is packed, and ready
for strapping on; and here is my staff! "
He hands it to her; she makes the same remark as Mr.
Crisparkle, that it is very heavy; and gives it back to him,
asking what wood it is? Iron-wood.
Up to this point, he has been extremely cheerful. Perhaps,
the having to carry his case with her, and therefore to present
it in its brightest aspect, has roused his spirits. Perhaps, the
having done so with success, is followed by a revulsion. As
the day closes in, and the city lights begin to spring up before
them, he grows depressed.



184   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"I wish I were not going to this dinner, Helena."
" Dear Neville, is it worth while to care much about it I
Think how soon it will be over."
" How soon it will be over," he repeats, gloomily. " Yes
But I don't like it."
There may be a moment's awkwardness, she cheeringly represents to him, but it can only last a moment. He is quite
sure of himself.
" I wish I felt as sure of everything else, as I feel of myself,"
he answers her.
"How strangely you speak, dear! What do you mean?"
" Helena, I don't know. I only know that I don't like it.
What a strange dead weight there is in the air!"
She calls his attention to those copperous clouds beyond the
river, and says that the wind is rising. He scarcely speaks
again, until he takes leave of her, at the gate of the Nuns'
House. She does not immediately enter, when they have
parted, but remains looking after him along the street. Twice,
he passes the Gate House, reluctant to enter. At length, the
cathedral clock chiming one quarter, with a rapid turn he hurries in.
And so he goes up the postern stair.
Edwin Drood passes a solitary day. Something of deeper
moment than he had thought, has gone out of his life; and in
the silence of his own chamber he wept for it last night.
Though the image of Miss Landless still hovers in the background of his mind, the pretty little affectionate creature, so
much firmer and wiser than he had supposed, occupies its
stronghold. It is with some misgivings of his own unworthiness that he thinks of her, and of what they might have been
to one another, if he had been more in earnest some time ago;
if he had set a higher value on her; if, instead of accepting
his lot in life as an inheritance of course, he had studied the
right way to its appreciation and enhancement. And still,
for all this, and though there is a sharp heartache in all this,



SHALL    THESE     THREE    MEET    AGAIN?      185
the vanity and caprice of youth sustain that handsome figure
of Miss Landless in the background of his mind.
That was a curious look of Rosa's when they parted at the
gate. Did it mean that she saw below the surface of his
thoughts, and down into their twilight depths?  Scarcely
that, for it was a look of astonished and keen inquiry. He
decides that he cannot understand it, though it was remarkably expressive.
As he only awaits for Mr. Grewgious now, and will depart
immediately after having seen him, he takes a sauntering
leave of the ancient city and its neighborhood. He recalls
the time when Rosa and he walked here and there, mere children, full of the dignity of being engaged. Poor children!
he thinks, with a pitying sadness.
Finding that his watch has stopped, he turns into the jew.
eller's shop, to have it wound and set. The jeweller is know.
ing on the subject of a bracelet, which he begs leave to sub.
mit, in a general and quite aimless way. It would suit (he
considers) a young bride, to perfection.; especially if of a
rather diminutive style of beauty. Finding the bracelet but
coldly looked at, the jeweller invites attention to a tray of
rings for gentlemen; here is a style of ring, now, he remarks
-a very chaste signet-which gentlemen are much given
to purchasing, when changing their condition. A ring of a
very responsible appearance. With the date of their wedding
day engraved inside, several gentlemen have preferred it to
any other kind of memento.
The rings are as coldly viewed as the bracelet. Edwin tells
the tempter that he wears no jewelry but his watch and
chain, which were his father's; and his shirt-pin.
"That I am aware of," is the jeweller's reply, "for Mr.
Jasper dropped in for a watch-glass the other day, and, in fact,
I showed these articles to him, remarking that if he should
wish to make a present to a gentleman relative, on any particular occasion-But he said with a smile that he had an inventory in his mind of all the jewelry his gentleman relative



186   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
ever wore; namely, his watch and chain, and his shirt-pin.
Still (the jeweller considers) that might not apply to all
times, though applying to the present time. "Twenty minutes past two, Mr. Drood, I set your watch at. Let me
recommend you not to let it run down, sir."
Edwin takes his watch, puts it on, and goes out, thinking
"Dear old Jack! If I were to make an extra crease in my
neck-cloth, he would think it worth noticing "
He strolls about and about, to pass the time until the dinner hour. It somehow happens that Cloisterham seems reproachful to him to-day; has fault to find with him, as if he
had not used it well; but is far more pensive with him than
angry. His wonted carelessness is replaced by a wistful looking at, and dwelling upon, all the old landmarks. He will soon
be far away, and may never see them again, he thinks. Poor
youth! Poor youth!
As dusk draws on, he paces the Monks' Vineyard. He has
walked to and fro, full half an hour by the cathedral chimes,
and-it has closed in dark, before he becomes quite aware of a
woman crouching on the ground near a wicket gate in a corner. The gate commands a cross bye-path, little used in the
gloaming; and the figure must have been there all the time,
though he has but gradually and lately found it out.
He strikes into that path, and walks up to the wicket. By
the light of a lamp near it, he sees that the woman is of a
haggard appearance, and that her weazen chin is resting on
her hands, and that her eyes are staring-with an unwinking,
blind sort of steadfastness-before her.
Always kindly, but moved to be unusually kind this evening, and having bestowed kind words on most of the children
and aged people he has met, he at once bends down, and
speaks to this woman.
"Are you ill?"
"No, deary," she answers, without looking at him, and
with no departure from her strange blind stare.
" Are you blind? "



SHALL THESE        THREE MEET AGA.N?            187
"No, deary."
"Are you lost, homeless, faint? What is the matter, that
you stay here in the cold so long, without moving? "
By slow and stiff efforts, she appears to contract her vision
until it can rest upon him; and then a curious film passes
over her, and she begins to shake.
He straightens himself, recoils a step, and looks down at
her in a dread amazement; for he seems to know her.
"Good Heaven! " he thinks, next moment.' Like Jack
that night! "
As he looks down at her, she looks up at him, and whimpers: "My lungs is weakly; my lungs is drefful bad. Poor
me, poor me, my cough is rattling dry!"  And coughs in confirmation horribly.
" Where do you come from?"
"Come from London, deary."    (Her cough still rending
her.)
"Where are you going to?"
" Back to London, deary. I came here, looking for a needle in a haystack, and I ain't found it. Look'ee, deary; give
me three and sixpence, and don't you be afeard for me. I'll
get back to London then, and trouble no one. I'm in a business.-Ah, me! It's slack, it's slack, and times is very bad!
— but I can make a shift to live by it."
" Do you eat opium? "
" Smokes it," she replies with difficulty, still racked by her
cough. " Give me three and sixpence, and I'll lay it out well,
and get back. If you don't give me three and sixpence, don't
-give me a brass farden. And if you do give me three and
sixpence, deary, I'll tell you something."
He counts the money from his pocket, and puts it in her
hand. She instantly clutches it tight, and rises to her feet
with a croaking laugh of satisfaction.
" Bless ye! Harkee, dear genl'mn. What's your Chris'en
name? "
" Edwin."



188   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"Edwin, Edwin, Edwin," she repeats, trailing off into a
drowsy repetition of the word; and then asks suddenly: " Is
the short of that name. Eddy? "
" It is sometimes called so," he replies, with the color starting to his face.
"Don't sweethearts call it so? " she asks, pondering.
"How should I know!"
"Haven't you a sweetheart, upon your soul?"
" None."
She is moving away with, another "Bless ye, and thank'ee,
deary! " when he adds: "You were to tell me something;
you may as well do so."
" So I was, so I was. Well, then. Whisper. You be thankftil that you name ain't Ned."
He looks at her, quite steadily, as he asks: " Why? "
" Because it's a bad name to have just now."
" How a bad name? "
"A threatened name. A dangerous name."
" The proverb says that threatened men live long," he tells
her, lightly.
"Then Ned-so threatened is he, wherever he may be while
I am a talking to you, deary-should live to all eternity!"
replies the woman.
She has leaned forward, to say it in his ear, with her fore
finger shaking before his eyes, and now huddles herself together, and with another " Bless ye, and thank'ee!" goes
away in the direction of the Travellers' Lodging House.
This is not an inspiriting close to a dull day. Alone, in a
sequestered place, surrounded by vestiges of old time and
decay, it rather has a tendency to call a shudder into being.
He makes for the better lighted streets, and resolves as he
walks on to say nothing of this to-night, but to mention it to
Jack (who alone calls him Ned), as an odd coincidence, to-morrow; of course only as a coincidence, and not as anything
better worth remembering.
Still, it holds to him, as many things much better worth



SHALL    THESE THREE        MEET    AGAIN?      189
remembering never did. He has another mile or so, to linger
out before the dinner-hour; and, when he walks over the
bridge and by the river the woman's words are in the rising
wind, in the angry sky, in the troubled water, in the flickering
lights. There is some solemn echo of them, even in the cathedral chime, which strikes a sudden surprise to his heart as
he turns in under the archway of the Gate House.
And so he goes up the postern stair.
John Jasper passes a more agreeable and cheerful day than
either of his guests. Having no music-lessons to give in the
holiday season, his time is his own, but for the cathedral services. He is early among the shopkeepers, ordering little
luxuries that his nephew likes. His nephew will not be with
him long, he tells his provision-dealers, and so must be petted
and made much of. While out on his hospitable preparations,
he looks in on Mr. Sapsea; and mentions that dear Ned, and
that inflammable young spark of Mr. Crisparkle's, are to dine
at the Gate House to-day, and make up their difference. Mr.
Sapsea is by no means friendly towards the inflammable young
spark. He says that his complexion is " Un-English." And
when Mr. Sapsea has once declared anything to be Un-English,
he considers that thing everlastingly sunk in the bottomless
pit.
John Jasper is truly sorry to hear Mr. Sapsea speak thus,
for he knows right well that Mr. Sapsea never speaks without
a meaning, and that he has a subtle trick of being right. Mr.
Sapsea (by a very remarkable coincidence) is of exactly that
opinion.
Mr. Jasper is in beautiful voice this day. In the pathetic
supplication to have his heart inclined to keep this law, he
quite astonishes his fellows by his melodious power. He has
never sung difficult music with such skill and harmony, as in
this day's Anthem. His nervous temperament is occasionally
prone to take difficult music a little too quickly; to-day, his
time is perfect.



190   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN DROOD.
These results are probably attained through a grand composure of the spirits. The mere mechanism of his throat is a
little tender, for he wears, both with his singing-robe and with
his ordinary dress, a large black scarf of strong close-woven
silk, slung loosely round his neck. But his composure is so
noticeable, that Mr. Crisparkle speaks of it as they come out
from Vespers.
" I must thank you, Jasper, for the pleasure with which I
have heard you to-day. Beautiful! Delightful! You could
not have so outdone yourself, I hope, without being wonderfully well."
I am wonderfully well."
"Nothing unequal," says the Minor Canon, with a smooth
motion of his hand: " nothing unsteady, nothing forced, nothing avoided; all thoroughly done in a masterly manner, with
perfect self-command."
" Thank you. I hope so, if it is not too much to say."
" One would think, Jasper, you had been trying a new medicine for that occasional indisposition of yours."
"No, really? That's well observed; for I have."
"Then stick to it, my good fellow," says Mr. Crisparkle,
clapping him on the shoulder with friendly encouragement,
" stick to it."
" I will."
"I congratulate you," Mr. Crisparkle pursues, as they come
out of the cathedral, "on all accounts."
"Thank you again. I will walk round to the Corner with
you, if you don't object; I have plenty of time before my
company come; and I want to say a word to you, which I
think you will not be displeased to hear."
"What is it?"
" Well. We were speaking, the other evening, of my black
humors."
Mr. Crisparkle's face falls, and he shakes his head deploringly.
"I said, you know, that I should make you an antidote to



SHALL     THESE    THREE     MEET    AGAIN?     191
those black humors; and you said you hoped I would consign
them to the flames."
"And I still hope so, Jasper."
"With the best reason in the world! I mean to burn this
year's Diary at the year's end."
" Because you —   "  Mr. Crisparkle brightens greatly as
he thus begins.
" You anticipate me. Because I feel that I have been out
of sorts, gloomy, bilious, brain-oppressed, whatever it may be.
You said I had been exaggerative. So I have."
Mr. Crisparkle's brightened face brightens still more.
" I couldn't see it then, because I was out of sorts; but I
am in a healthier state now, and I acknowledge it with genuine pleasure. I made a great deal of a very little; that's the
fact."
" It does me good," cries Mr. Crisparkle, "to hear you say
it!"
" A man leading a monotonous life," Jasper proceeds, " and
getting his nerves, or his stomach, out of order, dwells upon
an idea until it loses its proportions. That was my case with
the idea in question. So I shall burn the evidence of my case,
when the book is full, and begin the next volume with a clearer
vision.
"This is better," says Mr. Crisparkle, stopping at the steps
of his own door to shake hands, " than I could have hoped!"
"Why, naturally," returns Jasper. "You had but little
reason to hope that I should become more like yourself. You
are always training yourself to be, mind and body, as clear as
crystal, and you always are, and never change; whereas, I am
a muddy, solitary, moping weed. However, I have got over
that mope. Shall I wait, while you ask if Mr. Neville has
left for my place?  If not, he and I may walk round together."
"I think," says Mr. Crisparkle, opening the entrance door
with his key, "that he left some time ago; at least I know
he left, and I think he has not come back. But I'll enquire.
You won't come in? "



192   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" My company wait," says Jasper, with a smile.
The Minor Canon disappears, and in a few moments returns.
As he thought, Mr. Neville had not come back; indeed, as he
remembers now, Mr. Neville said he would probably go straight
to the Gate House.
"Bad manners in a host! " says Jasper. "My company
will be there before me! What will you bet that I don't find
my company embracing? "
" I will bet-or I would, if I ever did bet," returns Mr. Crisparkle, " that your company will have a gay entertainer this
evening."
Jasper nods, and laughs Good Night!
He retraces his steps to the cathedral door, and turns down
past it to the Gate House. He sings, in a low voice and with
delicate expression, as he walks along. It still seems as if a
false note were not within his power to-night, and as if nothing
could hurry or retard him. Arriving thus, under the arched
entrance of his dwelling, he pauses for an instant in the shelter
to pull off that great black scarf, and hang it in a loop upon
his arm. For that brief time, his face is knitted and stern.
But it immediately clears, as he resumes his singing, and his
way.
And so hs goes up the postern stair.
The red light burns steadily all the evening in the lighthouse
on the margin of the tide of busy life. Softened sounds and
hum of traffic pass it and flow on irregularly into the lonely
Precincts; but very little else goes by, save violent rushes of
wind. It comes on to blow a boisterous gale.
The Precincts are never particularly well lighted; but the
strong blasts of wind blowing out many of the lamps (in some
instances shattering the frames too, and bringing the glass
rattling to the ground), they are unusually dark to-night.
The darkness is augmented and confused, by flying dust from
the earth, dry twigs from the trees, and great ragged fragments from the rooks' nests up in the tower. The trees them



SHALL    THESE     THREE MEET       AGAIN?      193
selves so toss and creak, as this tangible part of the darkness
madly whirls about, that they seem in peril of being torn out
of the earth: while ever and again a crack, and a rushing fall,
denotes that some large branch has yielded to the storm.
No such power of wind has blown for many a winter-night.
Chimneys topple in the streets, and people hold to posts and
corners, and to one another, to keep themselves upon their
feet. The violent rushes abate not, but increase in frequency
and fury until at midnight, when the streets are empty, the
storm goes thundering along them, rattling at all the latches,
and tearing at all the shutters, as if warning the people to get
up and fly with it, rather than have the roofs brought down
upon their brains.
Still, the red light burns steadily. Nothing is steady but
the red light.
All through the night, the wind blows, and abates not. But
early in the morning when there is barely enough light in the
east to dim the stars, it begins to lull. From that time, with
occasional wild charges, like a wounded monster dying, it drops
and sinks; and at full daylight it is dead.
It is then seen that the hands of the cathedral clock are
torn off; that lead from the roof has been stripped away, rolled
up, and blown into the Close; and that some stones have been
displaced upon the summit of the great tower. Christmas
morning though it be, it is necessary to send up workmen, to
ascertain the extent of the damage done. These, led by Dur.
dies, go aloft; while Mr. Tope and a crowd of early idlers
gather down in Minor Canon Corner, shading their eyes and
watching for their appearance up there.
This cluster is suddenly broken and put aside by the hands
of Mr. Jasper; all the gazing eyes are brought down to the
earth by his loudly enquiring of Mr. Crisparkle, at an open
window:
" Where is my nephew? 
"He has not been here. Is he not with you?"
"No. He went down to the river last night, with Mr. Ne12



194   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
ville, to look at the storm, and has not been back. Call Mr.
Neville!"
" He left this morning, early."
"Left this morning, early? Let me in, let me in!"
There is no more looking up at the tower, now. All the assembled eyes are turned on Mr. Jasper, white, half-dressed,
panting, and clinging to the rail before the Minor Canon's
house.
CHAPTER XV.
IMPEACHED.
NEVILLE LANDLESS had started so early and walked at so
good a pace, that when the church bells began to ring in Cloisterham for morning service, he was eight miles away. As he
wanted his breakfast by that time, having set forth on a crust
of bread, he stopped at the next roadside tavern to refresh.
Visitors in want of breakfast-unless they were horses or
cattle, for which class of guests there was preparation enough
in the way of water-trough and hay-were so unusual at the
sign of The Tilted Wagon, that it took a long time to get the
wagon into the track of tea and toast and bacon. Neville, in
the interval, sitting in a sanded parlor, wondering in how long
a time after he had gone, the sneezy fire of damp fagots would
begin to make somebody else warm.
Indeed, The Tilted Wagon, as a cool establishment on the
top of a hill, where the ground before the door was puddled
with damp hoofs and trodden straw; where a scolding landlady slapped a moist baby (with one red sock on and one
wanting), in the bar; where the cheese was cast aground upon
a shelf, in company with a mouldy tablecloth and a greenhandled knife, in a sort of cast-iron canoe; where the palefaced bread shed tears of crumb over its shipwreck in another
canoe; where the family linen, half washed and half dried,



IMPEACHED.                      195
led a public life of lying about; where everything to drink
was drunk out of mugs, and everything else was suggestive of
a rhyme to mugs; The Tilted Wagon, all these things considered, hardly kept its painted promise of providing good entertainment for Man and Beast.   However, Man, in the
present case, was not critical but took what entertainment he
could get, and went on again after a longer rest than he
needed.
He stopped at some quarter of a mile from the house, hesitating whether to pursue the road, or to follow a cart-track
between two high hedgerows, which led across the slope of a
breezy heath, and evidently struck into the road again by-andbye. He decided in favor of this latter track, and pursued it
with some toil; the rise being steep, and the way worn into
deep ruts.
He was laboring along, when he became aware of some
other pedestrians behind him. As they were coming up at a
faster pace than his, he stood aside, against one of the high
banks, to let them pass. But their manner was very curious.
Only four of them passed. Other four slackened speed, and
loitered as intending to follow him when he should go on.
The remainder of the party (half a dozen perhaps), turned,
and went back at a great rate.
He looked at the four behind him, and he looked at the
four before him. They all returned his look. He resumed
his way. The four in advance went on, constantly looking
back; the four in the rear came closing up.
When they all ranged out from the narrow track upon the
open slope of the heath, and this order was maintained, let
him diverge as he would to either side, there was no longer
room to doubt that he was beset by these fellows. He stopped, as a last test; and they all stopped.
"Why do you attend upon me in this way? " he asked the
whole body. "Are you a pack of thieves?"
"Don't answer him," said one of the number; he did not
see which. "Better be quiet."



196   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" Better be quiet? " repeated Neville. "Who said so?
Nobody replied.
" It's good advice, whichever of you skulkers gave it," he
went on angrily.  "I will not submit to be penned in
between four men there, and four men there. I wish to pass,
and I mean to pass, those four in front."
They were all standing still: himself included.'If eight men, or four men, or two men, set upon one," he
proceeded, growing more enraged, "the one has no chance but
to set his mark upon some of them. And by the Lord I'll do
it, if I am interrupted any further!"
Shouldering his heavy stick, and quickening his pace, he
shot on to pass the four ahead. The largest and strongest
man of the number changed swiftly to the side on which he
came up, and dexterously closed with him and went down
with him; but not before the heavy stick had descended
smartly.
" Let him be! " said this man in a suppressed voice, as they
struggled together on the grass. "Fair play! His is the
build of a girl to mine, and he's got a weight strapped to his
back besides. Let him alone. I'll manage hiu."
After a little rolling about, in a close scuffle which caused
the faces of both to be besmeared with blood, the man took
his knee from Neville's chest, and rose, saying: " There 
Now take him arm-in-arm, any two of you!"
It was immediately done.
"As to our being a pack of thieves, Mr. Landless," said
the man as he spat out some blood, and wiped more from his
face: "you know better than that, at midday. We wouldn't
have touched you, if you hadn't forced us. We're going to
take you round to the high road, anyhow, and you'll find help
enough against thieves there, if you want it. Wipe his face
somebody; see how it's a-trickling down him!"
When his face was cleansed, Neville recognized in the
speaker, Joe, the driver of the Cloisterham omnibus, whom he
had seen but once, and that on the day of his arrival.



I M P E A C H ED.                197
"And what I recommend you for the present, is, don't
talk, Mr. Landless. You'll find a friend waiting for you, at
the high road-gone ahead by the other way when we split
into two parties-and you had much better say nothing until
you come up with him. Bring that stick along, somebody
else, and let's be moving!"
Utterly bewildered, Neville stared around him and said not
a word. Walking between his two conductors, who held his
arms in theirs, he went on, as in a dream, until they came
again into the high road, and into the midst of a little group
of people. The men who had turned back, were among the
group; and its central figures were Mr. Jasper and Mr. Crisparkle. Neville's conductors took him up to the Minor Canon,
and there released him, as an act of deference to that gentleman.
"What is all this, sir?  What is the matter?  I feel as
if I had lost my senses!" cried Neville, the group closing in
around him.
" Where is my nephew? " asked M3r. Jasper, wildly.
"Where is your nephew? " repeated Neville. " Why do
you ask me? "
"I ask you," retorted Jasper, "because you were the last
person in his company, and he is not to be found."
"Not to be found! " cried Neville, aghast.
"Stay, stay," said Mr. Crisparkle.  " Permit me, Jasper.
Mr. Neville, you are confounded; collect your thoughts; it is
of great importance that you should collect your thoughts;
at tend to me."
"I will try, sir, but I seem mad."
"You left Mr. Jasper's last night, with Edwin Drood? 
" Yes."
"At what hour?"
" Was it at twelve o'clock? " asked Neville, with his hand
to his confused head, and appealing to Jasper.
"Quite right," said 3Mr. Crisparkle:' the hour Mr. Jasper
has already named to me. You went down to the river together? "



198   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN       DROOD.
"Undoubtedly. To see the action of the wind there."
"What followed? How long did you stay there?"
"About ten minutes; I should say not more. We then
walked together to your house, and he took leave of me at the
door."
"Did he say that he was going down to the river again?"
"No. He said that he was going straight back."
The bystanders looked at one another, and at Mr. Crisparkle. To whom, Mr. Jasper, who had been intensely watching
Neville, said: in a low distinct suspicious voice: "What are
those stains upon his dress? "
All eyes were turned toward the blood upon his clothes.
" And here are the same stains upon this stick!" said Jasper, taking it from the hand of the man who held it. "I
know the stick to be his, and he carried it last night. What
does this mean? "
" In the name of God, say what it means, Neville! " urged
Mr. Crisparkle.
"That man and I," said Neville, pointing out his late adversary, " had a struggle for the stick just now, and you may see
the same marks on him, sir. What was I to suppose, when I
found myself molested by eight people? Could I dream of
the true reason when they would give me none at all?"
They admitted that they had thought it discreet to be silent,
and that the struggle had taken place. And yet the very men
who had seen it, looked darkly at the smears which the bright
cold air had already dried.
" We must return, Neville," said Mr. Crisparkle; "of course
you will be glad to come back to clear yourself?"
"Of course, sir."
"Mr. Landless will walk at my side," the Minor Canon continued, looking around him.  " Come, Neville!"
They set forth on the walk back; and the others, with one
exception, struggled after them at various distances. Jasper
walked on the other side of Neville, and never quitted that
position. He was silent, while Mr. Crisparkle moro than once



IMPEACHED.                       199
repeated his former questions, and while Neville repeated his
former answers; also, while they both hazarded some explanatory conjectures. He was obstinately silent, because Mr.
Crisparkle's manner directly appealed to him to take some part
in the discussion, and no appeal would move his fixed face.
When they drew near to the city, and it was suggested by the
Minor Oanon that they might do well in calling on the Mayor
at once, he assented with a stern nod; but he spake no word
until they stood in Mr. Sapsea's parlor.
Mr. Sapsea being informed by Mr. Crisparkle of the circumstances under which they desired to make a voluntary
statement before him, Mr. Jasper broke silence by declaring
that he placed his whole reliance, humanly speaking, on Mr.
Sapsea's penetration. There was no conceivable reason why
his nephew should have suddenly absconded, unless Mr. Sapsea
could suggest one, and then he would defer. There was no
intelligible likelihood of his having returned to the river, and
been accidentally drowned in the dark, unless it should appear
likely to Mr. Sapsea, and then again he would defer. He
washed his hands as clean as he could, of all horrible suspicions, unless it should appear to Mr. Sapsea that some such were
inseparable from his last companion before his disappearance
(not on good terms with previously), and then, once more, he
would defer. His own state of mind, he being distracted with
doubts, and laboring under dismal apprehensions, was not to
be safely trusted; but Mr. Sapsea's was.
Mr. Sapsea expressed his opinion that the case had a dark
look; in short (and here his eyes rested full on Neville's countenance), an Un-Enlisb complexion.   Having made this
grand point, he wandered into a denser haze and maze of nonsense than even a mayer might have been expected to disport
himself in, and came out of it with the brilliant discovery that
to take the life of a fellow-creature was to take something that
didn't belong to you. He wavered whether or no he should
at once issue his warrant for the committal of Neville Landless to jail, under circumstances of grave suspicion; and he



200   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
might have gone so far as to do it but for the indignant protest of the Minor Canon: who undertook for the young man"s
remaining in his own house, and being produced by his own
hands, whenever demanded. Mr. Jasper then understood Mr.
Sapsea to suggest that the river should be dragged, that its
banks should be rigidly examined, that particulars of the disappearance should be sent to all outlying places and to London, and that placards and advertisements should be widely
circulated imploring Edwin Drood, if for any unknown reason
he had withdrawn himself from his uncle's home and society,
to take pity on that loving kinsman's sore bereavement and
distress, and somehow inform him that he was yet alive. Mr.
Sapsea was perfectly understood, for this was exactly his
meaning (though he had said nothing about it); and measures were taken towards all these ends immediately.
It would be difficult to determine which was the more oppressed with horror and amazement: Neville Landless, or
John Jasper. But that Jasper's position forced him to be active, while Neville's forced him to be passive, there would have
been nothing to choose between them. Each was bowed down
and broken.
With the earliest light of the next morning, men were at
work upon the river, and other men-most of whom vedumteered for the service-were examining the banks. AH the
livelong day, the search went on; upon the river, with barge
and pole, and drag and net; upon the muddy and rushy shore,
with jack-boot, hatchet, spade, rope, dogs, and all imaginable
appliances. Even at night, the river was specked with lanterns, and with lurid fires; far-off creeks, into which the tide
washed as it changed, had their knots of watchers, listening
to the lapping of the stream, and looking out for any burden it
might bear; remote shingly causeways near the sea, and lonely
points off which there was a race of water, had their unwonted
flaring cressets and rough-coated figures when the next day
dawned; but no trace of Edwin Drood revisited the light of
the sun.



IMPEACHED.                      201
All that day, again, the search went on. Now, in barge and
boat; and now ashore among the osiers, or tramping amidst
mud and stakes and jagged stones in low-lying places, where
solitary watermarks and signals of strange shapes showed like
spectres, John Jasper worked and toiled. But to no purpose;
for still no trace of Edwin Drood revisited the light of the
sun.
Setting his watches for that night again, so that vigilant
eyes should be kept on every change of tide, he went home
exhausted. Unkempt and disordered, bedaubed with mud that
had dried upon him, and with much of his clothing torn to
rags, he had but just dropped into his easy chair, when Mr.
Grewgious stood before him.
"This is strange news," said Mr. Grewgious.
"Strange and fearful news."
Jasper had merely lifted up his heavy eyes to say it, and
now dropped them again as he drooped, worn out, over one
side of his easy chair.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his head and face, and stood looking at the fire.
"How is your ward?" asked Jasper, after a time, in a
faint, fatigued voice.
"Poor little thing! You may imagine her condition."
"Have you seen his sister? " inquired Jasper as before.
"Whose?"
The curtness of the counter-question, and the cool slow manner in which, as he put it, Mr. Grewgious moved his eyes
from the fire to his companion's face, might at any other time
have been exasperating. In his depression and exhaustion,
Jasper merely opened his eyes to say: "The suspected young
man's."
"Do you suspect him? " asked Mr. Grewgious.
"I don't know what to think. I cannot make up my
mind."
"Nor I," said Mr. Grewgious. "But as you spoke of him
as the suspected young man, I thought you had made up your
mind.-I have just left Miss Landless."



202   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"What is her state? "
"Defiance of all suspicion, and unbounded faith in her
brother."
"Poor thing!
"However," pursued Mr. Grewgious, " it is not of her that
I came to speak. It is of my ward. I have a communication to make that will surprise you. At least, it has surprised
me."
Jasper, with a groaning sigh, turned wearily in his chair.
" Shall I put it off till to-morrow?" said Mr. Grewgious.
"Mind! I warn you, that I think it will surprise you! "
More attention and concentration came into John Jasper's
eyes as they caught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his head
again, and again looking at the fire; but now, with a compressed and determined mouth.
"W What is it? " demanded Jasper, becoming upright in his
chair.
"To be sure," said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly and
internally, as he kept his eyes on the fire: "I might have
known it sooner; she gave me the opening; but I am such an
exceedingly Angular man, that it never occurred to me; I took
all for granted."
" What is it? " demanded Jasper, once more.
Mr. Grewgious, alternately opening and shutting the palms
of his hands as he warmed them at the fire, and looking fixedly
at him sideways, and never changing either his action or his
look in all that followed, went on to reply.
" This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my ward,
though so long betrothed, and so long recognizing their betrothal, and so near being married  "
Mr. Grewgious saw a staring white face, and two quivering
white lips, in the easy chair, and saw two muddy hands gripping its sides. But for the hands, he might have thought he
had never seen the face.
"-This young couple came gradually to the discovery,
(made on both sides pretty equally, I think), that they would



IMPEACHED.                      203
be happier and better, both in their present and in their future
lives, as affectionate friends, or say rather as brother and sister, than as husband and wife."
Mr. Grewgious saw a lead-colored face in the easy chair,
and on its surface dreadful starting drops or bubbles, as if of
steel.
" This young couple formed at length the healthy resolution
of interchanging their discoveries, openly, sensibly, and tenderly. They met for that purpose. After some innocent and
generous talk, they agreed to dissolve their existing, and their
intended, relations, for ever and ever."
Mr. Grewgious saw a ghastly figure rise, open-mouthed,
from the easy-chair, and lift its outspread hands towards its
head.
"One of this young couple, and that one your nephew,
fearful, however, that in the tenderness of your affection for
him you would be bitterly disappointed by so wide a departure from his projected life, forbore to tell you the secret, for a
few days, and left it to be disclosed by me, when I should come
down to speak to you, and he would be gone. I speak to you,
and he is gone."
Mr. Grewgious saw the ghastly figure throw back its head,
clutch its hair with its hands, and turn with a writhing action
from him.
" I have now said all I have to say: except that this young
couple parted, firmly, though not without tears and sorrow, on
the evening, when you last saw them together."
Mr. Grewgious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly
figure, sitting or standing; saw nothing but a heap of torn
and miry clothes upon the floor.
Not changing his action even then, he opened and shut the
palms of his hands as he warmed them, and looked down at it.



204   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
CHAPTER XVI.
DEVOTED.
WHEN John Jasper recovered from his fit or swoon, he
found himself being tended by Mr. and Mrs. Tope, whom his
visitor had summoned for the purpose. His visitor, wooden of
aspect, sat stiffly in a chair, with his hands upon his knees,
watching his recovery.
" There! You've come to, nicely now, sir," said the tearful Mrs. Tope; "you were thoroughly worn out, and no wonder!"
"A man," said Mr. Grewgious, with his usual air of repeating a lesson, "cannot have his rest broken, and his mind
cruelly tormented, and his body overtaxed by fatigue, without
being thoroughly worn out."
" I fear I have alarmed you?" Jasper apologized faintly,
when he was helped into his easy chair.
Not at all, I thank you," answered Mr. Grewgious.
"You are too considerate."
" Not at all, I thank you," answered Mr. Grewgious again.
"You must take some wine, sir," said Mrs. Tope, "and
the jelly that I had ready for you, and that you wouldn't put
your lips to at noon, though I warned you what would come
of it, you know, and you not breakfasted; and you must have
a wing of the roast fowl that has been put back twenty times
if it's been put back once. It shall all be on table in five
minutes, and this good gentleman belike will stop and see you
take it."
This good gentleman replied with a snort, which might
mean yes, or no, or anything, or nothing, and which Mrs.
Tope would have found highly mystifying, but that her attention was divided by the service of the table.
" You will take something with me?" said Jasper, as the
cloth was laid.



DEVOTED.                       205
"I couldn't get a morsel down my throat, I thank you,"
answered Mr. Grewgious.
Jasper both ate and drank almost voraciously. Combined
with the hurry in his mode of doing it, was an evident indifference to the taste of what he took, suggesting that he ate
and drank to fortify himself against any other failure of the
spirits, far more than to gratify his palate. Mr. Grewgious in
the meantime sat upright, with no expression in his face, and
a hard kind of imperturbably polite protest all over him: as
though he would have said, in reply to some invitation to discourse: " I couldn't originate the faintest approach to an observation on any subject whatever, I thank you."
"' Do you know," said Jasper, when he had pushed away his
plate and glass, and had sat meditating for a few minutes:
"do you know that I find some crumbs of comfort in the communication with which you have so much amazed me? "
" Do you? " returned Mr. Grewgious; pretty plainly adding the unspoken clause; "I don't, I thank you!"
" After recovering from the shock of a piece of news of my
dear boy, so entirely unexpected, and so destructive of all the
castles I had built for him; and after having had time to think
of it; yes."
" I shall be glad to pick up your crumbs," said Mr. Grewgious, dryly.
" Is there not, or is there-if I deceive myself, tell me so,
and shorten my pain-is there not, or is there, hope that, finding himself in this new position, and becoming sensitively
alive to the awkward burden of explanation, in this quarter,
and that, and the other, with which it would load him, he
avoided the awkwardness, and took to flight?
"Such a thing might be," said Mr. Grewgious, pondering.
"Such a thing has been. I have read of cases in which
people, rather than face a seven days' wonder, and have to
account for themselves to the idle and impertinent, have taken
themselves away, and been long unheard of."
"I believe such things have happened," said Mr. Grewgious, pondering still.



206   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" When I had, and could have no suspicion," pursued Jasper, eagerly following the new track, " that the dear lost boy
had withheld anything from me-most of all, such a leading
matter as this-what gleam of light was there for me in the
whole black sky? When I supposed that his intended wife
was here, and his marriage close at hand, how could I entertain the possibility of his voluntarily leaving this place, in a
manner that would be so unaccountable, capricious, and cruel?
But now that I know what you have told me, is there no little
chink through which day pierces? Supposing him to have
disappeared of his own act, is not his disappearance more accountable and less cruel? The fact of his having just parted
from your ward, is in itself a sort of reason for his going
away. It does not make his mysterious departure the less
cruel to me, it is true; but it relieves it of cruelty to her."
Mr. Grewgious could not but assent to this.
" And even to me," continued Jasper, still pursuing the new
track, with ardor, and, as he did so, brightening with hope:
"he knew that you were coming to me; he knew that you
were entrusted to tell me what you have told me; if your
doing so has awakened a new train of thought in my perplexed
mind, it reasonably follows that, from the same premises, he
might have foreseen the inferences that I should draw.
Grant that he did foresee them; and even the cruelty to meand who am I!-John Jasper, Music Master!-vanishes."
Once more, Mr. Grewgious could not but assent to this.
" I have had my distrusts, and terrible distrusts they have
been," said Jasper; " but your disclosure, overpowering as it
was at first-showing me that my own dear boy had had a great
disappointing reservation from me, who so fondly loved himkindles hope within me. You do not extinguish it when I
state it, but admit it to be a reasonable hope. I begin to believe it possible:" here he clasped his hands: "that he may
have disappeared from among us of his own accord, and that
he may yet be alive and well!"
Mr. Crisparkle came in at the moment. To whom Mr. Jasper repeated:



DEVOTED.                       207
I begin to believe it possible that he may have disappeared
of his own accord, and may yet be alive and well! "
Mr. Crisparkle taking a seat, and enquiring: "Why so?
Mr. Jasper repeated the arguments he had just set forth. If
they had been less plausible than they were, the good Minor
Canon's mind would have been in a state of preparation to receive them, as exculpatory of his unfortunate pupil. But he,
too, did really attach great importance to the lost young man's
having been, so immmediately before his disappearance, placed
in a new and embarrassing relation towards every one acquainted with his projects and affairs; and the fact seemed to him
to present the question in a new light.
"I stated to Mr. Sapsea, when we waited on him," said
Jasper: as he really had done: "that there was no quarrel or
difference between the two young men at their last meeting.
We all know that their first meeting was, unfortunately, very
far from amicable; but all went smoothly and quietly when
they were last together at my house. My dear boy was not in
his usual spirits; he was depressed-I noticed that-and I
am bound henceforth to dwell upon the circumstance the more,
now that I know there was a special reason for his being depressed: a reason, moreover, which may possibly have induced
him to absent himself."
"I pray to Heaven it may turn out so!" exclaimed Mr.
Crisparkle.
I pray to Heaven it may turn out so!" repeated Jasper.
"You know-and Mr. Grewgious should now know likewise
-that I to.k a great prepossession against Mr. Neville Landless,
arising out of his furious conduct on that first occasion. You
know that I came to you, extremely apprehensive, on my dear
boy's behalf, of his mad violence.  You know that I even entered in my Diary, and showed the entry to you, that I had
dark forebodings against him. Mr. Grewgious ought to be
possessed of the whole case. He shall not, through any suppression of mine, be informed of a part of it, and kept in ignorance of another part of it. I wish him to be good enough



208   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
to understand that the communication he has made to me has
hopefully influenced my mind, in spite of its having been, before this mysterious occurrence took place, profoundly impressed
against young Landless."
This fairness troubled the Minor Canon much. He felt that
he was not as open in his own dealing. He charged against
himself reproachfully that he had suppressed, so far, the two
points of a second strong outbreak of temper against Edwin
Drood on the part of Neville, and of the passion of jealousy
having, to his own certain knowledge, flamed up in Neville's
breast against him. He was convinced of Neville's innocence
of any part in the ugly disappearance, and yet so many
little circumstances combined so wofully against him, that he
dreaded to add two more to their cumulative weight. He was
among the truest of men; but he had been balancing in his
mind, much to its distress, whether his volunteering to tell
these two fragments of truth, at this time, would not be tantamount to a piecing together of falsehood in the place of truth.
However, here was a model before him. He hesitated no
longer. Addressing Mr. Grewgious, as one placed in authority
by the revelation he had brought to bear on the mystery (and
surpassingly Angular Mr. Grewgious became when he found
himself in that unexpected position), Mr. Crisparkle bore his
testimony to Mr. Jasper's strict sense of justice, and, expressing his absolute confidence in the complete clearance of his
pupil from the least taint of suspicion, sooner or later, avowed
that his confidence in that young gentleman had been formed,
in spite of his confidential knowledge that his temper was of
the hottest and fiercest, and that it was directly incensed
against Mr. Jasper's nephew by the circumstance of his romantically supposing himself to be enamored of the same
young lady. The sanguine reaction manifest in Mr. Jasper
was proof even against this unlooked-for declaration. It turned
him paler; but he repeated that he would cling to the hope he
had derived from Mr. Grewgious; and that if no trace of his
dear boy were found, leading to the dreadful inference that he



DEVOTED.                       209
had been made away with, he would cherish unto the last
stretch of possibility, the idea, that he might have absconded
of his own wild will.
Now, it fell out that Mr. Crisparkle, going away from this
conference still very uneasy in his mind, and very much
troubled on behalf of the young man whom he held as a kind
of prisoner in his own house, took a memorable night walk.
He walked to Cloisterham Weir.
He often did so, and consequently there was nothing remarkable in his footsteps tending that way. But the preoccupation of his mind so hindered him from planning any walk,
or taking heed of the objects he passed, that his first consciousness of being near the Weir, was derived from the sound
of the falling water close at hand.
"How did I come here!" was his first thought, as he
stopped.
" Why did I come here!" was his second.
Then, he stood intently listening to the water. A familiar
passage in his reading, about airy tongues that syllable men's
names, rose so unbidden to his ear, that he put it from him
with his hand, as if it were tangible.
It was starlight. The Weir was full two miles above the
spot to which the young men had repaired to watch the storm.
No search had been made up here, for the tide had been running strongly down, at that time of the night of Christmas
Eve, and the likeliest places for the discovery of a body, if a
fatal accident had happened under such circumstances, all lay
-both when the tide ebbed, and when it flowed again-between that spot and the sea. The water came over the Weir,
with its usual sound on a cold starlight night, and little could
be seen of it; yet Mr. Crisparkle had a strange idea that something unusual hung about the place.
He reasoned with himself: What was it? Where was it?
Put it to the proof. Which sense did it address?
No sense reported anything unusual there. He listened
again, and his sense of hearing again checked the water com13



210   THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN             DROOD.
ing over the Weir, with its usual sound on a cold starlight
night.
Knowing very well that the mystery with which his mind
was occupied, might of itself give the place this haunted air,
he strained those hawk's eyes of his for the correction of his
sight. He got closer to the Weir, and peered at its well-known
posts and timbers. Nothing in the least unusual was remotely
shadowed forth. But he resolved that he would come back
early in the morning.
The Weir ran through his broken sleep, all night, and he
was back again at sunrise. It was a bright frosty morning.
The whole composition before him, when he stood where he
had stood last night, was clearly discernible in its minutest
details. He had surveyed it closely for some minutes, and
was about to withdraw his eyes, when they were attracted
keenly to one spot.
He turned his back upon the Weir, and looked far away at
the sky, and at the earth, and then looked again at that one
spot. It caught his sight again immediately, and he concentrated his vision upon it. He could not lose it now, though
it was but such a speck in the landscape. It fascinated his
sight. His hands began plucking off his coat. For it struck
him that at that spot-a corner of the Weir-something glistened, which did not move and come over with the glistening
water-drops, but remained stationary.
He assured himself of this, he threw off his clothes, he
plunged into the icy water, and swam for the spot. Climbing
the timbers, he took from them, caught among their interstices
by its chain, a gold watch, bearing engraved upon its back,
E. D.
He brought the watch to the bank, swam to the Weir again,
climbed it, and dived off. He knew every hole and corner of
all the depths, and dived and dived and dived, until he could
bear the cold no more. His notion was, that he would find the
body; he only found a shirt-pin sticking in some mud and
ooze.



DEVOTED.                       211
With these discoveries he returned to Cloisterham, and, taking Nevile Landless with him, went straight to the Mayor.
Mr. Jasper was sent for, the watch and shirt-pin were identified, Neville was detained, and the wildest frenzy and fatuity
of evil report arose against him. He was of that vindictive
and violent nature, that but for his poor sister, who alone had
influence over him, and out of whose sight he was never to be
trusted, he would be in the daily commission of murder.
Before coming to England he had caused to be whipped to
death sundry "Natives"-nomadic persons, encamping now
in Asia, now in Africa, now in the West Indies, and now at
the North Pole —vaguely supposed in Cloisterham to be
always black, always of great virtue, always calling themselves
Me, and everybody else Massa or Missie (according to sex),
and always reading tracts of the obscurest meaning, in broken
English, but always accurately understanding them in the purest mother tongue. He had nearly brought Mrs. Crisparkle's
grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. (Those original expressions
were Mr. Sapsea's.) He had repeatedly said he would have
Mr. Crisparkle's life.  He had repeatedly said he would have
everybody's life, and become in effect the last man. He had
been brought down to Cloisterham, from London, by an eminent Philanthropist, and why? Because that Philanthropist
had expressly declared: " I owe it to my fellow-creatures that
he should be, in the words of BENTHAM, where he is the cause
of the greatest danger to the smallest number."
These dropping shots from the blunderbusses of blunderheadedness might not have hit him in a vital place. But he
had to stand against a trained and well-directed fire of arms
of precision too. He had notoriously threatened the lost
young man, and had, according to the showing of his owp
faithful friend and tutor who strove so hard for him, a caunt
of bitter animosity (created by himself, and stated by himself),
against that ill-starred fellow. He had armed himself with
an offensive weapon for the fatal night, and he had gone off
early in the morning, after making preparations for departure.



212   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
He had been found with traces of blood on him; truly, they
might have been wholly caused as he represented, but they
might not, also. On a search-warrant being issued for the
examination of his room, clothes, and so forth, it was discovered that he had destroyed all his papers, and rearranged all
his possessions, on the very afternoon of the disappearance.
The watch found at the Weir was challenged by the jeweller
as one he had wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that same afternoon; and it had run down,
before being cast into the water; and it was the jeweller's
positive opinion that it had never been re-wound. This would
justify the hypothesis that the watch was taken from him not
long after he left Mr. Jasper's house at midnight, in company
with the last person seen with him, and that it had been thrown
away after being retained some hours. Why thrown away?
If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to be
impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the
murderer would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the best known, and the most easily recognizable, things
upon it. Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin. As
to his opportunities of casting them into the river; if he were
the object of these suspicions, they were easy. For, he had
been seen by many persons, wandering about on that side of
the city-indeed on all sides of it-in a miserable and seemingly half-distracted manner. As to the choice of the spot,
obviously such criminating evidence had better take its chance
of being found anywhere, rather than upon himself, or in his
possession. Concerning the reconciliatory nature of the appointed meeting between the.two young men, very little could
be made of that, in young Landless's favor; for, it distinctly
appeared that the meeting originated, not with him, but with
Mr. Crisparkle, and that it had been urged on by Mr. Crisparkle; and who could say how unwillingly, or in what ill-conditioned mood, his enforced pupil had gone to it? The more
his case was looked into, the weaker it became in every point.



DEVOTED.                       218
Even the broad suggestion that the lost young man had
absconded, was rendered additionally improbable on the showing of the young lady from whom he had so lately parted; for,
what did she say, with great earnestness and sorrow, when
interrogated? That he had, expressly and enthusiastically,
planned with her, that he would await the arrival of her guardian, Mr. Grewgious. And yet, be it observed, he disappeared
before that gentleman appeared.
On the suspicions thus urged and supported, Neville was
detained and re-detained, and the search was pressed on every
hand, and Jasper labored night and day. But nothing more
was found. No discovery being made, which proved the lost
man to be dead, it at length became necessary to release the
person suspected of having made away with him. Neville was
set at large. Then, a consequence ensued which Mr. Crisparkle
had too well foreseen. Neville must leave the place, for the
place shunned him and cast him out. Even had it not been
so, the dear old china shepherdess would have worried herself
to death with fears for her son, and with general trepidation
occasioned by their having such an inmate. Even had that
not been so, the authority to which the Minor Canon deferred
officially, would have settled the point.
"Mr. Crisparkle," quoth the Dean, "human justice may
err, but it must act according to its lights. The days of taking sanctuary are past. This young man must not take sanctuary with us."
"You mean that he must leave my house, sir? "
" Mr. Crisparkle," returned the prudent Dean, " I claim no
authority in your house. I merely confer with you, on the
painful necessity you find yourself under, of depriving this
young man of the great advantages of your counsel and instruction."' It is very lamentable, sir," Mr. Crisparkle represented.
"Very much so," the Dean assented.
And if it be a necessity —" Mr. Crisparkle faltered.
As you unfortunately find it to be," returned the Dean.



214   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
Mr. Crisparkle bowed submissively. "It is hard to prejudge his case, sir, but I am sensible that —" 
"Just so. Perfectly. As you say, Mr. Crisparkle," interposed the Dean, nodding his head smoothly, "there's nothing
else to be done. No doubt, no doubt. There is no alternative, as your good sense has discovered."
" I am entirely satisfied of his perfect innocence, sir, nevertheless."
"We-e-ell!" said the Dean, in a more confidential tone,
and slightly glancing around him, " I would not say so, generally. Not generally. Enough of suspicion attaches to him
to- no, I think I would not say so, generally."
Mr. Crisparkle bowed again.
" It does not become us, perhaps," pursued the Dean, " to be
partizans. Not partizans. We clergy keep our hearts warm
and our heads cool, and we hold a judicious middle course."
" I hope you do not object, sir, to my having stated in public
emphatically, that he will reappear here, whenever any new
suspicion may be awakened, or any new circumstance may
come to light in this extraordinary matter?"
" Not at all," returned the Dean. " And yet, do you know,
I don't think," with a very nice and neat emphasis on those
two words: "I don't think I would state it, emphatically.
State it? Ye-e-es! But emphatically? No-o-o. I think
not. In point of fact, Mr. Crisparkle, keeping our hearts warm
and our heads cool, we clergy need do nothing emphatically."
So, Minor Canon Row knew Neville Landless no more; and
he went whithersoever he would, or could, with a blight upon
his name and fame.
It was not until then that John Jasper silently resumed his
place in the choir. Haggard and red-eyed, his hopes plainly
had deserted him, his sanguine mood was gone, and all his
worst misgivings had come back. A day or two afterwards,
while unrobing, he took his Diary from a pocket of his coat,
turned the leaves, and with an impressive look, and without
one spoken word, handed this entry to Mr. Crisparkle to read:



PHILANTHIROPY.                      215
" My doar hoy is murdered. The discovery of the watch and shirtpill collvilces me that he was murdered that night, and that his jewery \was takell fiom him to prevent identification by its means. All
tlh (ldilisive hopes I had founded on his separation from his betrothed
wite, I give to the winds. They perish before this fatal discovery. I
niwv swear, and record the oath on this page, that I nevermore will discuss this mystery with any human creature, until I hold the clue to it
in my hand. That I never will relax in my secresy or in my search.
That I will fasten the crime of the murder of my dear dead boy, upon
the murderer. And That I devote myself to his destruction."
CHAPTER XVII.
PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL.
FULL half a year had come and gone, and Mr. Crisparkle sat
in a waiting-room in the London chief offices of the Haven of
Philanthrophy, until he could have audience of Mr. Honeythunder.
In his college-days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had
known professors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, and had attended two or three of their gloved gatherings. He had now
an opportunity of observing that as to the phrenological formation of the backs of their heads, the Professing Philanthropists were uncommonly like the Pugilists. In the development of all those organs which constitute, or attend, a propensity to " pitch into " your fellow-creatures, the Philanthropists
were remarkably favored. There were several Professors passing in and out, with exactly the aggressive air upon them of
being ready for a turn-up with any Novice who might happen
to be on hand, that Mr. Crisparkle well remembered in the
circles of the Fancy. Preparations were in progress for a
moral little Mill somewhere on the rural circuit, and other
Professors were backing this or that Heavy-Weight as good
for such or such speech-making hits, so very much after the
manner of the sporting publicans that the intended Resolutions might have been Rounds. In an official manager of



216   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
these displays much celebrated for his platform tactics, Mr.
Crisparkle recognized (in a suit of black) the counterpart of a
deceased benefactor of his species, an eminent public character, once known to fame as Frosty-faced Fogo, who in days of
yore superintended the formation of the magic circle with the
ropes and stakes. There were only three conditions of resemblance wanting between these Professors and those. Firstly,
the Philanthropists were in very bad training; much too
fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, a superabundance of what is known to Pugilistic Experts as Suet Pudding.
Secondly, the Philanthropists had not the good temper of the
Pugilists, and used worse language. Thirdly, their fighting
code stood in great need of revision, as empowering them not
only to bore their man to the ropes, but to bore him to the confines of distraction; also to hit him when he was down, hit
him anywhere and anyhow, kick him, stamp upon him, gouge
him, and maul him behind his back without mercy. In these
last particulars the Professors of the Noble Art were much
nobler than the Professors of Philanthropy.
Mr. Crisparkle was so completely lost in musing on these
similarities and dissimilarities, at the same time watching the
crowd which came and went by, always, as it seemed, on errands of antagonistically snatching something from somebody,
and never giving anything to anybody: that his name was
called before he heard it. On his at length responding, he was
shown by a miserably shabby and underpaid stipendiary Philanthropist (who could hardly have done worse if he had taken
service with a declared enemy of the human race) to Mr. Honeythunder's room.
" Sir," said Mr. Honeythunder, in his tremendous voice, like
a schoolmaster issuing orders to a boy of whom he had a bad
opinion, " sit down."
Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.
Mr. Honeythunder, having signed the remaining few score
of a few thousand circulars, calling upon a corresponding
number of families without means to come forward, stump up



PHILANTHROPY.                     217
instantly, and be Philanthropists, or go to the Devil, another
shabby stipendiary Philanthropist (highly disinterested, if in
earnest) gathered these into a basket and walked off with
them.
"Now, Mr. Crisparkle," said Mr. Honeythunder, turning
his chair half round towards him when they were alone, and
squaring his arms with his hands on his knees, and his brows
knitted, as if he added, I am going to make short work of you:
" Now, Mr. Crisparkle, we entertain different views, you and
I, sir, of the sanctity of human life."
"Do we? " returned the Minor Canon.
" We do, sir."
"Might I ask you," said the Minor Canon: "what are your
views on that subject? "
"That human life is a thing to be held sacred, sir."
"Might I ask you," pursued the Minor Canon as before:
"what you suppose to be my views on that subject? "
"By George, sir! " returned the Philanthropist, squaring
his arms still more, as he frowned on Mr. Crisparkle: " they
are best know to yourself."
"Readily admitted. But you began by saying that we took
different views, you know. Therefore (or you could not say
so) you must have set up some views as mine. Pray, what
views have you set up as mine? "
" Here is a man-and a young man," said Mr. Honeythunder, as if that made the matter infinitely worse, and he could
have easily borne the loss of an old one: " swept off the face
of the earth by a deed of violence. What do you call that?"
"Murder," said the Miner Canon.
"     What do you call the doer of that deed, sir?"
"A murderer," said the Minor Canon.
" I am glad to hear you admit so much, sir," retorted Mr.
Honeythunder, in his most offensive manner; " and I candidly tell you that I didn't expect it." Here he lowered heavily
at Mr. Crisparkle again.
"Be so good as to explain what you mean by those very
unjustifiable expressions."



218 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" I don't sit here, sir," returned the Philanthropist, raising
his voice to a roar, " to be browbeaten."
"As the only other person present, no one can possibly
know that better than I do," returned the Minor Canon very
quietly. "But I interrupt your explanation."
" Murder!" proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, in a kind of boisterous reverie, with his platform folding of his arms, and his
platform nod of abhorrent reflection after each short sentiment of a word. "Bloodshed! Abel! Cain! I hold no terms
with Cain. I repudiate with a shudder the red hand when it
s offered me."
Instead of instantly leaping into his chair and cheering
himself hoarse, as the Brotherhood in public meeting assembled would infallibly have done on this cue, Mr. Crisparkle
merely reversed the quiet crossing of his legs, and said mildly: " Don't let me interrupt your explanation-when you begin
it."
" The Commandments say no murder. NO murder, sir!"
proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, platformally pausing as if he
took Mr. Crisparkle to task for having distinctly asserted that
they said, You may do a little murder and then leave off.
1" And they also say, you shall bear no false witness," observed Mr. Crisparkle.
" Enough! " bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a solemnity
and severity that would have brought the house down at a
meeting, "E-e-nough! My late wards being now of age,
and I being released from a trust which I cannot contemplate
without a thrill of horror, there are the accounts which you
have undertaken to accept on their behalf, and there is a
statement of the balance which you have undertaken to
receive, and which you cannot receive too soon. And let me
tell you, sir, I wish, that as a man and a Minor Canon, you
were better employed," with a nod. "Better employed," with
another nod.  "Bet-ter em-ployed!" with another and
the three nods added up.
Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with
perfect command of himself



PHILANTHROPY.                    219
"Mr. Honeythunder," he said, taking up the papers referred to: " my being better or worse employed than I am at
present is a matter of taste and opinion. You might think
me better employed in enrolling myself a member of your Society."
"Ay, indeed, sir! " retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking
his head in a threatening manner. "It would have been
better for you if you had done that long ago!"
"I think otherwise."
"Or," said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, "I
might think one of your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discovery and punishment of guilt than in
leaving that duty to be undertaken by a layman."
"I may regard my profession from a point of view which
teaches me that its first duty is towards those who are in
necessity and tribulation, who are desolate and oppressed,"
said Mr. Crisparkle. " However, as I have quite clearly satisfied myself that it is no part of my profession to make professions, I say no more of that. But I owe it to Mr. Neville,
and to Mr. Neville's sister (and in a much lower degree to
myself), to say that I know I was in the full possession and
understanding of Mr. Neville's mind and heart at the time of
this occurrence; and that, without in the least coloring or
concealing what was to be deplored in him and required to be
corrected, I feel certain that his tale is true. Feeling that
certainty, I befriend him. As long as that certainty shall
last I will befriend him. And if any consideration could
shake me in this resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself
for my meanness that no man's good opinion-no, nor no
woman's-so gained, could compensate me for the loss of my
own."
Good fellow! Manly fellow! And he was so modest, too.
There was no more self-assertion in the Minor Canon than in
the schoolboy who had stood in the breezy playing-fields
keeping a wicket. He was simply and staunchly true to his
duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls



220   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN     DROOD.
ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever wil
be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.
"Then who do you make out did the deed? " asked Mr.
Honeythunder, turning on him abruptly.
" Heaven forbid," said Mr. Crisparkle, "that in my desire
to clear one man I should lightly criminate another! I accuse
no one."
" Tcha!" ejaculated Mr. Honeythunder with great disgust;
for this was by no means the principle on which the Philanthropic Brotherhood usually proceeded. "And, sir, you are
not a disinterested witness, we must bear in mind."
" How am I an interested one? " inquired Mr. Crisparkle,
smiling innocently, at a loss to imagine.
"There was a certain stipend, sir, paid to you for your
pupil, which may have warped your judgment a bit," said
Mr. Honeythunder, coarsely.
"Perhaps I expect to retain it still?" Mr. Crisparkle
returned, enlightened; " do you mean that too? "
"Well, sir," returned the professional Philanthropist, getting up and thrusting his hands down into his trousers' pockets; " I don't go about measuring people for caps. If people
find I have any about me that fit'em, they can put'em on
and wear'em, if they like. That's their lookout: not mine."
Mr. Crisparkle eyed him with a just indignation, and took
him to task thus:
"Mr. Honeythunder, I hoped when I came in here that I
might be under no necessity of commenting on the introduction of platform manners or platform manoeuvres among the
decent forbearances of private life. But you have given me
such a specimen of both, that I should be a fit subject for
both if I remained silent respecting them. They are detestable."
"They don't suit you, I dare say, sir."
"They are," repeated Mr. Crisparkle, without noticing the
interruption, "detestable. They violate equally the justice
that should belong to Christians, and the restraints that



PHILANTHROPY.                      221
should belong to gentlemen. You assume a great crime to
have been committed by one whom I, acquainted with the attendant circumstances, and having numerous reasons on my
side, devoutly believe to be innocent of it. Because I differ
from you on that vital point, what is your platform resource?
Instantly to turn upon me, charging that I have no sense of
the enormity of the crime itself, but am its aider and abettor!
So, another time-taking me as representing your opponent
in other cases-you set up a platform credulity: a moved and
seconded and carried unanimously profession of faith in some
ridiculous delusion or mischievous imposition. I decline to
believe it, and you fall back upon your platform resource of
proclaiming that I believe nothing; that because I will not
bow down to a false God of our making, I deny the true God!
Another time you make the platform discovery that War is a
calamity, and you propose to abolish it by a string of twisted
resolutions tossed into the air like the tail of a kite. I do
not admit the discovery to be yours in the least, and I have
not a grain of faith in your remedy. Again, your platform
resource of representing me as revelling in the horrors of a
battle field like a fiend incarnate! Another time, in another
of your indiscriminating platform rushes, you would punish
the sober for the drunken. I claim consideration for the comfort, convenience, and refreshment, of the sober; and you
presently make platform proclamation that I have a depraved
desire to turn Heaven's creatures into swine and wild beasts!
In all such cases your movers, and your seconders, and your
supporters-your regular Professors of all degrees-run amuck
like so many mad Malays; habitually attributing the lowest
and basest motives with the utmost recklessness (let me call
your attention to a recent instance in yourself for which you
should blush), and quoting figures which you know to be as
wilfully onesided as a statement of any complicated account
that should be all Creditor side and no Debtor, or all Debtor
side and no Creditor. Therefore it is, Mr. Honeythunder,
that I consider the platform a sufficiently bad example and a



222   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
sufficiently bad school, even in public life; but hold that, carriea into private life, it becomes an unendurable nuisance."
" These are strong words, sir!" exclaimed the Philanthropist."
" I hope so," said Mr. Crisparkle. "Good-morning."
He walked out of the Haven at a great rate, but soon fell
into his regular brisk pace, and soon had a smile upon his face
as he went along, wondering what the china shepherdess would
have said if she had seen him pounding Mr. Honeythunder in
the late little lively affair. For Mr. Crisparkle had just
enough of harmless vanity to hope that he had hit hard, and
to glow with the belief that he had trimmed the Philanthropic
jacket pretty handsomely.
He took himself to Staple Inn, but not to P. J. T. and Mr.
Grewgious. Full many a creaking stair he climbed before he
reached some attic rooms in a corner, turned the latch of their
unbolted door, and stood beside the table of Neville Landless.
An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms, and
about their inhabitant. He was much worn, and so were they.
Their sloping ceilings, cumbrous rusty locks and grates, and
heavy wooden bins and beams, slowly mouldering withal, had
a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of a prisoner.
Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly garret window which
had a penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles; and on
the cracked and smoke-blackened parapet beyond, some of the
deluded sparrows of the place rheumatically hopped, like little
feathered cripples who had left their crutches in their nests;
and there was a play of living leaves at hand that changed
the air, and made an imperfect sort of music in it that would
have been melody in the country.
The rooms were sparely furnished, but with good store of
books. Everything expressed the abode of a poor student.
That Mr. Crisparkle had been either chooser, lender, or donor
of the books, or that he combined the three characters, might
have been easily seen in the friendly beam of his eyes upon
them as he entered.



PHILANTHROPY.                      223
"How goes it, Neville?"
"I am in good heart, Mr. Crisparkle, and working away."
"I wish your eyes were not quite so large, and not quite so
bright," said the Minor Canon, slowly releasing the hand he
had taken in his.
"They brighten at the sight of you," returned Neville.
" If you were to fall away from me, they would soon be dull
enough."
"Rally, rally!" urged the other, in a stimulating tone.
"Fight for it, Neville!"
" If I were dying, I feel as if a word from you would rally
me; if my pulse had stopped, I feel as if your touch would
make it beat again," said Neville. "But I have rallied, and
am doing famously."
Mr. Crisparkle turned him with his face a little more towards
the light.
" I want to see a ruddier touch here, Neville," he said, indicating his own healthy cheek by way of pattern; "I want
more sun to shine upon you."
Neville drooped suddenly as he replied in a lowered voice;
I am not hardy enough for that, yet. I may become so, but
I cannot bear it yet. If you had gone through those Cloisterham streets as I did; if you had seen, as I did, those averted
eyes, and the better sort of people silently giving me too much
room to pass, that I might not touch them or come near them,
you wouldn't think it quite unreasonable that I cannot go about
in the daylight."
"My poor fellow!" said the Minor Canon, in a tone so
purely sympathetic that the young man caught his hand: " I
never said it was unreasonable: never thought so. But I
should like you to do it."
"And that would give me the strongest motive to do it.
But I cannot yet. I cannot persuade myself that the eyes of
even the stream of strangers I pass in this vast city look at
me without suspicion. I feel marked and tainted, even when
I go out-as I do only-at night. But the darkness covers
me then, ind I take courage from it."



224   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
Mr. Crisparkle laid a hand upon his shoulder, and stood
looking down at him.
" If I could have changed my name," said Neville, "I would
have done so. But as you wisely pointed out to me, I can't do
that, for it would look like guilt. If I could have gone to
some distant place, I might have found relief in that, but-the
thing is not to be thought of, for the same reason. Hiding and
escaping would be the construction in either case. It seems a
little hard to be so tied to a stake, and innocent; but I don't
complain."
"And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,"
said Mr. Crisparkle, compassionately.
" No, sir, I know that. The ordinary fulness of time and
circumstance is all I have to trust to."
"It will right you at last, Neville."
"So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it."
But perceiving that the despondent mood into which he was
falling cast a shadow on the Minor Canon, and (it may be)
feeling that the broad hand upon his shoulder was not then
quite as steady as its own natural strength had rendered it
when it first touched him just now, he brightened and said 
"Excellent circumstances for study, anyhow! and you
know, Mr. Crisparkle, what need I have of study in all ways.
Not to mention that you have advised me to study fbr the
difficult profession of the law, specially, and that of course I
am guiding myself by the advice of such a friend and helper.
Such a good friend and helper!"
He took the fortifying hand from his shoulder, and kissed
it. Mr. Crisparkle beamed at the books, but not so brightly
as when he had entered.
"I gather from your silence on the subject that my late
guardian is adverse, Mr. Crisparkle? "
The Minor Canon answered: " Your late guardian is a-a
most unreasonable person, and it signifies nothing to any reasonable person whether he is adverse, or perverse, or the reverse."
"Well for me that I have enough with economy to live



PHILANTHROPY.                      225
upon," sighed Neville, half wearily and half cheerily, " while
I wait to be learned, and wait to be righted! Else I might
have proved the proverb that while the grass grows, the steed
starves!"
He opened some books as he said it, and was soon immersed
in their interleaved and annotated passages, while Mr. Crisparkle sat beside him, expounding, correcting, and advising.
The Minor Canon's cathedral duties made these visits of his
difficult to accomplish, and only to be compassed at intervals
of many weeks. But they were as serviceable as they were
precious to Neville Landless.
When they got through such studies as they had in hand,
they stood leaning on the window-sill, and looking down upon
the patch of garden. "Next week," said Mr. Crisparkle,
"you will cease to be alone, and will have a devoted companion."
"And yet," returned Neville, " this seems an uncongenial
place to bring my sister to!"
" I don't think so," said the Minor Canon. "There is duty
to be done here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and
courage wanted here."
"I meant," explained Neville, "that the surroundings are
so dull and unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable
friend or society here."
"' You have only to remember," said Mr. Crisparkle, " that
you are here yourself, and that she has to draw you into the
sunlight."
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle
began anew.
" When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that
your sister had risen out of the disadvantages of your past
lives as superior to you as the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral
is higher than the chimneys of Minor Canon Corner. Do you
remember that?"
"Right well!"
"I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight.
14



226   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
No matter what I think it now. What I would emphasize is,
that under the head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you."
" Under all heads that are included in the composition of a
fine character, she is."
" Say so; but take this one. Your sister has learnt how to
govern what is proud in her nature.  She can dominate it
even when it is wounded through her sympathy with you.
No doubt she has suffered deeply in those same streets where
you suffered deeply. No doubt her life is darkened by the
cloud that darkens yours.  But bending her pride into a
grand composure that is not haughty or aggressive, but is a
sustained confidence in you and in the truth, she has won her
way through those streets until she passes along them as high
in the general respect as any one who treads them. Every
day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood's disappearance,
she has faced malignity and folly —for you-as only a brave
nature well directed can. So will it be with her to the end.
Another and weaker kind of pride might sink broken-hearted,
but never such a pride as hers: which knows no shrinking,
and can get no mastery over her."
The pale cheek beside him flushed under the comparison
and the hint implied in it.  I will do all I can to imitate
her," said Neville.
"Do so, and be a truly brave man as she is a truly brave
woman," answered Mr. Crisparkle, stoutly. "It is growing
dark. Will you go my way with me, when it is quite dark?
Mind! It is not I who wait for darkness."
Neville replied that he would accompany him directly. But
Mr. Crisparkle said he had a moment's call to make on Mr.
Grewgious as an act of courtesy, and would run across to that
gentleman's chambers, and rejoin Neville on his own doorstep
if he would come down there to meet him.
Mr. Grewgious, bolt upright as usual, sat taking his wine
in the dusk at his open window; his wineglass and decanter
on the round table at his elbow; himself and his legs on the



I' f ILAN T HROPY.                  227
windowseat; only one hinge in his whole body, like a bootjack.
" How do you do, reverend sir? " said Mr. Grewgious, with
abundant offers of hospitality which were as cordially declined
as made. " And how is your charge getting on over the way
in the set that I had the pleasure of recommending to you as
vacant and eligible? "
Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.
" I am glad you approve of them," said Mr. Grewgious,
" because I entertain a sort of fancy for having him under my
eye."
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably, before he could see the chambers, the phrase was to be taken
figuratively and not literally.
" And how did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?" said
Mr. Grewgious.
Mr. Crisparkle had left him pretty well.
" And where did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?"
Mr. Crisparkle had left him at Cloisterham.
" And when did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir? "
That morning.
"Umps!" said Mr. Grewgious. "He didn't say he was
coming, perhaps? "
"Coming where? "
"Anywhere, for instance? " said Mr. Grewgious.
" No."
"Because here he is," said Mr. Grewgious, who had asked
all these questions with his preoccupied glance directed out at
window. " And he don't look agreeable, does he?"
Mr. Crisparkle was craning towards the window, when Mr.
Grewgious added:
"If you will kindly step round here behind me, in the gloom
of the room, and will cast your eye at the second-floor landing
window, in yonder house, I think you will hardly fail to see a
slinking individual in whom I recoguise our local friend."
" You are right I" cried Mr. Crisparkle.



228 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"Umps!" said Mr. Grewgious. Then he added, turning his
face so abruptly that his head nearly came into collision with
Mr. Crisparkle's: " what should you say that our local friend
was up to? "
The last passage he had been shown in the Diary returned
on Mr. Crisparkle's mind with the force of a strong recoil, and
he asked Mr. Grewgious if he thought it possible that Neville
was to be harassed by the keeping of a watch upon him?
"A watch," repeated Mr. G.rewgious, musingly. " Ay!"
"Which would not only of itself haunt and torture his
life," said Mr. Crisparkle, warmly, " but would expose him to
the torment of a perpetually reviving suspicion, whatever he
might do, or wherever he might go? "
"Ay!" said Mr. Grewgious, musingly still.  "Do I see
him waiting for you?"
" No doubt you do."
"Then would you have the goodness to excuse my getting
up to see you out, and to go out to join him, and to go the way
that you were going, and to take no notice of our local friend?"
said Mr. Grewgious. "I entertain a sort of fancy for having
him under my eye to-night, do you know? "
Mr. Crisparkle, with a significant nod, complied, and, rejoining Neville, went away with him. They dined together,
and parted at the yet unfinished and undeveloped railway station: Mr. Crisparkle to get home; Neville to walk the streets,
cross the bridges, make a wide round of the city in the friendly darkness, and tire himself out.
It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expedition, and climbed his staircase. The night was hot, and the
windows of the staircase were all wide open. Coming to the
top, it gave him a passing chill of surprise (there being no
roome but his up there) to find a stranger sitting on the
window-sill, more after the manner of a venturesome glazier
than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck; in fact, so much
more outside the window than inside, as to suggest the thought
that he must have come up by the water-spout instead of the
stairs.



PHILANTHROPY.                      229
The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his
door; then, seeming to make sure of his identity from the
action, he spoke:
" I beg your pardon," he said, coming from the window with
a frank and smiling air, and a prepossessing address; " the
beans."
Neville was quite at a loss.
" Runners," said the visitor. "Scarlet. Next door at the
back."
"Oh! " returned Neville. "And the mignonette and wallflower?"' The same," said the visitor.
"Pray walk in."
"Thank you."
Neville lighted his candles, and the visitor sat down. A
handsome gentleman, with a young face, but an older figure
in its robustness and its breadth of shoulder; say a man of
eight-and-twenty, or at the utmost thirty: so extremely sunburnt that the contrast between his brown visage and the white
forehead shaded out of doors by his hat, and the glimpses of
white throat below the neckerchief, would have been almost
ludicrous but for his broad temples, bright blue eyes, clustering
brown hair, and laughing teeth.
"I have noticed," said he; "-my name is Tartar."
Neville inclined his head.
"I have noticed (excuse me) that you shut yourself up a
good deal, and that you seem to like my garden aloft here.
If you would like a little more of it, I could throw out a few
lines and stays between my windows and yours, which the
runners would take to directly. And I have some boxes, both
of mignonette and wallflower, that I could shove on along the
gutter (with a boat-hook I have by me) to your windows, and
draw back again when they wanted watering or gardening,
and shove on again when they were ship-shape, so that they
would cause you no trouble. I couldn't take this liberty without asking your permission, so I venture to ask it. Tartar,
corresponding set, next door."



230   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" You are very kind."
"Not at all. I ought to apologize for looking in so late.
But having noticed (excuse me) that you generally walk out
at night, I thought I should inconvenience you least by awaiting your return. I am always afraid of inconveniencing busy
men, being an idle man."
" I should not have thought so from your appearance."
"No? I take it as a compliment. In fact, I was bred in
the Royal Navy and was First Lieutenant when I quitted it.
But, an uncle disappointed in the service leaving me his property on condition that I left the Navy, I accepted the fortune
and resigned my commission."
" Lately, I presume? "
" Well, I had had twelve or fifteen years of knocking about
first. I came here some nine months before you; I had had
one crop before you came. I chose this place, because, having
served last in a little Corvette, I knew I should feel more at
home where I had a constant opportunity of knocking my head
against' the ceiling. Besides; it would never do for a man
who had been aboard ship from his boyhood to turn luxurious
all at once. Besides, again: having been accustomed to a
very short allowance of land all my life, I thought I'd feel my
way to the command of a landed estate, by beginning in
boxes."
Whimsically as this was said, there was a touch of merry
earnestness in it that made it doubly whimsical.
"However," said the Lieutenant, "I have talked quite
enough about myself. It is not my way I hope; it has
merely been to present myself to you naturally. If you will
allow me to take the liberty I have described, it will be a charity, for it will give me something more to do. And you are
not to suppose that it will entail any interruption or intrusion
on you, for that is far from my intention."
Neville replied that he was greatly obliged, and that he
thankfully accepted the kind proposal.
"I am very glad to take your windows in tow," said the



PHILANTHROPY.                      231
Lieutenant. "From what I have seen of you when I have
been gardening at mine, and you have been looking on, I have
thought you (excuse me) rather too studious and delicate!
May I ask, is your health at all affected? "
"I have undergone some mental distress," said Neville,
confused, " which has stood me in the stead of illness."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Tartar.
With the greatest delicacy he shifted his ground to the
windows again, and asked if he could look at one of them.
On Neville's opening it, he immediately sprang out, as if he
were going aloft with a whole watch in an emergency, and
were setting a bright example.
"For Heaven's sake!" cried Neville, "don't do that!
Where are you going, Mr. Tartar? You'll be dashed to
pieces!"
" All well!" said the Lieutenant, coolly looking about him
on the housetop. " All taut and trim here. Those lines and
stays shall be rigged before you turn out in the morning.
May I take this short cut home and say, Good-night? "
"Mr. Tartar!" urged Neville. Pray! It makes me giddy
to see you! "
But Mr. Tartar, with a wave of his hand and the deftness
of a cat, had already dipped through his scuttle of scarlet runners without breaking a leaf, and " gone below."
Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside with
his hand, happened at that moment to have Neville's chambers under his eye for the last time that night. Fortunately
his eye was on the front of the house and not the back, or
this remarkable appearance and disappearance might have
broken his rest as a phenomenon. But, Mr. Grewgious seeing
nothing there, not even a light in the windows, his gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if he would read in
them something that was hidden from him. Many of us
would if we could; but none of us so much as know our letters in the stars yet-or seem likely to do it, in this state of
existence-and few languages can be read until their alphabets are mastered.



232   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN     DROOD.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A SETTLER IN CLOISTERHAM.
AT about this time, a stranger appeared in Cloisterham; a
white haired personage with black eyebrows. Being buttoned
up in a tightish blue surtout, with a buff waistcoat and grey
trousers, he had something of a military air; but he announced himself at the Crozier (the orthodox hotel, where he put up
with a portmanteau) as an idle dog who lived upon his means;
and he further announced that he had a mind to take a lodging in the picturesque old city for a month or two, with a view
of settling down there altogether. Both announcements were
made in the coffee-room of the Crozier, to all whom it might,
or might not, concern, by the stranger as he stood with his
back to the empty fireplace, waiting for his fried sole, veal cutlet, and pint of sherry. And the waiter (business being
chronically slack at the Crozier) represented all whom it might
or might not concern, and absorbed the whole of the information.
This gentleman's white head was unusually large, and his
shock of white hair was unusually thick and ample. "I suppose, waiter," he said, shaking his shock of hair, as a Newfoundland dog might shake his before sitting down to dinner,
" that a fair lodging for a single buffer might be found in these
parts, eh?"
The waiter had no doubt of it.
"Something old," said the gentleman.  "Take my hat
down for a moment from that peg, will you?  No, I don't
want it; look into it. What do you see written there?"
The waiter read: " Datchery."
" Now you know my name," said the gentleman; "Dick
Datchery. Hang it up again. I was saying something old is
what I should prefer, something odd and out of the way;
something venerable, architectural, and inconvenient."



A SETTLER IN        CLOISTERHAM.           233
"We have a good choice of inconvenient lodgings in the
town, sir, I think," replied the waiter, with modest confidence
in its resources that way; " indeed, I have no doubt that we
could suit you that far, however particular you might be. But
a architectural lodging!" That seemed to trouble the waiter's head, and he shook it.
"Anything Cathedraly now," Mr. Datchery suggested.
" Mr. Tope," said the waiter, brightening, as he rubbed his
chin with his hand, "would be the likeliest party to inform in
that line."
" Who is Mr. Tope?" inquired Dick Datchery.
The waiter explained that he was the Verger, and that Mrs.
Tope had indeed once upon a time let lodgings herself-or
offered to let them; but that as nobody had ever taken them,
Mrs. Tope's window-bill, long a Cloisterham Institution, had
disappeared; probably had tumbled down one day, and never
been put up again.
"I'll call on Mrs. Tope," said Mr. Datchery, "after dinner."
So when he had done his dinner, he was duly directed to the
spot, and sallied out for it. But the Crozier being an hotel
of a most retiring disposition, and the waiter's directions being
fatally precise, he soon became bewildered, and went boggling
about and about the Cathedral Tower, whenever he could catch
a glimpse of it, with a general impression on his mind that
Mrs. Tope's was somewhere very near it, and that, like the
children in the game of hot boiled beans and very good butter,
he was warm in his search when he saw the Tower, and cold
when he didn't see it.
He was getting very cold indeed when he came upon a fragment of burial-ground in which an unhappy sheep was grazing.
Unhappy, because a hideous small boy was stoning it through
the railings, and had already lamed it in one leg, and was
much excited by the benevolent sportsmanlike purpose of
breaking its other three legs, and bringing it down.
"'It'im agin!" cried the boy, as the poor creature leaped;
"and made a dint in his wool!"



234   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" Let him be!" said Mr. Datchery. "Don't you see you
have lamed him?"
"Yer lie," returned the sportsman. "E went and lamed
isself. I see'im do it, and I giv''im a shy as a Widdywarning to'im not to go a bruisin''is master's mutton any
more."
" Come here."
" I won't; I'll come when yer can ketch me."
" Stay there then, and show me which is Mr. Tope's."
"Ow can I stay here and show you which is Topeseses,
when Topeseses is t'other side the Kinfreederal, and over the
crossings, and round ever so many corners? Stoo-pid! Yaa-ah! "
" Show me where it is, and I'll give you something."
" Come on, then!"
This brisk dialogue concluded, the boy led the way, and byand-by stopped at some distance from an arched passage, pointing.
"' Lookie yonder. You see that there winder and door?"
" That's Tope's? "
"Yer lie; it ain't. That's Jarsper's."
" Indeed? " said Mr. Datchery, with a second look of some
interest.
" Yes, and I ain't agoin no nearer'IM, I tell yer."
" Why not? "
"'Cos I ain't a going to be lifted off my legs and'ave my
braces bust and be choked; not if I knows it and not by'Im.
Wait till I set a jolly good flint a flyin at the back o''is jolly
old'ed some day! Now look t'other side the harch; not the
side where Jarsper's door is; t'other side."
" I see."
"A little way in, o' that side, there's a low door, down two
steps. That's Topeseses with'is name on a hoval plate."
"Good. See here," said Mr. Datchery, producing a shilling.
"You owe me half of this."
" Yer lie; I don't owe yer nothing; I never seen yer."



A  SETTLER      IN  CLOISTERHIAM.           235
"I tell you you owe me half of this, because I have no sixpence in my pocket. So the next time you meet me you shall
do something else for me, to pay me."
" All right, give us'old."
"What is your name, and where do you live?"
"Deputy. Travellers' Twopenny,'cross the green."
The boy instantly darted off with the shilling, lest Mr.
Datchery should repent, but stopped at a safe distance, on the
happy chance of his being uneasy in his mind about it, to goad
him with a demon dance expressive of its irrevocability.
Mr. Datchery, taking off his hat to give that shock of white
hair of his another shake, seemed quite resigned, and betook
himself whither he had been directed.
Mr. Tope's official dwelling communicating by an upper
stair with Mr. Jasper's (hence Mrs. Tope's attendance on that
gentleman), was of very modest proportions, and partook of the
character of a cool dungeon. Its ancient walls were massive
ald its rooms rather seemed to have been dug out of them, than
to have been designed beforehand with any reference to them.
The main door opened at once on a chamber of no describable
shape, with a groined roof, which in its turn opened on another
chamber of no describable shape, with another groined roof:
their windows small, and in the thickness of the walls. These
two chambers, close as to their atmosphere and swarthy as to
their illumination by natural light, were the apartments which
Mrs. Tope had so long offered to an unappreciative city. Mr.
Datchery, however, was more appreciative. He found that if
he sat with the main door open he would enjoy the passing
society of all comers to and fro by the gateway, and would have
light enough. He found that if Mr. and Mrs. Tope living
overhead, used for their own egress and ingress a little side
stair that came plump into the Precincts by a door opening
outward, to the surprise and inconvenience of a limited public
of pedestrians in a narrow way, he would be alone, as in a separate residence. He found the rent moderate, and everything
as quaintly inconvenient as he could desire. He agreed there



236   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN DROOD.
fore to take the lodging then and there, and money down,
possession to be had next evening on condition that reference
was permitted him to Mr. Jasper as occupying the Gate House,
of which, on the other side of the gateway the Verger's hole in
the wall was an appanage or subsidiary part.
The poor dear gentleman was very solitary and very sad,
Mrs. Tope said, but she had no doubt he would " speak for her."
Perhaps Mr. Datchery had heard something of what had occurred there last winter?
Mr. Datchery had as confused a knowledge of the event in
question, on trying to recall it, as he well could have. He
begged Mrs. Tope's pardon when she found it incumbent on
her to correct him in every detail of his summary of the facts,
but pleaded that he was merely a single buffer getting through
life upon his means as idly as he could, and that so many people were so constantly making away with so many other people,
as to render it difficult for a buffer of an easy temper to preserve the circumstances of the several cases unmixed in his
mind.
Mr. Jasper proving willing to speak for Mrs. Tope, Mr.
Datchery, who had sent up his card, was invited to ascend the
postern staircase. The Mayor was there, Mrs. Tope said; but
he was not to be regarded in the light of company, as he and
Mr. Jasper were great friends.
" I beg pardon," said Mr. Datchery, making a leg with his
hat under his arm, as he addressed himself equally to both
gentlemen; " a selfish precaution on my part and not personally interesting to anybody but myself. But as a buffer living
on his means, and having an idea of doing it in this lovely
place in peace and quiet, for remaining span of life, beg to ask
if the Tope family are quite respectable? "
Mr. Jasper could answer for that without the slightest hesitation.
"That is enough, sir," said Mr. Datchery.
"My friend the Mayor," added Mr. Jasper, presenting Mr.
Datchery with a courtly motion of his hand towards that po



A  SETTLER      IN   CLOISTERHAM.             237
tentate; " whose recommendation is actually much more important to a stranger, than that of an obscure person like myself,
will testify in their behalf, I am sure."
" The Worshipful the Mayor," said Mr. Datchery, with a
low bow, " places me under an infinite obligation."
"Very good people, sir, Mr. and Mrs. Tope," said Mr.
Sapsea, with condescension. "Very good opinions. Very
well behaved. Very respectful. Much approved by the Dean
and Chapter."
" The Worshipful the Mayor gives them a character," said
Mr. Datchery, "of which they may indeed be proud. I
would ask His Honor (if I might be permitted) whether there
are not many objects of great interest in the city which is
under his beneficent sway? "
" We are, sir," returned Mr. Sapsea, " an ancient city, and
an ecclesiastical city. We are a constitutional city, as it
becomes such a city to be, and we uphold and maintain our
glorious privileges."
"His Honor," said Mr. Datchery, bowing, "inspires me
with a desire to know more of the city, and confirms me in
my inclination to end my days in the city."
"Retired from the Army, sir? " suggested Mr. Sapsea.
"His Honor the Mayor does me too much credit," returned
Mr. Datchery.' Navy, sir? " suggested Mr. Sapsea.' Again," repeated Mr. Datchery, "< His Honor the Mayor
does me too much credit."
" Diplomacy is a fine profession," said Mr. Sapsea, as a general remark.
" There, I confess, His Honor the Mayor is too many for
me," said Mr. Datchery, with an ingenuous smile and bow;
"even a Diplomatic bird must fall to such a gun."
Now, this was very soothing. Here was a gentleman of a
great, not to say a grand-address, accustomed to rank and
dignity, really setting a fine example how to behave to a Mayor.
There was something in that third person style of being spoken



288   THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN             DROOD.
to, that Mr. Sapsea found particularly recognisant of his merits
and position.
" But I crave pardon," said Mr. Datchery. "His Honor
the Mayor will bear with me, if for a moment I have been deluded into occupying his time, and hare forgotten the humble
claims upon my own, of my hotel, the Crozier."
" Not at all, sir," said Mr. Sapsea. " I am returning home,
and if you would like to take the exterior of our cathedral in
your way, I shall be glad to point it out."
" His Honor the Mayor," said Mr. Datchery, " is more than
kind and gracious."
As Mr Datchery, when he made his acknowledgments to
Mr. Jasper, could not be induced to go out of the room before
the Worshipful, the Worshipful led the way down stairs; Mr.
Datchery following with his hat under his arm, and his shock
of white hair streaming in the evening breeze.
"Might I ask His Honom," said Mr. D)atchery, "whether
that gentleman we have just left is the gentleman of whom I
have heard in the neighborhood as being much afflicted by the
loss of a nephew, and concentrating his life on avenging the
loss?"
"That is the gentleman. John Jasper, sir."
" Would His Honor allow me to inquire whether there are
strong suspicions of any one? "
" More than suspicions, sir," returned Mr. Sapsea, " all but
certainties."
"Only think now! " cried Mr. Datchery.
"But proof, sir, proof, must be built up stone by stone,"
said the Mayor. " As I say, the end crowns the work. It is
ijot enough that Justice should be morally certain; she must
be immorally certain —legally, that is."
" His Honor," said Mr. Datchery, " reminds me of the nature of the law. Immoral. How true! "
" As I say, sir," pompously went on the Mayor, "The arm
of the law is a strong arm, and a long arm. That is the way
1 put it. A strong arm and a long arm."



A  SETTLER      IN  CLOISTERHAM.           239
"How forcible!-And yet, again, how true!" murmured
Mr. Datchery.
"And without betraying what I call the secrets of the
prison-house," said Mr. Sapsea; "the secrets of the prisonhouse is the term I used on the bench."
"And what other term than His Honor's would express
it? " said Mr. Datchery.
" Without, I say, betraying them, I predict to you, knowing
the iron will of the gentleman we have just left (I take the
bold step of calling it iron, on account of its strength), that in
this case the long arm will reach, and the strong arm will
strike.-This is our cathedral, sir. The best judges are pleased
to admire it, and the best among our townsmen own to being
a little vain of it."
All this time Mr. Datchery had walked with his hat under
his arm, and his white hair streaming. He had an odd momentary appearance upon him of having forgotten his hat,
when Mr. Sapsea now touched it; and he clapped his hand up
to his head as if with some vague expectation of finding another hat upon it.
" Pray be covered, sir," entreated Mr. Sapsea; magnificently implying: " I shall not mind it, I assure you."
" His Honor is very good, but I do it for coolness," said Mr.
Datchery.
Then Mr. Datchery admired the cathedral, and Mr. Sapsea
pointed it out as if he himself had invented and built it; there
were a few details indeed of which he did not approve, but
those he glossed over, as if the workmen had made mistakes in
his absence. The cathedral disposed of, he led the way by
the churchyard, and stopped to extol the beauty of the evening-by chance, in the immediate vicinity of Mrs. Sapsea's
epitaph.
"' And by-the-by," said Mr. Sapsea, appearing to descend
from an elevation to remember it all of a sudden; like Apollo
shooting down from Olympus to pick up his forgotten lyre;
" that is one of our small lions. The partiality of our people



240   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
has made it so, and strangers have been seen taking a copy of
it now and then. I am not a judge of it myself, for it is a
little work of my own. But it was troublesome to turn, sir; I
may say, difficult to turn with elegance."
Mr. Datchery became so ecstatic over Mr. Sapsea's composition that, in spite of his intention to end his days in Cloisterham, and therefore his probably having in reserve many opportunities of copying it, he would have transcribed it into his
pocket-book on the spot, but for the slouching towards them
of its material producer and perpetrator, Durdles, whom Mr.
Sapsea hailed, not sorry to show him a bright example of behavior to superiors.
"Ah, Durdles! This is the mason, sir; one of the Clolsterham worthies; everybody here knows Durdles. Mr. Datchery, Durdles; a gentleman who is going to settle here."
" I wouldn't do it if I was him," growled Durdles. "We're
a heavy lot."
"You surely don't speak for yourself, Mr. Durdles," returned Mr. Datchery, " any more than for His Honor."
< Who's His Honor? " demanded Durdles.
"His Honor the Mayor."
"I never was brought afore him," said Durdles, with anything but the look of a loyal subject of the mayoralty, " and
it'll be time enough for me to Honor him when I am. Until
which, and when, and where:
" Mister Sapsea is his name,
England is his nation,
Cloisterham's his dwelling-place,
Aukshneer's his occupation."
Here, Deputy (preceded by a flying oyster-shell) appeared
upon the scene, and requested to have the sum of threepence
instantly "chucked" to him by Mr. Durdles, whom he had
been vainly seeking up and down, as lawful wages overdue.
While that gentleman, with his bundle under his arm, slowly
found and counted out the money, Mr. Sapsea informed the
new settler of Durdles's habits, pursuits, abode, and reputation.
"I suppose a curious stranger might come to see you, and



SHADOW      ON   THE SUN-DIAL.             241
your works, Mr. Durdles, at any odd time?" said Mr. Datchery upon that.
" Any gentleman is welcome to come and see me any evening if he brings liquor for two with him," returned Durdles,
with a penny between his teeth and certain halfpence in his
hands. " Or if he likes to make it twice two, he'll be doubly
welcome."
"I shall come. Master Deputy, what do you owe me?"
"A job."
"Mind you pay me honestly with the job of showing me
Mr. Durdles's house when I want to go there."
Deputy, with a piercing broadside of whistle through the
whole gap in his mouth, as a receipt in full for all arrears,
vanished.
"The Worshipful and the Worshipper then passed on together until they parted, with many ceremonies, at the Worshipful's door; even then, the Worshipper carried his hat under
his arm, and gave his streaming white hair to the breeze.
Said Mr. Datchery to himself that night, as he looked at his
white hair in the gas-lighted looking glass over the coffeeroom chimneypiece at the Crozier, and shook it out: " For a
single buffer, of an easy temper, living idly on his means, I
have had a rather busy afternoon "
CHAPTER XIX.
SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL.
AGAIr: Miss Twinkleton has delivered her valedictory address, with the accompaniments of white wine and pound cake,
and again the young ladies have departed to their several
homes. Helena Landless has left the Nuns' House to attend
her brother's fortunes, and pretty Rosa is alone.
Cloisterham is so bright and sunny in these summer days,
15



242   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
that the cathedral and the monastery-ruin show as if their
strong walls were transparent. A soft glow seems to shine
from within them, rather than upon them from without, such
is their mellowness as they look forth on the hot corn-fields
and the smoking roads that distantly wind among them. The
Cloisterham gardens blush with ripening fruit. Time was
when travel-stained pilgrims rode in clattering parties through
the city's welcome shades; time is when wayfarers, leading a
gipsy life between haymaking time and harvest, and looking
as if they were just made of the dust of the earth, so very
dusty are they, lounge about on cool doorsteps, trying to mend
their unmendable shoes, or giving them to the city kennels as
a hopeless job, and seeking others in the bundles that they
carry, along with their yet unused sickles swathed in bands of
straw. At all the more public pumps there is much cooling of
bare feet, together with much bubbling and gurgling of drinking with hand to spout on the part of these Bedouins; the
Cloisterham police meanwhile looking askant from their beats
with suspicion, and manifest impatience that the intruders
should depart from within the civic bounds, and once more fry
themselves on the simmering highroads.
On the afternoon of such a day, when the last cathedral
service is done, and when that side of the High Street on
which the Nuns' House stands is in grateful shade, save where
its quaint old garden opens to the west between the boughs of
trees, a servant informs Rosa, to her terror, that Mr. Jasper
desires to see her.
If he had chosen his time for finding her at a disadvantage, he could have done no better. Perhaps he has chosen
it. Helena Landless is gone, Mrs. Tisher is absent on leave,
Miss Twinkleton (in her amateur state of existence) has contributed herself and a veal pie to a picnic.
" Oh why, why, why, did you say I was at home!" cries
Rosa, helplessly.
The maid replies, that Mir. Jasper never asked the question.
That he said he knew she was at home, and begged she might
be told that he asked to see her.



SHADOW      ON   THE   SUN-DIAL.           243
"What shall I do, what shall I do? " thinks Rosa, clasp
ing her hands.
Possessed by a kind of desperation, she adds in the next
breath that she will come to Mr. Jasper in the garden. She
shudders at the thought of being shut up with him in the
house; but many of its windows command the garden, and
she can be seen as well as heard there, and can shriek in the
free air and run away. Such is the wild idea that flutters
through her mind.
She has never seen him since the fatal night, except when
she was questioned before the Mayor, and then he was present
in gloomy watchfulness, as representing his lost nephew and
burning to avenge him. She hangs her garden-hat on her arm,
and goes out. f The moment she sees him from the porch, leaning on the sun-dial, the old horrible feeling of being compelled
by him, asserts its hold upon her. She feels that she would
even then go back, but that he draws her feet towards him.
She cannot resist, and sits down. with her head bent, on the
garden-seat beside the sun-dial. She cannot look up at him
for abhorrence,)but she has perceived that he is dressed in
deep mourning/ So is she. It was not so at first; but the
lost has long been given up, and mourned for, as dead.
He would begin by touching her hand. She feels the
intention, and draws her hand back. His eyes are then fixed
upon her, she knows, though her own see nothing but the
grass.
"I have been waiting," he begins, " for some time, to be
summoned back to my duty near you."
After several times forming her lips, which she knows he is
closely watching, into the shape of some other hesitating reply,
and then into none, she answers: " Duty, sir? "
"The duty of teaching you, serving you as your faithful
music-master."
"I have left off that study."
"Not left off, I think. Discontinued. I was told by your
guardian that you discontinued it under the shock that we
have all felt so acutely. When will you resume? "



244   THE   MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
" Never, sir."
" Never? You could have done no more if you had loved
my dear boy."
"I did love him I" cries Rosa, with a flash of anger.
"Yes; but not quite-not quite in the right way, shall I
say? Not in the intended and expected way. Much as my
dear boy was, unhappily, too self-conscious and self-satisfied
(I'll draw no parallel between him and you in that respect) to
love as he should have loved, or as any one in his place would
have loved-must have loved!"
She sits in the same still attitude, but shrinking a little
more.
" Then, to be told that you discontinued your study with
me, was to be politely told that you abandoned it altogether?"
he suggested.
"Yes," says Rosa, with sudden spirit. "The politeness
was my guardian's, not mine. I told him that I was resolved
to leave off, and that I was determined to stand by my resolution."
"And you still are?"
"I still am, sir. And I beg not to be questioned any more
about it. At all events, I will not answer any more; I have
that in my power."
She is so conscious of his looking at her with a gloating
admiration of the touch of anger on her, and the fire and animation it brings with it, that even as her spirit rises, it falls
again, and she struggles with a sense of shame, affront, and
fear, much as she did that night at the piano.
" I will not question you any more, since you object to it so
much; I will confess."
"I do not wish to hear you, sir," cries Rosa, rising.
This time he does touch her with his outstretched hand.
In shrinking from it, she shrinks into her seat again.
"We must sometimes act in opposition to our wishes," he
tells her in a low voice. "You must do so now, or do more
harm to others than you can ever set right,"



SHADOW      ON   THE SUN-DIAL.             245
"What harm? "
"Presently, presently.  You question me, you see, and
surely that's not fair when you forbid me to question you.
Nevertheless, I will answer the question presently. Dearest
Rosa! Charming Rosa "
She starts up again.
"This time he does not touch her. But his face looks so
wicked and menacing, as he stands leaning against the sundial-setting, as it were, his black mark upon the very face
of day-that her flight is arrested by horror as she looks at
him.
" I do not forget how many windows command a view of
us," he says, glancing towards them. " I will not touch you
again, I will come no nearer to you than I am. Sit down,
and there will be no mighty wonder in your music-master's
leaning idly against a pedestal and speaking with you, remembering all that has happened and our shares in it. Sit down,
my beloved.
She would have gone once more-was all but gone-and
once more his face, darkly threatening what would follow if she
went, has stopped her. Looking at him with the expression
of the instant frozen on her face, she sits down on the seat
again.
" Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you, I
loved you madly; even when I thought his happiness in having you for his wife was certain, I loved you madly; even
when I strove to make him more ardently devoted to you, I
loved you madly; even when he gave me the picture of your
lovely face so carelessly traduced by him, which I feigned to
hang always in my sight for his sake, but worshipped in torment for years, I loved you madly. In the distasteful work
of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and Hens of
visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms,
I loved you madly."
If anything could make his words more hideous to her than



210   THE    MYSTERY OF EDWTN          DROOD.
they are in themselves, it would be the contrast between the
violence of his look and delivery, and the composure of his
assumed attitude.
" I endured it all in silence. So long as you were his, or so
long as I supposed you to be his, I hid my secret loyally.
Did I not?"
This lie, so gross, while the mere words in which it is told
are so true, is more than Rosa can endure. She answers with
kindling indignation: " You were as false throughout, sir, as
you are now. You were false to him, daily and hourly. You
know that you made my life unhappy by your pursuit of me.
You know that you made me afraid to open his generous eyes,
and that you forced me, for his own trusting, good, good sake,
to keep the truth from him, that you were a bad, bad man!"
His preservation of his easy attitude rendering his working
features and his convulsive hands absolutely diabolical, he returns, with a fierce extreme of admiration:
" How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger
than in repose. I don't ask for your love; give me yourself
and your hatred; give me yourself and that pretty rage; give
me yourself and that enchanting scorn; it will be enough for
me."
Impatient tears rise to the eyes of the trembling little
beauty, and her face flames: but as she again rises to leave
him in indignation, and seek protection within the house, he
stretches out his hand towards the porch, as though he invited
her to enter it.
"I told you, you rare charmer, you sweet witch, that you
must stay and hear me, or do more harm than can ever be
undone. You asked me what harm. Stay, and I will tell
you. Go, and I will do it."
Again Rosa quails before his threatening face, though innocent of its meaning, and she remains. Her panting breathing
comes and goes as if it would choke her; but with a repressive
hand upon her bosom, she remains.
"I have made my confession that my love is mad. It is so



SHADOW      ON   THE SUN-DIAL.             247
mad that, had the ties between me and my dear lost boy been
one silken thread less strong, I might have swept even him
from your side when you favored him."
A film comes over the eyes she raises for an instant, as
though he had turned her faint.
"Even him," he repeats. "Yes, even him! Rosa, you
see me and you hear me. Judge for yourself whether any
other admirer shall love you and live, whose life is in my
hand."
" What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean to show you how mad my love is. It was hawked
through the late inquiries by Mr. Crisparkle, that young.Landless had confessed to him that he was a rival of my lost
boy. That is an inexpiable offence in my eyes. The same
Mr. Crisparkle knows under my hand that I have devoted
myself to the murderer's discovery and destruction, be he
whom he might, and that I determined to discuss the mystery
with no one until I should hold the clue in which to entangle
the murderer as in a net. I have since worked patiently to
wind and wind it round him; and it is slowly winding as I
speak."
" Your belief, if you believe in the criminality of Mr. Landless, is not Mr. Crisparkle's belief, and he is a good man,"
Rosa retorts.
"< My belief is my own; and I reserve it, worshipped of my
soul! Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against
an innocent man, that, directed, sharpened, and pointed, they
may slay him. One wanting link discovered by perseverance
against a guilty man, proves his guilt, however slight its evidence before, and he dies. Young Landless stands in deadly
peril either way."
"If you really suppose," Rosa pleads with him, turning
paler, "that I favor Mr. Landless, or that Mr. Landless has
ever in any way addressed himself to me, you are wrong."
He puts that from him with a slighting action of his hand
and a curled lip.



248   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" I was going to show you how madly I love you. More
madly now than ever, for I am willing to renounce the second
object that has arisen in my life to divide it with you; and
henceforth to have no object in existence but you only. Miss
Landless has become your bosom friend. You care for her
peace of mind? 
I love her dearly."
"You care for her good name?"
"I have said, sir, I love her dearly."
"I am unconsciously," he observes, with a smile, as he folds
his hands upon the sun-dial and leans his chin upon them, so
that his talk would seem from the windows (faces occasionally
come and go there) to be of the airiest and playfulest: "I am
unconsciously giving offence by questioning again. I will
simply make statements, therefore, and not put questions.
You do care for your bosom friend's good name, and you do
care for her peace of mind. Then remove the shadow of the
gallows from her, dear one!"
" You dare propose to me to —
" Darling, 1 dare propose to you. Stop there. If it be bad
to idolize you, I am the worst of men; if it be good, I am the
best. My love for you is above all other love, and my truth to
you is above all other truth. Let me have hope and favor,
and I am a foresworn man for your sake."
Rosa puts her hands to her temples, and, pushing back her
hair, looks wildly and abhorrently at him, as though she were
trying to piece together what it is his deep purpose to present
to her only in fragments.
"Reckon up nothing at this moment, angel, but the sacrifices that I lay at those dear feet, which I could fall down among
the vilest ashes and kiss, and put upon my head as a poor savage might. There is my fidelity to my dear boy after death.
Tread upon it!"
With an action of his hands, as though he cast down some
thing precious.
"There is the inexpiable offence against my adoration of
you. Spurn it!"



SHADOW      ON   THE SUN-DIAL.            249
With a similar action.
"There are my labors in the cause of a just vengeance for
six toiling months. Crush them! "
With another repetition of the action.
" There is my past and my present wasted life. There is
the desolation of my heart and my soul. There is my peace;
there is my despair. Stamp them into the dust, so that you
take me, were it even mortally hating me! "
The frightful vehemence of the man, now reaching its full
height, so additionally terrifies her as to break the spell that
has held her to the spot.  She swiftly moves towards the
porch; but in an instant he is at her side, and speaking in her
ear.
"Rosa, I am self-repressed again. I am walking calmly
beside you to the house. I shall wait for some encouragement
and hope. I shall not strike too soon. Give me a sign that
you attend to me."
She slightly and constrainedly moves her hand.
" Not a word of this to any one, or it will bring down the
blow, as certainly as night follows day. Another sign that you
attend to me."
She moves her hand once more.
" I love you, love you, love you. If you were to cast me
off now-but you will not-you would never be rid of me,
No one should come between us. I would pursue you to the
death."
The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he
quietly pulls off his hat as a parting salute, and goes away with
no greater show of agitation than is visible in the effigy of Mr.
Sapsea's father opposite. Rosa faints in going up-stairs, and is
carefully carried to her room, and laid down on her bed. A
thunderstorm is coming on, the maids say, and the hot and stifling air has overset the pretty dear; no wonder; they have
felt their own knees all of a tremble all day long.



560   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN DROOD.
CHAPTER XX.
A FLIGHT.
ROSA no sooner came to herself than the whole of the late
interview was before her. It even seemed as if it had pursued her into her insensibility, and she had not had a moment's unconsciousness of it. What to do, she was at a frightened loss to know: the only one clear thought in her mind,
was, that she must fly from this terrible man.
But where could she take refuge, and how could she go?
She had never breathed her dread of him to any one but
Helena. If she went to Helena, and told her what had passed,
that very act might bring down the irreparable mischief that
he threatened he had the power, and that she knew he had
the will, to do. The more fearful he appeared to her excited
memory and imagination, the more alarming her responsibility
appeared: seeing that a slight mistake on her part, either in
action or delay, might let his malevolence loose on Helena's
brother.
Rosa's mind throughout the last six months had been stormily confused. A half-formed, wholly unexpressed suspicion
tossed in it, now heaving itself up and now sinking into the
deep; now gaining palpability, and now losing it. Jasper's
self-absorption in his nephew when he was alive, and his unceasing pursuit of the inquiry how he came by his death, if
he were dead, were themes so rife in the place, that no one
appeared able to suspect the possibility of foul play at his
hands. She had asked herself the question, " Am I so wicked
in my thoughts as to conceive a wickedness that others cannot imagine? " Then she had considered, Did the suspicion
come of her previous recoiling from him before the fact. And
if so, was not that a proof of its baselessness? Then she had
reflected, "What motive could he have, according to my accusation?"  She was ashamed to answer in her mind, " The mo



A  FLIGHT.                     251
tive of gaining me /" And covered her face, as if the lightest shadow of the idea of founding murder on such an idle
vanity were a crime almost as great.
She ran over in her mind again, all that he had said by the
sun-dial in the garden. He had persisted in treating the disappearance as murder, consistently with his whole public
course since the finding of the watch and shirt-pin. If he were
afraid of the crime being traced out, would he not rather encourage the idea of a voluntary disappearance? He had even
declared that if the ties between him and his nephew had been
less strong, he might have swept " even him" away from her
side. Was that like his having really done so?  He had
spoken of laying his six months' labors in the cause of a just
vengeance at her feet. Would he have done that, with that
violence of passion, if they were a pretence? Would he have
ranged them with his desolate heart and soul, his wasted life,
his peace, and his despair? The very first sacrifice that he
represented himself as making for her, was his fidelity to his
dear boy after death. Surely these facts were strong against
a fancy that scarcely dared to hint itself. And yet he was so
terrible a man! In short, the poor girl (for what could she
know of the criminal intellect, which its own professed students
perpetually misread, because they persist in trying to reconcile
it with the average intellect of average men, instead of identifying it as a horrible wonder apart), could get by no road to
any other conclusion than that he was a terrible man, and
must be fled from.
She had been Helena's stay and comfort during the whole
time. She had constantly assured her of her full belief in
her brother's innocence, and of her sympathy with him in his
misery. But she had never seen him since the disappearance,
nor had Helena ever spoken one word of his avowal to Mr.
Crisparkle in regard of Rosa, though as a part of the interest
of the case it was well known far and wide. He was Helena's
unfortunate brother to her, and nothing more. The assurance
she had given her odious suitor was strictly true, though it



252   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
would have been better (she considered now) if she could have
restrained herself from so giving it. Afraid of him as the
bright and delicate little creature was, her spirit swelled at the
thought of his knowing it from her own lips.
But where was she to go? Anywhere beyond his reach,
was no reply to the question. Somewhere must be thought of.
She determined to go to her guardian, and to go immediately.
The feelings she had imparted to Helena on the night of their
first confidence, was so strong upon her-the feeling of not
being safe from him, and of the solid walls of the old convent
being powerless to keep out his ghostly following of her-that
no reasoning of her own could calm her terrors. The fascination of repulsion had been upon her so long, and now culminated so darkly, that she felt as if he had power to bind her by a
spell. Glancing out at window, even now, as she rose to dress,
the sight of the sun-dial on which he had leaned when he declared himself, turned her cold, and made her shrink from it,
as though he had invested it with some awful quality from his
own nature.
She wrote a hurried note to Miss Twinkleton, saying that
she had sudden reason for wishing to see her guardian promptly,
and had gone to him; also, entreating the good lady not to be
uneasy, for all was well with her. She hurried a few quite
useless articles into a very little bag, left the note in a conspicuous place, and went out, softly closing the gate after her.
It was the first time she had ever been in Cloisterham High
Street, alone. But knowing all its ways, and windings very
well, she hurried straight to the corner from which the omnibus
departed. It was, at that very moment, going off.
" Stop and take me, if you please, Joe. I am obliged to go
to London."
In less than another minute she was on her road to the rail.
way, under Joe's protection. Joe waited on her when she got
there, put her safely into the railway carriage, and handed in
the very little bag after her, as though it were some enormous
trunk, hundredweights heavy, which she must on no account
endeavor to lift.



A  FLIGHT.                     253
" Can you go round when you get back, and tell Miss Twinkleton that you saw me safely off, Joe?"
"It shall be done, Miss."
"With my love, please, Joe."
"Yes, Miss-and I wouldn't mind having it myself!" But
Joe did not articulate the last clause; only thought it.
Now that she was whirling away for London, in real earnest,
Rosa was at leisure to resume the thoughts which her personal hurry had checked. The indignant thought that his declaration of love soiled her; that she could only bo cleansed from
the stain of its impurity by appealing to the honest and true;
supported her for a time against her fears, and confirmed her
in her hasty resolution. But as the evening grew darker and
darker, and the great city impended nearer and nearer, the
doubts usual in such cases began to arise. Whether this was
not a wild proceeding after all; how Mr. Grewgious might
regard it; whether she should find him at the journey's end;
how she would act if he were absent; what might become of
her, alone, in a place so strange and crowded; how if she had
but waited, and taken counsel first; whether, if she could now
go back, she would not do it thankfully: a multitude of such
uneasy speculations disturbed her, more and more as they accumulated. At length the train came into London over the
housetops; and down below lay the gritty streets with their
yet un-needed lamps aglow, on a hot light summer night.
"' Hiram Grewgious, Esquire, Staple Inn, London." This
was all Rosa knew of her destination; but it was enough to
send her rattling away again in a cab, through deserts of
gritty streets, where many people crowded at the corners of
courts and byways to get some air, and where many other
people walked with a miserably monotonous noise of shuffling
feet on hot paving-stones, and where all the people and all
their surroundings were so gritty and so shabby.
There was music playing here and there, but it did not
enliven the case. No barrel-organ mended the matter, and
no big drum beat dull care away. Like the chapel bells that



254   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN DROOD.
were also going here and there, they only seemed to evoke
echoes from brick surfaces, and dust from everything. As to
the flat wind instruments, they seemed to have cracked their
hearts and souls in pining for the country.
Her jingling conveyance stopped at last at a fast-closed
gateway which appeared to belong to somebody who had gone
to bed very early, and was much afraid of housebreakers;
Rosa, discharging her conveyance, timidly knocked at this
gateway, and was let in, very little bag and all, by a watchman.
"Does Mr. Grewgious live here?"
"Mr. Grewgious lives there, Miss," said the watchman,
pointing further in.
So Rosa went further in, and, when the clocks were striking
ten, stood on P. J. T.'s doorsteps, wondering what P. J. T.
had done with his street door.
Guided by the painted name of Mr. Grewgious, she went
upstairs and softly tapped and tapped several times. But no
one answering, and Mr. Grewgious's door-handle yielding to
her touch, she went in, and saw her guardian sitting on a window-seat at an open window, with a shaded lamp placed far
from him on a table in a corner.
Rosa drew nearer to him in the twilight of the room. He
saw her, and he said in an under-tone: " Good Heaven! "
Rosa fell upon his neck, with tears, and then he said, returning her embrace: _,.
" My child, my child! I thought you were your mother!"
"But what, what, what," he added, soothingly, " has happened?   My dear, what has brought you here? Who has
brought you here? "
No one. I came alone."
"Lord bless me!" ejaculated Mr. Grewgious.   "Came
alone! Why didn't you write to me to come and fetch you? "
"I had no time. I took a sudden resolution. Poor, poor
Eddy!"
" Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow!"



A  FLIGHT.                     255
"His uncle has made love to me. I cannot bear it," said
Rosa, at once with a burst of tears, and a stamp of her little
foot; " I shudder with horror of him, and I have come to you
to protect me and all of us from him, if you will? "
"I will!" cried Mr. Grewgious, with a sudden rush of
amazing energy. " Damn him!
Confound his politics,
Frustrate his knavish tricks!
On Thee his hopes to fix?
Damn him again!"
After this most extraordinary outburst, Mr. Grewgious,
quite beside himself, plunged about the room, to all appearance
undecided whether he was in a fit of loyal enthusiasm, or
combative denunciation.
He stopped and said, wiping his face: " I beg your pardon,
my dear, but you will be glad to know I feel better. Tell me
no more just now, or I might do it again. You must be
refreshed and cheered.  What did you take last?  Was it
breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper? And what will you
take next? Shall it be breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper?"
The respectful tenderness with which, on one knee before
her, he helped her to remove her hat, and disentangle her pretty
hair from it, was quite a chivalrous sight. Yet who, knowing
him only on the surface, would have expected chivalry-and
of the true sort, too: not the spurious-frrim Mr. Grewgious?
"Your rest too must be provided for," he went on; " and
you shall have the prettiest chamber in Furnival's. Your
toilet must be provided for, and you shall have everything
that an unlimited head chambermaid-by which expression I
mean a head chambermaid not limited as to outlay-can procure. Is that a bag? " he looked hard at it; sooth to say, it
required hard looking at to be seen at all in a dimly-lighted
room: " and is it your property, my dear?"
"Yes, sir. I brought it with me."
"It is not an extensive bag," said Mr. Grewgious, candidly,



256   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
" though admirably calculated to contain a day's provision for
a canary bird. Perhaps you brought a canary bird? "
Rosa smiled, and shook her head.
"If you had he should have been made welcome," said, Mr.
Grewgious, "and I think he would have been pleased to be
hung upon a nail outside and pit himself against our Staple
sparrows; whose execution must be admitted to be not quite
equal to their intention. Which is the case with so many
of us! You didn't say what meal, my dear. Have a nice
jumble of all meals."
Rosa thanked him, but said she could only take a cup of tea.
Mr. Grewgious, after several times running out, and in again,
to mention such supplementary items as marmalade, eggs,
watercresses, salted fish, and frizzled ham, ran across to Furnival's without his hat, to give his various directions. And
soon afterwards they were realized in practice, and the board
was spread.
"Lord bless my soul!" cried Mr. Grewgious, putting the
lamp upon it, and taking his seat opposite Rosa; "what a
new sensation for a poor old Angular bachelor, to be sure! "
Rosa's expressive little eyebrows asked him what he meant?
"The sensation of having a sweet young presence in the
place that whitewashes it, paints it, papers it, decorates it with
gilding, and makes it Glorious! " said Mr. Grewgious. "Ah
me! Ah me!"
As there was something mournful in his sigh, Rosa, in
touching him with his tea-cup, ventured to touch him with her
small hand too.
"Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious. "Ahem!
Let's talk."
" Do you always live here, sir? " asked Rosa.
"Yes, my dear."
" And always alone?"
" Always alone; except that I have daily company in a gentleman by the name of Bazzard; my clerk."
"lHe doesn't live here?"



A  FLIGHT.                      257
"No, he goes his ways after office hours. In fact, he is off
duty here, altogether, just at present; and a Firm down stairs
with which I have business relations, lend me a substitute.
But it would be extremely difficult to replace Mr. Bazzard."
" He must be very fond of you," said Rosa.
"He bears up against it with commendable fortitude if he
is," returned Mr. Grewgious, after considering the matter.
"But I doubt if he is. Not particularly so. You see, he is
discontented, poor fellow."
"Why isn't he contented? " was the natural inquiry.
"_Misplaced," said Mr. Grewgious, with great mystery.
Rosa's eyebrows resumed their inquisitive and perplexed
expression.
" So misplaced," Mr. Grewgious went on, "that I feel constantly apologetic towards him. And he feels (though he
doesn't mention it) that I have reason to be."
Mr. Grewgious had by this time grown so very mysterious,
that Rosa did not know how to go on. While she was thinking about it Mr. Grewgious suddenly jerked out of himself
for the second time:
"Let's talk. We were speaking of Mr. Bazzard. It's a
secret, and moreover it is Mr. Bazzard's secret; but the sweet
presence at my table makes me so unusually expansive, that I
feel I must impart it in inviolable confidence. What do you
thbnk Mr. Bazzard has done? "
" Oh dear! " cried Rosa, drawing her chair a little nearer,
and her mind reverting to Jasper, "nothing dreadful, I
hope?"
" He has written a play," said Mr. Grewgious, in a solemn
whisper. "A tragedy."
Rosa seemed much relieved.
" And nobody," pursued Mr. Grewgious in the same tone,
"will hear, on any account whatever, of bringing it out."
Rosa looked reflective, and nodded her head slowly; as who
should say: "Such things are, and why are they I"
16



258   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN     DR-OOD.
C Now, you know," said Mr. Grewgious, " 1 couldn't write
a play."
" Not a bad one, sir? " asked Rosa, innocently, with her
eyebrows again in action.
"No. If I was under sentence of decapitation, and was
about to be instantly decapitated, and an express arrived with
a pardon for the condemned convict Grewgious if he wrote a
play, I should be under the necessity of resuming the block
and begging the executioner to proceed to extremities,-meaning," said Mr. Grewgious, passing his hand under his chin,
"the singular number, and this extremity."
Rosa appeared to consider what she would do if the awkward
supposititious case were hers.
" Consequently," said Mr. Grewgious, "Mr. Bazzard would
have a sense of my inferiority to himself under any circumstances; but when I am his master, you know, the case is
greatly aggravated."
Mr. Grewgious shook his head seriously, as if he felt the
offence to be a little too much, though of his own committing.
" How came you to be his master, sir? " asked Rosa.
"A question that naturally follows," said Mr. Grewgious.
"Let's talk. Mr. Bazzard's father, being a Norfolk farmer,
would have furiously laid about him with a flail, a pitchfork,
and every agricultural implement available for assaulting purposes, on the slightest hint of his son's having written a play.
So the son, bringing to me the father's rent (which I receive),
imparted his secret, and pointed out that he was determined
to pursue his genius, and that it would put him in peril of
starvation, and that he was not formed for it."
" For pursuing his genius, sir? "
"No, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, "for starvation. It
was impossible to deny the position that Mr. Bazzard was
not formed to be starved, and Mr. Bazzard then pointed out
that it was desirable that I should stand between him and a
fate so perfectly unsuited to his formation. In that way Mr.
Bazzard became my clerk, and he feels it very much."



A FLIGHT.                      259
"I am glad he is grateful," said Rosa.
I didn't quite mean that, my dear. I mean that he feels
the degradation. There are some other geniuses that Mr.
Bazzard has become acquainted with, who have also written
tragedies, which likewise nobody will on any account whatever
hear of bringing out, and these choice spirits dedicate their
plays to one another in a highly panegyrical manner. Mr.
Bazzard has been the subject of one of these dedications.
Now, you know, I never had a play dedicated to me! "
Rosa looked at him as if she would have liked him to be the
recipient of a thousand dedications.
"Which again, naturally, rubs against the grain of Mr.
Bazzard," said Mr. Grewgious. "He is very short with me
sometimes, and then I feel that he is meditating'This blockhead is my master! A fellow who couldn't write a tragedy
on pain of death, and who will never have one dedicated to
him with the most complimentary congratulations on the high
position he has taken in the eyes of posterity!' Very trying, very trying. However, in giving him directions, I reflect
beforehand:'Perhaps he may not like this,' or,'He might
take it ill if I asked that,' and so we get on very well. Indeed, better than I could have expected."
" Is the tragedy named? " asked Rosa.
" Strictly between ourselves," answered Mr. Grewgious, " it
has a dreadfully appropriate name. It is called The Thorn
of Anxiety. But Mr. Bazzard hopes-and I hope-that it
will come out at last."
It was not hard to divine that Mr. Grewgious had related
the Bazzard history thus fully, at least quite as much for the
recreation of his ward's mind from the subject that had driven
her there, as for the gratification of his own tendency to be
social and communicative. " And now, my dear," he said at
this point, " if you are not too tired to tell me more of what
passed to-day-but only if you feel quite able-I should be
glad to hear it. I may digest it the better, if I sleep on it
to-night."



260   THE MYSTEERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
Rosa, composed now, gave him a faithful account of the
interview. Mr, Grewgious often smoothed his head while it
was in progress, and begged to be told a second time those
parts which bore on Helena and Neville. When Rosa had
finished, he sat, grave, silent, and meditative, for a while.
"Clearly narrated," was his only remark at last, " and, I
hope, clearly put away here," smoothing his head again:
"'See, my dear," taking her to the open window, "where
they live! The dark windows over yonder."
"I may go to Helena to-morrow? " asked Rosa.
"I should like to sleep on that question to-night," he answered, doubtfully. " But let me take you to your own rest,
for you must need it."
With that, Mr. Grewgious helped her to get her hat on
again, and hung upon his arm the very little bag that was of
no earthly use, and led her by the hand (with a certain stately
awkwardness, as if he were going to walk a minuet) across
Holborn, and into Furnival's Inn. At the hotel door, he confided her to the Unlimited head chambermaid, and said that
while she went up to see her room, he would remain below, in
case she should wish it exchanged for another, or should find
that there was anything she wanted.
Rosa's room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. The
Unlimited had laid in everything omitted from the very little
bag (that is to say, everything she could possibly need), and
Rosa tripped down the great many stairs again, to thank her
guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate care of her.
"Not at all, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, infinitely gratified; "it is I who thank you for your charming confidence
and for your charming company. Your breakfast will be provided for you in a neat, compact, and graceful little sittingroom (appropriate to your figure), and I will come to you at
ten o'clock in the morning. I hope you don't feel very strange
indeed, in this strange place."
"Oh no, I feel so safe "
"Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fire-proof," said



A  RECOGNITION.                    261
Mr. Grewgious, "and that any outbreak of the devouring
element would be perceived and suppressed by the watchmen."
"I did not mean that," Rosa replied. "I mean, I feel so
safe from him."
" There is a stout gate of iron bars to keep him out," said
Mr. Grewgious, smiling, "and Furnival's is fire-proof and
specially watched and lighted, and I live over the way!"  In
the stoutness of his knight-errantry, he seemed to think the
last-named protection all-sufficient. In the same spirit, he
said to the gate-porter as he went out, " If some one staying
in the hotel should wish to send across the road to me in the
night, a crown will be ready for the messenger." In the
same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for
the best part of an hour, with some solicitude: occasionally
looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a
high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his mind that she
might tumble out.
CHAPTER XXI.
A RECOGNITION.
Nothing occurred in the night to flutter the tired dove, and
the dove arose refreshed. With Mr. Grewgious when the
clock struck ten in the morning, came Mr. Crisparkle, who
had come at one plunge out of the river at Cloisterham.
" Miss Twinkleton was so uneasy, Miss Rosa," he explained
to her, " and came round to Ma and me with your note, in such
a state of wonder, that, to quiet her, I volunteered on this service by the very first train to be caught in the morning. I
wished at the time that you had come to me; but now I think
it best that you did as you did, and came to your guardian."
"I did think of you," Rosa told him; "but Minor Canon
Corner was so near him  "



262   THE   MYSTERY OF EDWIN            DROOD.
"I understand. It was quite natural."
"I have told Mr. Crisparkle," said Mr. Grewgious, " all that
you told me last night, my dear. Of course I should have
written it to him immediately; but his coming was most opportune. And it was particularly kind of him to come, for he
had but just gone."
"Have you settled," asked Rosa, appealing to them both
" what is to be done for Helena and her brother? "
"Why really," said Mr. Crisparkle, "I am in great perplexity. If even Mr. Grewgious, whose head is much longer
than mine and who is a whole night's cogitation in advance of
me, is undecided, what must I be!"
The Unlimited here put her head in at the door-after having rapped, and been authorized' to present herself-announcing that a gentleman wished for a word with another gentleman named Crisparkle, if any such gentleman were there. If
no such gentleman were there, he begged pardon for being
mistaken."
" Such a gentleman is here," said Mr. Crisparkle, " but is
engaged just now."
Is it a dark gentleman? " interposed Rosa, retreating on
her guardian.
" No, Miss, more of a brown gentleman."
"You are sure not with black hair? " asked Rosa, taking
courage.
Quite sure of that, Miss. Brown hair and blue eyes."
"Perhaps," hinted Mr. Grewgious, with habitual caution,
"it might be well to see him, reverend sir, if you don't object.
When one is in a difficulty, or at a loss, one never knows in
what direction a way out may chance to open. It is a business principle of mine, in such a case, not to close up any
direction, but to keep an eye on every direction that may present itself. I could relate an anecdote in point, but that it
would be premature."
"If Miss Rosa will allow me then?  Let the gentleman
come in," said Mr. Crisparkle.



A  RECOGNITION.                    263
The gentleman came in; apologized, with a frank but modest grace, for not finding Mr. Crisparkle alone; turned to Mr.
Crisparkle, and smilingly asked the unexpected question;
"Who am I?"
"You are the gentleman I saw smoking under the trees in
Staple Inn a few minutes ago."
" True. There I saw you. Who else am I? "
Mr. Crisparkle concentrated his attention on a handsome
face, much sunburnt; and the ghost of some departed boy
seemed to rise, gradually and dimly, in the room.
The gentleman saw a struggling recollection lighten up the
Minor Canon's features, and smiling again, said: " What will
you have for breakfast this morning? You are out of jam."
" Wait a moment!" cried Mr. Crisparkle, raising his right
hand. "Give me another instant! Tartar!"
The two shook hands with the greatest heartiness, and then
went the wonderful length-for Englishmen-of laying their
hands each on the other's shoulders, and looking joyfully each
into the other's face.
" My old fag!" said Mr. Crisparkle.
" My old master! " said Mr. Tartar.
"You saved me from drowning! " said Mr. Crisparkle.
"After which you took to swimming, you know! " said Mr.
Tartar.
"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Crisparkle.
"Amen!" said Mr. Tartar.
And then they fell to shaking hands most heartily again.
" Imagine," exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle, with glistening eyes:
"Miss Rosa Bud and Mr. Grewgious, imagine Mr. Tartar,
when he was the smallest of juniors, diving for me, catching
me, a big heavy senior, by the hair of the head, and striking
out for the shore with me like a water-giant!"
" Imagine my not letting him sink, as I was his fag!" said
Mr. Tartar. "But the truth being that he was my best protector and friend, and did me more good than all the masters
put together, an irrational impulse seized me to pick him up,
or go down with him."



264   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" Hem! Permit me, sir, to have the honor," said Mr. Grewgious, advancing with extended hand, " for an honor I truly
esteem it. I am proud to make your acquaintance. I hope
you didn't take cold. I hope you were not inconvenienced by
swallowing too much water. How have you been since?"
It was by no means apparent that Mr. Grewgious knew
what he said, though it was very apparent that he meant to
say something highly friendly and appreciative.
If Heaven, Rosa thought, had but sent such courage and
skill to her poor mother's aid! And he to have been so slight
and young then!
I don't wish to be complimented upon it, I thank you, but
I think I have an idea," Mr. Grewgious announced, after taking a jog-trot or two across the room, so unexpected and unaccountable that they had all stared at him, doubtful whether
he was choking or had the cramp. " I think I have an idea.
I believe I have had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Tartar's name
as tenant of the top set in the house next the top set in the
corner?"
" Yes, sir," returned Mr. Tartar. "You are right so far."
"I am right so far," said Mr. Grewgious. " Tick that off,"
which he did, with his right thumb on his left. " Might you
happen to know the name of your neighbor in the top set on
the other side of the party-wall? " coming very close to Mr.
Tartar, to lose nothing of his face, in his shortness of sight.
" Landless."
"Tick that off," said Mr. Grewgious, taking another trot,
and then coming back. " No personal knowledge, I suppose,
sir?"
"Slight, but some."
"Tick that off," said Mr. Grewgious, taking another trot,
and again coming back. "Nature of knowledge, Mr. Tartar?"
"' I thought he seemed to be a young fellow in a poor way,
and I asked his leave-only within a day or so-to share my
flowers up there with him; that is to say, to extend my
4:~wer-garden to his windows."



A RECOGNITION.                     265
"Would you have the kindness to take seats? " said Mr.
Grewgious. " I have an idea!"
They complied; Mr. Tartar none the less readily, for being
all abroad; and Mr. Grewgious, seated in the centre, with his
hands upon his knees, thus stated his idea, with his usual
manner of having got the statement by heart.
" I cannot as yet make up my mind whether it is prudent to
hold open communication under present circumstances, and
on the part of the fair member of the present company, with
Mr. Neville or Miss Helena. I have reason to know that a
local friend of ours (on whom I beg to bestow a passing but a
hearty malediction, with the kind permission of my reverend
friend) sneaks to and fro, and dodges up and down. When
not doing so himself, he may have some informant skulking
about, in the person of a watchman, porter, or such-like
hanger-on of Staple. On the other hand, Miss Rosa very naturally wishes to see her friend Miss Helena, and it would seem
important that at least Miss Helena (if not her brother too,
through her) should privately know from Miss Rosa's lips what
has occurred, and what has been threatened. Am I agreed
with generally in the views I take? "
"I entirely coincide with them," said Mr. Crisparkle, who
had been very attentive.
"And I have no doubt I should," added Mr. Tartar, smiling, " if I understood them."
" Fair and softly, sir," said Mr. Grewgious; "we shall fully
confide in you directly, if you will favor us with your permission. Now, if our local friend should have any informant on
the spot, it is tolerably clear that such informant can only be
set to watch the chambers in the occupation of Mr. Neville.
He reporting, to our local friend, who comes and goes there,
our local friend would supply for himself, from his own previous
knowledge, the identity of the parties. Nobody can be set to
watch all Staple, or to concern himself with comers and goers
to other sets of chambers: unless, indeed, mine."
I begin to understand to what you tend," said Mr. Crisparkle, " and highly approve of your caution."



266   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD,
"I needn't repeat that I know nothing yet of the why and
wherefore," said Mr. Tartar; "' but I also understand to what
you tend, so let me say at once that my chambers are freely at
your disposal."
"There!" cried Mr. Grewgious, smoothing his head triumphantly. "Now we have all got the idea. You have it,
my dear? "
"I think I have," said Rosa, blushing a little as Mr. Tartar
looked quickly towards her.
" You see, you go over to Staple with Mr. Crisparkle and
Mr. Tartar," said Mr. Grewgious; "I going in and out and
out and in, alone, in my usual way; you go up with those
gentlemen to Mr. Tartar's rooms; you look into Mr. Tartar's
flower-garden; you wait for Miss Helena's appearance there,
or you signify to Miss Helena that you are close by; and you
communicate with her freely, and no spy can be the wiser."
"I am very much afraid I shall be-"
"Be what, my dear?" asked Mr. Grewgious, as she hesitated. " Not frightened? "
"No, not that," said Rosa, shyly; — in Mr. Tartar's way.
We seem to be appropriating Mr. Tartar's residence so very
coolly."
" I protest to you," returned that gentleman, " that I shall
think the better of it for evermore, if your voice sounds in it
only once."
Rosa not quite knowing what to say about that, cast down
her eyes, and turning to Mr. Grewgious, dutifully asked if she
should put her hat on? Mr. Grewgious being of opinion that
she could not do better, she withdrew for the purpose. Mr.
Crisparkle took the opportunity of giving Mr. Tartar a summary of the distresses of Neville and his sister; the opportunity was quite long enough, as the hat happened to require a
little extra fitting on.
Mr. Tartar gave his arm to Rosa, and Mr. Crisparkle walked,
detached, in front.
" Poor, poor Eddy!" thought Rosa, as they went along.



A  GRITTY     STATE OF THINGS.             267
Mr. Tartar waved his right hand as he bent his head down
over Rosa, talking in an animated way.
"It was not so powerful or so sun-browned when it saved
Mr. Crisparkle," thought Rosa, glancing at it; " but it must
have been very steady and determined even then."
Mr. Tartar told her he had been a sailor, roving everywhere
for years and years.
"When are you going to sea again? " asked Rosa.
"Never! "
Rosa wondered what the girls would say if they could see
her crossing the wide street on the sailor's arm. And she fancied that the passers-by must think her very little and very
helpless, contrasted with the strong figure that could have
caught her up and carried her out of any danger, miles and
miles without resting.
She was thinking further, that his far-seeing blue eyes
looked as if they had been used to watch danger afar off, and
to watch it without flinching, drawing nearer and nearer;
when, happening to raise her own eyes, she found that he
seemed to be thinking something about them.
This a little confused Rosebud, and may account for her
never afterwards quite knowing how she ascended (with his
help) to his garden in the air, and seemed to get into a marvellous country that came into sudden bloom like the country
on the summit of the magic beanstalk. May it flourish for
ever!
CHAPTER XXII.
A GRITTY STATE OF THINGS COMES ON.
MR. TARTAR'S chambers were the neatest, the cleanest,
and the best ordered chambers ever seen under sun, moon, and
stars.  The floors were scrubbed to that extent, that you
might have supposed the London blacks emancipated for ever,



268   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN       DROOD.
and gone out of the land for good. Every inch of brass-work
in Mr. Tartar's possession was polished and burnished, till it
shone like a brazen mirror. No speck, nor spot, nor spatter
soiled the purity of any of Mr. Tartar's household gods, large,
small, or middle-sized. His sitting-room was like the admiral's cabin, his bath-room was like a dairy, his sleeping-chamber, fitted all about with lockers and drawers, was like a seedsman's shop; and his nicely-balanced cot just stirred in the
midst, as if it breathed. Everything belonging to Mr. Tartar had quarters of its own assigned to it: his maps and
charts had their quarters; his books had- theirs; his brushes
had theirs; his boots had theirs; his clothes had theirs; his
case-bottles had theirs; his telescopes and other instruments
had theirs. Everything was readily accessible. Shelf, bracket, locker, hook, and drawer were equally within reach, and
were equally contrived with a view to avoiding waste of room,
and providing some snug inches of stowage for something that
would have exactly fitted nowhere else. His gleaming little
service of plate was so arranged upon his sideboard as that a
slack salt-spoon would have instantly betrayed itself; his toilet implements were so arranged upon his dressing-table as
that a toothpick of slovenly deportment could have been
reported at a glance. So with the curiosities he had brought
home from various voyages. Stuffed, dried, repolished, or otherwise preserved, according to their kind; birds, fishes, reptiles, arms, articles of dress, shells, seaweeds, grasses, or memorials of coral reef; each was displayed in its especial place,
and each could have been displayed in no better place. Paint
and varnish seemed to be kept somewhere out of sight, in constant readiness to obliterate stray finger-marks wherever any
might become perceptible in Mr. Tartar's chambers. No man-ofwar was ever kept more spick and span from careless touch. On
this bright summer day, a neat awning was rigged over Mr.
Tartar's flower-garden as only a sailor could rig it; and there
was a sea-going air upon the whole effect, so delightfully complete, that the flower-garden might have appertained to stern



A  GRITTY     STATE OF THINGS.             269
windows afloat, and the whole concern might have bowled
away gallantly with all on board, if Mr. Tartar had only clapped to his lips the speaking-trumpet that was slung in a corner, and given hoarse orders to have the anchor up, look alive,
there, men, and get all sail upon her!
Mr. Tartar doing the honors of this gallant craft, was of a
piece with the rest. When a man rides an amiable hobby
that shies at nothing and kicks nobody, it is only agreeable to
find him riding it with a humorous sense of the droll side of
the creature. When the man is a cordial and an earnest man
by nature, and withal is perfectly fresh and genuine, it may be
doubted whether he is ever seen to greater advantage than at
such a time. So Rosa would have naturally thought (even if
she hadn't been conducted over the ship with all the homage
due to the First Lady of the Admiralty, or First Fairy of the
Sea), that it was charming to see and hear Mr. Tartar half
laughing at, and half rejoicing, in his various contrivances.
So Rosa would have naturally thought, anyhow, that the sunburnt sailor showed to great advantage when, the inspection
finished, he delicately withdrew out of his admiral's cabin,
beseeching her to consider herself its Queen, and waving her
free of his flower-garden with the hand that had had Mr. Crisparkle's life in it.
"Helena! Helena Landless! Are you there?"
"Who speaks to me? Not Rosa?"  Then a second handsome face appearing.
"Yes, my darling!"
"Why, how did you come here, dearest?"
"I-I don't quite know," said Rosa with a blush;' unless
I am dreaming!"
Why with a blush? For their two faces were alone with
the other flowers. Are blushes among the fruits of the country
of the magic beanstalk.
"I am not dreaming," said Helena, smiling. "I should
take more for granted if I were. How do we come togetheror so near together-so very unexpectedly? "



270   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
Unexpectedly indeed, among the dingy gables and chimneypots of P. J. T.'s connection, and the flowers that had sprung
from the salt sea. But Rosa, waking, told in a hurry how they
came to be together, and all the why and wherefore of that
matter.
" And Mr. Crisparkle is here," said Rosa, in rapid conclusion; "and could you believe it?  Long ago, he saved his
life!"
" I could believe any such thing of Mr. Crisparkle," returned
Helena, with a mantling face.
(More blushes in the beanstalk country!)
" Yes, but it wasn't Mr. Crisparkle," said Rosa, quickly putting in the correction.
I don't understand, love."
" It was very nice of Mr. Crisparkle to be saved," said Rosa,
(a and he couldn't have shown his high opinion of Mr. Tartar
more expressively. But it was Mr. Tartar who saved him."
Helena's dark eyes looked very earnestly at the bright face
among the leaves, and she asked, in a slower and more
thoughtful tone:' Is Mr. Tartar with you now, dear?"
"No; because he has given his rooms to me-to us, I mean.
It is such a beautiful place!"
Is it?"
" It is like the inside of the most exquisite ship that ever
sailed. It is like-it is like  -"
" Like a dream? " suggested Helena.
Rosa answered with a little nod, and smelled the flowers.
Helena resumed, after a short pause of silence, during which
she seemed (or it was Rosa's fancy) to compassionate somebody; " My poor Neville is reading in his own room, the sun
being so very bright on this side just now. I think he had
better not know that you are so near."
"Oh, I think so too!" cried Rosa very readily.
"I suppose," pursued Helena, doubtfully, "that he must
know by-and-by all you have told me; but I am not sure.



A  GRITTTY STATE       OF TINTI   GS.      271
Ask Mr. Crisparkle's advice, my darling. Ask him whether I
may tell Neville as much or as little of what you have told mo
as I think best."
Rosa subsided into her state-cabin, and propounded the
question. The Minor Canon was for the free exercise of Helena's judgment.
" I thank him very much," said Helena, when Rosa emerged again with her report. " Ask him whether it would be best
to wait until any more maligning and pursuing of Neville on
the part of this wretch shall disclose itself, or to try to anticipate it: I mean, so far as to find out whether any such goes
on darkly about us?"
The Minor Canon found this point so difficult to give a confident opinion on, that, after two or three attempts and failures,
he suggested a reference to Mr. Grewgious. Helena acquiescing, he betook himself (with a most unsuccessful assumption
of lounging indifference) across the quadrangle to P. J. T.'s,
and stated it. Mr. Grewgious held decidedly to the general
principle, that if you could steal a march upon a brigand or a
wild beast, you had better do it; and he also held decidedly to
the special case, that John Jasper was a brigand and a wild
beast in combination.
Thus advised, Mr. Crisparkle came back again and reported
to Rosa, who in her turn reported to Helena. She, now steadily pursuing her train of thought at her window, considered
thereupon.
"We may count on Mr. Tartar's readiness to help us,
Rosa?" she inquired.
O yes! Rosa shyly thought so. 0 yes, Rosa shyly believed
she could almost answer for it. But should she ask Mr. Crisparkle? " I think your authority on the point as good as his,
my dear," said Helena, sedately, " and you needn't disappear
again for that." Odd of Helena!
" You see, Neville" Helena pursued after more reflection,
knows no one else here: he has not so much as exchanged a
word with any one else here. If Mr. Tartar would call to see



272   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
him openly and often; if he would spare a minute for the purpose, frequently; if he would even do so, almost daily; something might come of it."
" Something might come of it, dear? " repeated Rosa, surveying her friend's beauty with a highly perplexed face,
"Something might?"
"If Neville's movements are really watched, and if the
purpose really is to isolate him from all friends and acquaintance and wear his daily life out grain by grain (which would
seem to be the threat to you), does it not appear likely," said
Helena, "that his enemy would in some way communicate
with Mr. Tartar to warn him off from Neville? In which
case, we might not only know the fact but might know from
Mr. Tartar what the terms of the communication were."
" I see!" cried Rosa. And immediately darted into her
state-cabin again.
Presently her pretty face reappeared, with a greatly heightened color, and she said that she had told Mr. Crisparkle, and
that Mr. Crisparkle had fetched in Mr. Tartar, and that Mr.
Tartar-" who is waiting now in case you want him," added
Rosa, with a half look back, and in not a little confusion,
between the inside of the state-cabin and out-had declared
his readiness to act as she had suggested, and to enter on his
task that very day.
" I thank him from my heart," said Helena. "Pray tell
him so."
Again not a little confused between the Flower Garden and
the Cabin, Rosa dipped in with her message, and dipped out
again with more assurances from Mr. Tartar, and stood wavering in a divided state between Helena and him, which proved
that confusion is not always necessarily awkward, but may
sometimes present a pleasant appearance.
" And now, darling," said Helena, " we will be mindful of
the caution that has restricted us to this interview for the present, and will part. I hear Neville moving too. Are you going
back?"



A  GRITTY     STATE    OF THINGS.          273
"To Miss Twinkleton's? " asked Rosa.
"Yes."
"O, I could never go there any more; rcouldn't indeed,
after that dreadful interview " said Rosa.
"Then where are you going, pretty one?"
" Now I come to think of it, I don't know," said Rosa. " I
have settled nothing at all yet, but my guardian will take care
of me. Don't be uneasy, dear. I shall be sure to be somewhere."
(It did seem likely.)
" And I shall hear of my Rosebud from Mr. Tartar? " inquired Helena.
" Yes, I suppose so; from — " Rosa looked back again in
a flutter, instead of supplying the name. " But tell me one
thing before we part, dearest Helena. Tell me that you are
sure, sure, sure, I couldn't help it."
"Help it, love?"
"Help making him malicious and revengeful. I couldn't
hold any terms with him, could I? "
"You know how I love you, darling," answered Helena,
with indignation; " but I would sooner see you dead at his
wicked feet."
"' That's a great comfort to me! And you will tell your
poor brother so, won't you? And you will give him my remembrance and my sympathy? And you will ask him not to
hate me? "
With a mournful shake of the head, as if that would be
quite a superfluous entreaty, Helena lovingly kissed her two
hands to her friend, and her friend's two hands were kissed to
her; and then she saw a third hand (a brown one) appear
among the flowers and leaves, and help her friend out of
sight.
The reflection that Mr. Tartar produced in the Admiral's
Cabin by merely touching the spring-knob of a locker and the
handle of a drawer, was a dazzling enchanted repast. Wonderful macaroons, glittering liqueurs, magically preserved trop1T



274   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
ical spices, and jellies of celestial tropical fruits, displayed
themselves profusely at an instant's notice. But Mr. Tartar
could not make time stand still; and time, with his hardhearted fleetness, strode on so fast, that Rosa was obliged to
come down from the Beanstalk country to earth, and her guardian's chambers.
" And now, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, " what is to be
done next? To put the same thought in another form; what
is to be done with you? "
Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being very
much in her own way, and in everybody else's. Some passing idea of living fireproof, up a good many stairs in Furnival's Inn for the rest of her life, was the only thing in the
nature of a plan that occurred to her.
"It has come into my thoughts," said Mr. Grewgious,
" that as the respected lady, Miss Twinkleton, occasionally
repairs to London in the recess, with the view of extending
her connection, and being available for interviews with metropolitan parents, if any-whether, until we have time in which
to turn ourselves round, we might invite Miss Twinkleton to
come and stay with you for a month?"
" Stay where, sir? "
"Whether," explained Mr. Grewgious, "we might take a
furnished lodging in town for a month, and invite Miss Twinkleton to assume the charge of you in it for that period?"
"And afterwards? " hinted Rosa.
And afterwards," said Mr. Grewgious, " we should be no
worse off than we are now."
"I think that might smooth the way," assented Rosa.
"Then let us," said Mr. Grewgious, rising, " go and look
for a furnished lodging. Nothing could be more acceptable to
me than the sweet presence of last evening, for all the remaining evenings of my existence; but these are not fit surroundings for a young lady. Let us set out in quest of adventures,
and look for a furnished lodging. In the meantime, Mr. Crisparkle here, about to return home immediately, will no doubt



A  GRITTY     STATE     OF THINGS.          275
kindly see Miss Twinkleton and invite that lady to co-operate
in our plan."
Mr. Crisparkle, willingly accepting the commission, took his
departure; Mr. Grewgious and his ward set forth on their
expedition.
As Mr. Grewgious's idea of looking at a furnished lodging
was to get on the opposite side of the street to a house with a
suitable bill in the window, and stare at it; and then work
his way tortuously to the back of the house, and stare at that;
and then not go in, but make similar trial of another house
with the same result; their progress was but slow. At length
he bethought himself of a widowed cousin, divers times removed, of Mr. Bazzard's, who had once solicited his influence
in the lodger world, and who lived in Southampton Street,
Bloomsbury Square. This lady's name, stated in uncompromising capitals of considerable size on a brass door-plate, and
yet not lucidly as to sex or condition, was BILLICKIN.
Personal faintness, and an overpowering personal candor,
were the distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin's organization. She came languishing out of her own exclusive back
parlor, with the air of having been expressly brought-to for
the purpose, from an accumulation of several swoons.
" I hope I see you well, sir," said Mrs. Billickin, recognizing her visitor with a bend.
" Thank you, quite well.  And you, ma'am I" returned
Mr. Grewgious.
" I am as well," said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational,
with excess of faintness, " as I hever ham."
" My ward and an elderly lady," said Mr. Growgious, " wish
to find a genteel lodging for a month or so. Have you any
apartments available, ma'am? "
" Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, " I will not deceive you; far from it. I have apartments available."
This, with the air of adding: " Convey me to the stake, if
you will; but while I live, I will be candid."
"And now, what apartments, ma'am?" asked Mr. Grew



276   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN      DROOD.
gious, cosily. To tame a certain severity apparent on the part
of Mrs. Billickin.
"There is this sitting-room-which call it what you will, it
is the front parlor, Miss," said Mrs. Billickin, impressing
Rosa into the conversation: " the back parlor being what I
cling to and never part with; and there is two bedrooms at the
top of the'ouse with gas laid on. I do not tell you that your
bedroom floors is firm, for firm they are not. The gas-fitter
himself allowed that to make a firm job, he must go right
under your jistes, and it were not worth the outlay as a yearly
tenant so to do. The piping is carried above your jistes, and
it is best that it should be make known to you."
Mr. Grewgious and Rosa exchanged looks of some dismay,
though they had not the least idea what latent horrors this carriage of the piping might involve. Mrs. Billickin put her
hand to her heart, as having eased it of a load.
"Well! The roof is all right, no doubt," said Mr. Grewgious, plucking up a little.
"Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, " if I was to
tell you, sir, that to have nothink above you is to have a floor
above you, I should put a deception upon you which I will not
do. No, sir. Your slates WILL rattle loose at that elewation
in windy weather, do your utmost, best or worst! I defy you,
sir, be you what you may, to keep your slates tight, try how
you can."  Here Mrs. Billickin, having been warm with Mr.
Grewgious, cooled a little, not to abuse the moral power she
held over him. " Consequent," proceeded Mrs. Billickin,
more mildly, but still firmly in her incorruptible candor: "consequent it would be worse than of no use for me to trapse and
travel up to the top of the'ouse with you, and for you to say,' Mrs. Billickin, what stain do I notice in the ceiling, for a
stain I do consider it?' and for me to answer,' I do not understand you, sir.' No sir; I will not be so underhand. I do
understand you before you pint it out. It is the wet, sir. It
do come in, and it do not come in. You may lay dry there,
half your lifetime; but the time will come, and it is best that



A  GRITTY     STATE     OF THINGS.          277
you should know it, when a dripping sop would be no name
for you."
Mr. Grewgious looked much disgraced by being prefigured
in this pickle.
" Have you any other apartments, ma'am? " he asked.
"Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, with much solemnity, " I have. You ask.ine have I, and my open and my
honest answer air, I have. The first and second floors is wacant, and sweet rooms."
"Come, come    There's nothing against them," said Mr.
Grewgious, comforting himself.
"Mr. Grewgious," replied Mrs. Billickin, "pardon me,
there is the stairs. Unless your mind is prepared for the
stairs, it will lead to inevitable disappointment. You cannot,
Miss," said Mrs. Billickin, addressing Rosa, reproachfully,
" place a first floor, and far less a second, on the level footing
of a parlor. No, you cannot do it, Miss, it is beyond your
power, and wherefore try? "
Mrs. Billickin put it very feelingly, as if Rosa had shown a
headstrong determination to hold the untenable position.
"Can we see these rooms, ma'am? " inquired her guardian.
"Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, "you can. I
will not disguise it from you, sir, you can."
Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlor for her shawl
(it being a state fiction, dating from immemorial antiquity,
that she could never go anywhere without being wrapped up),
and having been enrolled by her attendant, led the way. She
made various genteel pauses on the stairs for breath, and
clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if it had very
nearly got loose, and she had caught it in th.e act of taking
wing.
" And the second floor? " said Mr. Grewgious, on finding
the first satisfactory.
" Mr. Grewgious," replied Mrs. Billickin, turning upon him
with ceremony, as if the time had now come when a distinct
understanding on a difficult point must be arrived at, and a
solemn confidence established, " the second floor is over this."



278   THE MYSTERY         OF EDWIN       DROOD.
"Can we see that too, ma'am? "
"Yes, sir," returned Mrs. Billickin, "it is open as the
day."
That also proving satisfactory, Mr. Grewgious retired into a
window with Rosa, for a few words of consultation, and then
asking for pen and ink, sketched out a line or two of agreement. In the meantime Mrs. Billickin took a seat, and delivered a kind of Index to, or Abstract of, the general question.
" Five-and-forty shillings per week by the month certain at
the time of year," said Mrs. Billickin, "is only reasonable to
both parties. It is not Bond Street nor yet St. James's Palace; but it is not pretended that it is. Neither is it attempted
to be denied-for why should it?-that the Arching leads to
a Mews. Mewses must exist. Respecting attendance; two
is kep', at liberal wages. Words has arisen as to tradesmen,
but dirty shoes on fresh hearthstoning was attributable, and
no wish for a commission on your orders. Coals is either by
the fire, or per the scuttle." She emphasized the prepositions
as marking a subtle but immense difference. " Dogs is not
viewed with favior. Besides litter, they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep in, and unpleasantness takes
place."
By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines, and
his earnest-money, ready. "I have signed it for the ladies,
ma'am," he said, "and you'll have the goodness to sign it for
yourself, Christian and Surname, there, if you please."
" Mr. Grewgious," said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of
candor, " no, sir! You must excuse the Christian name."
Mr. Grewgious stared at her.
" The door-plate is used as a protection," said Mrs. Billickin,
"and acts as such, and go from it I will not."
Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.
"No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this'ouse is known indefinite as Billickin's, and so long as it is a
doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin', near the
street door or down the airy, and what his.weight and size. so



A  GRITTY     STATE OF THINGS.             279
long I feel safe. But commit myself to a solitary female
statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a moment wish,"
said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, "to take
that advantage of your sex, if you was not brought to it by
inconsiderate example."
Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful
attempt to overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious
to rest content with any signature. And accordingly, in a
baronial way, the sign-manual BILLICKIN got appended to the
document.
Details were then settled for taking possession on the next
day but one, when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably expected; and Rosa went back to Furnival's Inn on her guardian's arm.
Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival's Inn,
checking himself when he saw them coming, and advancing
towards them!
" It occurred to me," hinted Mr. Tartar, "that we might
go up the river, the weather being so delicious and the tide
serving. I have a boat of my own at the Temple Stairs."
"I have not been up the river for this many a day," said
Mr. Grewgious, tempted.
"I was never up the river," added Rosa.
Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by
going up the river. The tide was running with them, the
afternoon was charming. Mr. Tartar's boat was perfect. Mr.
Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar's man) pulled a pair of oars.
Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying somewhere down by
Greenhithe; and Mr. Tartar's man had charge of this yacht,
and was detached upon his present service. He was a jolly
favored man, with tawny hair and whiskers and a big red face.
He was the dead image of the sun in old woodcuts, his hair
and whiskers answering for rays all round him. Resplendent
in the bow of the boat, he was a shining sight, with a man-ofwar's man's shirt on-or off, according to opinion-and his
arms and breast tattoo'd all sorts of patterns. Lobley seemed



280   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
to take it easily, and so did Mr. Tartar; yet their oars bent
as they pulled, and the boat bounded under them. Mr. Tartar talked as if he were doing nothing, to Rosa who was
really doing nothing, and to Mr. Grewgious who was doing
this much that he steered all wrong; but what did that mat.
ter, when a turn of Mr. Tartar's skilful wrist, or a mere grin
of Mr. Lobley's over the bow, put all to rights! The tide
bore them on in the gayest and most sparkling manner, until
they stopped to dine in some everlastingly green garden,
needing no matter-of-fact identification here; and then the
tide obligingly turned —being devoted to that party alone for
that day; and as they floated idly among some osier beds,
Rosa tried what she could do in the rowing way, and came off
splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr. Grewgious tried
what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up with
an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there
was an interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) what time
Mr. Lobley mopped, and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and
the like, danced the tight rope the whole length of the boat
like a man to whom shoes were a superstition, and stockings
slavery; and then came the sweet return among delicious
odors of limes in bloom, and musical ripplings; and, all too
soon, the great black city cast its shadow on the waters, and
its dark bridges spanned them as death spans life, and the
everlastingly green garden seemed to be left for everlasting,
unregainable and far away.
"Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I
wonder!" Rosa thought next day, when the town was very
gritty again, and everything had a strange and uncomfortable
appearance of seeming to wait for something that wouldn't
come. No. She began to think, that, now the Cloisterham
school days had glided past and gone, the gritty stages would
begin to set in at intervals and make themselves wearily
known!
Yet what did Rosa expect? Did she expect Miss Twinkleton?  Miss Twinkleton duly came.  Forth from her back



A  GRITTY STATE        OF THIIN'GS.        281
parlor issued the Billickin to receive Miss Twinkleton, and
War was in the Billickin's eye from that moment.
Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her,
having all Rosa's as well as her own. The Billickin took it
ill that Miss Twinkleton's mind, being sorely disturbed by
this luggage, failed to take in her personal identity with that
clearness of perception which was due to its demands. Stateliness mounted her gloomy throne upon the Billickin's brow
in consequence. And when Miss Twinkleton, in agitation
taking stock of her trunks and packages, of which she had
seventeen, particularly counted in the Billickin herself as
number eleven, the B found it necessary to repudiate.
" Things cannot too soon be put upon the footing," said she,
with a candor so demonstrative as to be almost obtrusive,
" that the person of the'ouse is not a box nor yet a bundle,
nor a carpet bag. No, I am'ily obleeged to you, Miss Twinkleton, nor yet a beggar."
This last disclaimer had reference to Miss Twinkleton's distractedly pressing two and sixpence on her, instead of the cabman.
Thus cast off, Miss Twinkleton wildly inquired, "which
gentleman " was to be paid? There being two gentlemen in
that position (Miss Twinkleton having arrived with two cabs),
each gentleman on being paid held forth his two and sixpence
on the flat of his open hand, and, with a speechless stare and
a dropped jaw, displayed his wrong to heaven and earth. Terrified by this alarming spectacle, Miss Twinkleton placed
another shilling in each hand; at the same time appealing to
the law in flurried accents, and recounting her luggage this
time with the two gentlemen in, who caused the total to come
out complicated. Meanwhile the two gentlemen, each looking very hard at the last shilling grumblingly, as if it might
become eighteenpence if he kept his eyes on it, descended
the doorsteps, ascended their carriages, and drove away, leaving Miss Twinkleton on a bonnet-box in tears.
The Billickin beheld this manifestation of weakness without



282   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
sympathy, and gave directions for "a young man to be got
in" to wrestle with the luggage. When that gladiator had
disappeared from the arena, peace ensued, and the new lodgers
dined.
But the Billickin had somehow come to the knowledge that
Miss Twinkleton kept a school. The leap from that knowledge to the inference that Miss Twinkleton set herself to
teach her something, was easy. " But you don't do it," soliloquised the Billickin; " 1 am not your pupil, whatever she,"
meaning Rosa, " may be, poor thing!"
Miss Twinkleton on the other hand, having changed her
dress and recovered her spirits, was animated by a bland desire
to improve the occasion in all ways, and to be as serene a
model as possible. In a happy compromise between her two
states of existence, she had already become, with her workbasket before her, the equably vivacious companion with a
slight judicious flavoring of information, when the Billickin
announced herself.
" I will not hide from you, ladies," said the B, enveloped in
the shawl of state, "for it is not my character to hide neither
my motives nor my actions, that I take the liberty to look in
upon you to express a'ope that your dinner was to your liking.
Though not Professed but Plain, still her wages should be a
sufficient object to her to stimulate to soar above mere roast
and biled."
" We dined very well indeed," said Rosa, "thank you."
" Accustomed," said Miss Twinkleton, with a gracious air
which to the jealous ears of the Billickin seemed to add " my
good woman "-" Accustomed to a liberal and nutritious, yet
plain and salutary diet, we have found no reason to bemoan
our absence from the ancient city, and the methodical household, in which the quiet routine of our lot has been hitherto
cast."
" I did think it well to mention to my cook," observed the
Billickin with a gush of candor, " which I'ope you will agree
with, Miss Twinkleton, was a right precaution, that the young



A  GRITTY     STATE     OF THINGS.          283
lady being used to what we should consider here but poor diet,
had better be brought forward by degrees. For, a rush from
scanty feeding to generous feeding, and from what you may
call messing to what you may call method, do require a power
of constitution, which is not often found in youth, particular
when undermined by boarding-school! "
It will be seen that the Billickin now openly pitted herself
against Miss Twinkleton, as one whom she had fully ascertained to be her natural enemy.
"Your remarks," returned Miss Twinkleton, from a remote
moral eminence, "are well meant, I have no doubt; but you
will permit me to observe that they develop a mistaken view
of the subject, which can only be imputed to your extreme
want of accurate information."
" My informiation," retorted the Billickin, throwing in an
extra syllable for the sake of emphasis at once polite and powerful: " My informiation, Miss Twinkleton, were my own experience, which I believe is usually considered to be good guidance. But whether so or not, I was put in youth to a very
genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no less a lady than
yourself, of about your own age or it may be some years
younger and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has
run through my life."
"Very likely," said Miss Twinkleton, still from her distant
eminence; " and very much to be deplored. Rosa, my dear,
how are you getting on with your work? "
"Miss Twinkleton," resumed the Billickin, in a courtly
manner, " before retiring on the Int, as a lady should, I wish
to ask of yourself as a lady, whether I am to consider that my
words is doubted? "
" I am not aware on what ground you cherish such a supposition," began Miss Twinkleton, when the Billickin neatly
stopped her.
" Do not, if you please, put suppositions betwixt my lips,
where none such have been imparted by myself. Your flow
of words is great, Miss Twinkleton, and no doubt is expected



284   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
from you by your pupils, and no doubt is considered worth the
money. No doubt, I am sure. But not paying for flows of
words, and not asking to be favored with them here, I wish to
repeat my question."
"If you refer to the poverty of your circulation," began
Miss Twinkleton, when again the Billickin neatly stopped her.
"I have used no such expressions."
"If you refer then to the poorness of your blood."
"Brought upon me," stipulated the Billickin, expressly,
" at a boarding-school."
"Then," resumed Miss Twinkleton, "all 1 can say, is, that
I am bound to believe on your asseveration that it is very poor
indeed. I cannot forbear adding, that if that unfortunate circumstance influences your conversation, it is much to be
lamented, and it is eminently desirable that your blood were
richer. Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on with your
work? "
"Hem! Before retiring, Miss," proclaimed the Billickin
to Rosa, loftily cancelling Miss Twinkleton, "I should wish
it to be understood between yourself and me that my transactions in future is with you alone. I know no elderly lady here,
Miss, none older than yourself."
" A highly desirable arrangement, Rosa, my dear," observed
Miss Twinkleton.
" It is not, Miss," said the Billickin, with a sarcastic smile,
"that I possess the Mill I have heard of, in which old single
ladies could be ground up young (what a gift it would be to
some of us!), but that I limit myself to you totally."
" When I have any desire to communicate a request to the
person of the house, Rosa, my dear," observed Miss Twinkleton, with majestic cheerfulness, " I will make it known to
you, and you will kindly undertake, I am sure, that it is conveyed to the proper quarter."
" Good-evening, Miss," said the Billickin, at once affectionately and distantly. "Being alone in my eyes, I wish you
good-evening with best wishes, and do not find myself drove,



A  GRITTY     STATE OF THINGS               285
I am truly'appy to say, into expressing my contempt for any
indiwidual, unfortunately for yourself, belonging to you."
The Billickin gracefully withdrew with this parting speech,
and from that time Rosa occupied the restless position of
shuttlecock between these two battledores. Nothing could b
done without a smart match being played out. Thus, on the
daily-arising question of dinner, Miss Twinkleton would say,
the three being present together:
" Perhaps, my love, you will consult with the person of the
house, whether she can procure us a lamb's fry; or, failing
that, a roast fowl."
On which the Billickin would retort (Rosa not having
spoken a word), " If you was better accustomed to butcher's
meat, Miss, you would not entertain the idea of a lamb's fry.
Firstly, because lambs has long been sheep, and secondly,
because there is such things as killing-days, and there is not.
As to roast fowls, Miss, why you must be quite surfeited with
roast fowls, letting alone your buying, when you market for
yourself, the agedest of poultry with the scaliest of legs, quite
as if you was accustomed to picking'em out for cheapness.
Try a little inwention, Miss. Use yourself to'ousekeeping a
bit. Come now, think of somethink else."
To this encouragement, offered with the indulgent toleration
of a wise and liberal expert, Miss Twinkleton would rejoin,
reddening:
" Or, my dear, you might propose to the person of the house
a duck."
" Well, Miss!" the Billickin would exclaim (still no word
being spoken by Rosa), " you do surprise me when you speak
of ducks! Not to mention that they're getting out of season
and very dear, it really strikes to my heart to see you have a
duck; for the breast, which is the only delicate cuts in a duck,
always goes in a direction which I cannot imagine where, and
your own plate comes down so miserably skin-and-bony! Try
again, Miss. Think more of yourself and less of others. A
dish of sweetbreads now, or a bit of mutton. Somethink at
which you can get your equal chance."



286   THE   MYSTERY OF EDWIN            DROOD.
Occasionally the game would wax very brisk indeed, and
would be kept up with a smartness rendering such an encounter as this quite tame. But the Billickin almost invariably
made by far the higher score; and would come in with side
hits of the most unexpected and extraordinary description,
when she seemed without a chance.
All this did not improve the gritty state of things in London, or the air that London had acquired in Rosa's eyes of
waiting for something that never came. Tired of working
and conversing with Miss Twinkleton, she suggested working
and reading: to which Miss Twinkleton readily assented, as
an admirable reader, of tried powers. But Rosa soon made
the discovery that Miss Twinkleton didn't read fairly. She
cut the love scenes, interpolated passages in praise of female
celibacy, and was guilty of other glaring pious frauds. As an
instance in point, take the glowing passage: " Ever dearest
and best adored, said Edward, clasping the dear head to his
breast, and drawing the silken hair through his caressing fingers, from which he suffered it to fall like golden rain; ever
dearest and best adored, let us fly from the unsympathetic
world and the sterile coldness of the stony-hearted, to the rich
warm  Paradise of Trust and Love."   Miss Twinkleton's
fraudulent version tamely ran thus: "Ever engaged to me
with the consent of our parents on both sides, and the approbation of the silver-haired rector of the district, said Edward,
respectfully raising to his lips the taper fingers so skilful in
embroidery, tambour, crotchet, and other truly feminine arts;
let me call on thy papa'ere to-morrow's dawn has sunk into
the west, and propose a suburban establishment, lowly it may
be, but within our means, where he will be always welcome as
an evening guest, and where every arrangement shall invest
economy, and constant interchange of scholastic acquirements,
with the attributes of the ministering angel to domestic bliss."
As the days crept on and nothing happened, the neighbors
began to say that the pretty girl at Billickin's, who looked so
wistfully and so much out of the gritty windows of the



THE   DAWN     AGAIN.                287
dra-wing-room, seemed to be losing her spirits. The pretty
girl might have lost them but for the accident of lighting on
some books of voyages and sea-adventure. As a compensation against their romance, Miss Twinkleton, reading aloud,
made the most of all the latitudes and longitudes, bearings,
winds, currents, offsets, and other statistics (which she felt to
be none the less improving because they expressed nothing
whatever to her); while Rosa, listening intently, made the
most of what was nearest to her heart. So they both did better than before.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE DAWN AGAIN.
ALTHOUGH Mr. Crisparkle and John Jasper met daily under
the Cathedral roof, nothing at any time passed between them
bearing reference to Edwin Drood after the time, more than
half a year gone by, when Jasper mutely showed the Minor
Canon the conclusion and the resolution entered in his Diary.
It is not likely that they ever met, though so often, without
the thoughts of each reverting to the subject. It is not likely that they ever met, though so often, without a sensation on
the part of each that the other was a perplexing secret to him.
Jasper as the denouncer and pursuer of Neville Landless, and
Mr. Crisparkle as his consistent advocate and protector, must
at least have stood sufficiently in opposition, to have speculated
with keen interest on the steadiness and the next direction of
the other's designs. But neither ever broached the theme.
False pretence not being in the Minor Canon's nature, he
doubtless displayed openly that he would at any time have revived the subject, and even desired to discuss it. The determined reticence of Jasper, however, was not to be so approached. Impassive, moody, solitary, resolute, so concentrated on one idea, and on its attendant fixed purpose, that he



288   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
would share it with no fellow-creature, he lived apart from
human life. Constantly exercising an Art which brought him
into mechanical harmony with others, and which cou'I not
have been pursued unless he and they had been in the nicest
mechanical relations and unison, it is curious to consider that
the spirit of the man was in moral accordance or interchange
with nothing around him. This indeed he had confided to his
lost nephew, before the occasion for his present inflexibility
arose.
That he must know of Rosa's abrupt departure, and that he
must divine its cause, was not to be doubted. Did he suppose
that he had terrified her into silence, or did he suppose that
she had imparted to any one-to Mr. Crisparkie himself for
instance-the particulars of his last interview with her? Mr.
Crisparkle could not determine this in his mind. He could
not but admit, however, as a just man, that it was not, of itself, a crime to fall in love with Rosa, any more than it was a
crime to offer to set love above revenge.
The dreadful suspicion of Jasper which Rosa was so shocked
to have received into her imagination, appeared to have no
harbor in Mr. Crisparkle's. If it ever haunted Helena's
thoughts, or Neville's, neither gave it one spoken word of utterance. Mr. Grewgious took no pains to conceal his implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never referred it however distantly to such a source. But he was a reticent as well as an
eccentric man; and he made no mention of a certain evening
when he warmed his hands at the Gate House fire, and looked
steadily down at a certain heap of torn and miry clothes upon
the floor.
Drowsy Cloisterham, whenever it awoke to a passing reconsideration of a story above six months old and dismissed by
the bench of magistrates, was pretty equally divided in opinion
whether John Jasper's beloved nephew had been killed by his
treacherously passionate rival, or in an open struggle: or had,
for his own purposes, spirited himself away. It then lifted
up its head, to notice that the bereaved Jasper was still ever



THE DAWN       AGAIN.                289
devoted to discovery and revenge; and then dozed off again.
This.was the condition of matters, all round, at the period to
whick the present history has now attained.
The Cathedral doors have closed for the night; and the
Choir Master, on a short leave of absence for two or three services, sets his face towards London. He travels thither by the
means by which Rosa travelled, and arrives, as Rosa arrived,
on a hot, dusty evening.
His travelling baggage is easily carried in his hand, and he
repairs with it, on foot, to a hybrid hotel in a little square behind Aldersgate Street, near the General Post Office. It is
hotel, boarding-house, or lodging-house, at its visitor's option.
It announces itself, in the new Railway Advertisers, as a novel
enterprise, timidly beginning to spring up. It bashfully,
almost apologetically, gives the traveller to understand that it
does not expect him, on the good old constitutional hotel plan,
to order a pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and throw
it away; but insinuates that he may have his boots blacked
instead of his stomach, and maybe also have bed, breakfast,
attendance, and a porter up all night, for a certain fixed charge.
From these and similar premises, many true Britons in the
lowest spirits deduce that the times are levelling times, except
in the article of high roads, of which there will shortly be not
one in England.
He eats without appetite, and soon goes forth again. Eastward and still eastward through the stale streets he takes his
way, until he reaches his destination: a miserable court, specially miserable among many such.
He ascends a broken staircase, opens a door, looks into a
dark stifling room, and says: " Are you alone here?"
" Alone, deary; worse luck for me and better for you," replies a croaking voice. "Come in, come in, whoever you be:
I can't see you till I light a match, yet I seem to know the
sound of your speaking. I am acquainted with you ain't I?"
"Light your match, and try."
" So I will, deary, so I will; but my hand that shakes, as I
18



290   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN DROOD.
can't lay it on a match all in a moment. I cough so, that,
put my matches where I may, I never find'em there. They
jump and start, as I cough and cough, like live things. Are
you of a voyage, deary? "
" No."
"Not seafaring?"
" No."
"Well, there's land customers, and there's water customers.
I'm a mother to both. Different from Jack Chinaman t'other
side the court. He ain't a father to neither. It ain't in him.
And he ain't got the true secret of mixing, though he charges
as much as me that has, and more if he can get it. Here's a
match, and now where's the candle? If my cough takes me,
I shall cough out twenty matches afore I gets a light."
But she finds the candle, and lights it before the cough
comes on. It seizes her in the moment of success, and she sits
down rocking herself to and fro, and gasping at intervals, " Oh,
my lungs is awful bad, my lungs is wore away to cabbagenets!" until the fit is over. During its continuance she has
no power of sight, or any other power not absorbed in the
struggle; but as it leaves her, she begins to strain her eyes,
and as soon as she is able to articulate, she cries, staring:
" Why, it's you! "
" Are you so surprised to see me?"
" I thought I never should have seen you again, deary. I
thought you was dead, and gone to Heaven."
"Why?"
" I didn't suppose you could have kept away, alive, so long,
from the poor old soul with the real receipt for mixing it.
And you are in mourning too! Why didn't you come and
have a pipe or two of comfort?  Did they leave you money,
perhaps, and so you didn't want comfort?"
"No! "
"Who was they as died, deary?"
"A relative."
"Died of what, lovey?"



THIIE DAWN     AGAIN.                291
"Probably, death."
"We are short to-night!" cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh. "Short and snappish, we are! But we're out
of sorts for want of a smoke. We've got the all-overs, haven't
us, deary? But this is the place to cure'em in; this is the
place where the all-overs is smoked off! "
" You may make ready then," replies the visitor, "as soon
as you like."
He divests himself of his shoes, loosens his cravat, and lies
across the foot of the squalid bed, with his head resting on his
left hand.
"Now, you begin to look like yourself," says the woman,
approvingly. " Now, I begin to know my old customer indeed! Been trying to mix for yourself this long time, poppet? "
" I have been taking it now and then in my own way."
"Never take it your own way. It ain't good for trade, and
it ain't good for you. Where's my inkbottle, and where's my
thimble, and where's my little spoon? He's going to take it
in a artful form now, my deary dear!"
Entering on her process, and beginning to bubble and blow
at the faint spark enclosed in the hollow of her hands, she
speaks from time to time, in a tone of snuffling satisfaction,
without leaving off. When he speaks, he does so without looking at her, and as if his thoughts were already roaming away
by anticipation.
" I've got a pretty many smokes ready for you, first and
last, haven't I, chuckey? "
"A good many."
"When you first came, you was quite new to it; warn't
ye?"
"Yes, I was easily disposed of, then."
"But you got on in the world, and was able by-and-by to
take your pipe with the best of'em, warn't ye? "
i Av. And the worst."
"It's just ready for you. What a sweet singer you was



292   THE    MYSTERY     OF EDWIN      DROOD.
when you first come! Used to drop your head, and sing
yourself off, like a bird! It's ready for you now, deary."
He takes it from her with great care, and puts the mouthpiece to his lips. She seats herself beside him, ready to refill
the pipe. After inhaling a few whiffs in silence, he doubtingly accosts her with:
"Is it as potent as it used to be?"
"What do you speak of, deary? "
"What should I speak of, but what I have in my mouth?"
It's just the same. Always the identical same."
"It doesn't taste so. And it's slower."
" You've got more used to it, you see."
"That may be the cause, certainly. Look here." He stops,
becomes dreamy, and seems to forget that he has invited her
attention. She bends over him, and speaks in his ear.
" I'm attending to you. Says you just now, look here. Says
I now, I am attending to ye. We was talking just before of
your being used to it."
" I know all that. I was only thinking. Look here. Sup
pose you had something in your mind; something you were
going to do."
" Yes, deary; something I was going to do? "
"But had not quite determined to do."' Yes, deary."
"Might or might not do, you understand."
"Yes." With the point of a needle she stirs the contents
of the bowl.
" Should you do it in your fancy, when you were lying here
doing this?"
She nods her head. "Over and over again."
" Just like me! I did it over and over again. I have done
it hundreds of thousands of times in this room."
"It's to be hoped it's pleasant to do, deary."
"It was pleasant to do! "
He says this with a savage air, and a spring or start at her.
Quite unmoved, she retouches and replenishes the contents of



THE DAWN        AGAIN.               293
the bowl with her little spatula. Seeing her intent upon the
occupation, he sinks into his former attitude.
" It was a journey, a difficult and dangerous journey. That
was the subject in my mind. A hazardous and perilous journey, over abysses where a slip would be destruction. Look
down, look down! You see what lies at the bottom there? "
He has darted forward to say it, and to point at the ground,
as though at some imaginary object far beneath. The woman
looks at him, as his spasmodic face approaches close to hers,
and not at his pointing. She seems to know what the influence of her perfect quietude will be; if so, she has not miscalculated it, for he subsides again.
"Well; I have told you, I did it, here, hundreds of thousands of times. What do I say? I did it millions and billions of times. I did it so often, and through such vast expanses of time, that when it was really done, it seemed not
worth the doing, it was done so soon."
" That's the journey you have been away upon?" she
quietly remarks.
He glares at her as he smokes; and then, his eyes becoming
filmy, answers: <" That's the journey."
Silence ensues. -His eyes are sometimes closed and sometimes open. The woman sits beside him, very attentive to the
pipe, which is all the while at his lips.
"I'll warrant," she observes, when he has been looking fixedly at her for some consecutive moments, with a singular
appearance in his eyes of seeming to see her a long way off,
instead of so near him;  I'll warrant you made the journey
in a many ways, when you made it so often?"
" No, always in one way."
" Always in the same way? 
" Ay."
"In the way in which it was really made at last?"
"Ay."
"And always took the same pleasure in harping on it? 
Ay."



294   THE MYSTERY        OF EDWIN      DROOD.
For the time he appears unequal to any other reply than
this lazy monosyllabic assent. Probably to assure herself that
it is not the assent of a mere automaton, she reverses the form.
of her next sentence.
"Did you never get tired of it, deary, and try to call up
something else for a change?"
He struggles into a sitting posture, and retorts upon her:
" What do you mean? What did I want? What did I come
for? "
She gently lays him back again, and, before returning him
the instrument he has dropped, revives the fire in it with her
own breath; then says to him, coaxingly:
"Sure, sure, sure! Yes, yes, yes! Now, I go along with
you. You was too quick for me. I see now. You come o'
purpose to take the journey. Why, I might have known it,
through its standing by you so."
He answers first with a laugh, and then with a passionate
setting of his teeth: "Yes, I came on purpose. When I
could not bear my life, I came to get the relief, and I got it.
It WAS one! It WAS one!" This repetition with extraordinary vehemence, and the snarl of a wolf.
She observes him very cautiously, as though mentally feeling her way to her next remark. It is: " There was a fellowtraveller, deary."
" Ha, ha, ha!"  He breaks into a ringing laugh, or rather
yell.
"To think," he cries, "how often fellow-traveller, and yet
not know it! To think how many times he went the journey,
and never saw the road! "
The woman kneels upon the floor, with her arms crossed on
the coverlet of the bed, close by him, and her chin upon them.
In this crouching attitude, she watches him.. The pipe is falling from his mouth. She puts it back, and laying her hand
upon his chest, moves him slightly from side to side. Upon
that he speaks, as if she had spoken.
"Yes! I always made the journey first before the changes



THE DAWN       AGAIN.                295
of colors and the great landscapes and glittering processions
began. They couldn't begin till it was off my mind. I had
no room till then for anything else."
Once more he lapses into silence. Once more she lays her
hand upon his chest, and moves him slightly to and'fro, as a
tat might stimulate a half-slain mouse. Once more he speaks,
as if she had spoken.
"What? I told you so. When it comes to be real at last,
it is so short that it seems unreal for the first time. Hark! "
"Yes, deary. I'm listening."
"Time and place are both at hand."
He is on his feet, speaking in a whisper, and as if in the
dark.
" Time, place, and fellow-traveller," she suggests, adopting
his tone, and holding him softly by the arm.
"How could the time be at hand unless the fellow-traveller
was? Hush! The journey's made. It's over."
"So soon?"
"That's what I said to you. So soon. Wait a little. This
is a vision. I shall sleep it off. It has been too short and
easy. I must have a better vision than this; this is the poorest of all. No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty
-and yet I never saw that before."  With a start.
" Saw what, deary? "
"Look at it! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it
is! That must be real. It's over!"
He has accompanied this incoherence with some wild unmeaning gestures; but they trail off into the progressive
inaction of stupor, and he lies a log upon the bed.
The woman, however, is still inquisitive. With a repetition
of her catlike action, she slightly stirs his body again, and
listens; stirs again, and listens; whispers to it, and listens.
Finding it past all rousing for the time, she slowly gets upon
her feet, with an air of disappointment, and flicks the face with
the back of her hand in turning from it.
But she goes no further away from it than the chair upon



296   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
the hearth. She sits in it, with an elbow on one of its arms,
and her chin upon her hand, intent upon him. " I heard ye
say once," she croaks under her breath, "I heard ye say
once, when I was lying where you're lying, and you were
making your speculations upon me,'Unintelligible!'  I
heard you say so, of two more than me.  But don't ye be
too sure always; don't ye be too sure, beauty!"
Unwinking, cat-like, and intent, she presently adds: "Not
so potent as it once was? Ah! Perhaps not at first. You
may be more right there.  Practice makes perfect. I may
have learned the secret how to make ye talk, deary."
He talks no more, whether or no. Twitching in an ugly
way from time to time, both as to his face and limbs, he lies
heavy and silent. The wretched candle burns down; the
woman takes its expiring end between her fingers, lights
another at it, crams the guttering frying morsel deep into the
candlestick, and rams it home with the new candle, as if she
were loading some ill-savored and unseemly weapon of witchcraft; the new candle in its turn burns down; and still he lies
insensible. At length what remains of the last candle is
blown out, and daylight looks into the room.
It has not looked very long, when he sits up, chilled and
shaking, slowly recovers consciousness of where he is, and
makes himself ready to depart. The woman receives what he
pays her with a grateful "Bless ye, bless ye, deary!" and
seems, tired out, to begin making herself ready for sleep as he
leaves the room.
But seeming may be false or true. It is false in this case,
for, the moment the stairs have ceased to creak under his tread,
she glides after him, muttering emphatically: " I'll not miss
ye twice!"
There is no egress from the court but by its entrance.
With a weird peep from the doorway, she watches for his looking back. He does not look back before disappearing, with a
wavering step. She follows him, peeps from the court, sees
him still faltering on without looking back, and holds him in
view.



THE DAWN       AGAIN.               297
He repairs to the back of Aldersgate Street, where a door
immediately opens to his knocking. She crouches in another
doorway, watching that one, and easily comprehending that he
puts up temporarily at that house. Her patience is unexhausted by hours. For sustenance she can, and does, buy
bread within a hundred yards, and milk as it is carried past
her.
He comes forth again at noon, having changed his dress, but
carrying nothing in his hand, and having nothing carried for
him. He is not going back into the country, therefore, just
yet. She follows him a little way, hesitates, instantaneously
turns confidently, and goes straight into the house he has
quitted.
"Is the gentleman from Cloisterham indoors?"
"Just gone out."
" Unlucky. When does the gentleman return to Cloisterham? "
"At six this evening."' Bless ye and thank ye. May the Lord prosper a business
where a civil question, even from a poor soul, is so civilly
answered!"
"I'll not miss ye twice!" repeats the poor soul in the
street, and not so civilly. " I lost ye last, where that omnibus
you got into nigh your journey's end plied betwixt the station
and the place. I wasn't so much as certain that you even
went right on to the place. Now, I know ye did. My gentleman from Cloisterham, I'll be there before ye and bide your
coming. I've swore my oath that I'll not miss ye twice! "
Accordingly, that same evening the poor soul stands in
Cloisterham High Street, looking at the many quaint gables
of the Nuns' House, and getting through the time as she best
can until nine o'clock; at which hour she has reason to sup.
pose that the arriving omnibus passengers may have some
interest for her. The friendly darkness, at that hour, renders
it easy for her to ascertain whether this be so or not; and it
is so, for the passenger not to be missed twice arrives among
the rest.



2'8   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD,
" Now, let me see what becomes of you. Go on!"
An observation addressed to the air. And yet it might be
addressed to the passenger, so compliantly does he go on along
the High Street until he comes to an arched gateway, at which
he unexpectedly vanishes. The poor soul quickens her pace;
is swift, and close upon him entering under the gateway; but
only sees a postern staircase on one side of it, and on the other
side an ancient vaulted room, in which a large-headed, grey
haired gentleman is writing, under the odd circumstances of
sitting open to the thoroughfare and eyeing all who pass, as if
he were toll-taker of the gateway: though the way is free.
" Halloa!" he cries in a low voice, seeing her brought to a
atandstill: " who are you looking for? "
"There was a gentleman passed in here this minute, sir?"
"Of course there was. What do you want with him?"
"Where do he live, deary? "
"Live? Up that staircase."
"Bless ye! Whisper. What's his name, deary?"
"Surname Jasper, Christian name John. Mr. John Jasper."
"< Has he a calling, good gentleman?"
" Calling? Yes. Sings in the choir."
"In the spire?"
" Choir."
" What's that?"
Mr. Datchery rises from his papers, and comes to his doorstep. "Do you know what a cathedral is?" he asks, jocosely.
The woman nods.
"What is it? "
She looks puzzled, casting about in her mind to find a
definition, when it occurs to her that it is easier to point out
the substantial object itself, massive against the dark-blue sky
and the early stars.
"That's the answer. Go in there at seven to-morrow morning, and you may see Mr. John Jasper, and hear him too."



THE DAWN       AGAIN.                299
"Thank ye! Thank ye! "
The burst of triumph in which she thanks him, does not escape the notice of the single buffer of an easy temper living
idly on his means. He glances at her; clasps his hands behind him, as the wont of such buffers is; and lounges along
the echoing precincts at her side.
" Or," he suggests, with a backward hitch of his head, " you
can go up at once to Mr. Jasper's rooms there."
The woman eyes him with a cunning smile, and shakes her
head.
" Oh! You don't want to speak to him?"
She repeats her dumb reply, and forms with her lips a
soundless " No."
"You can admire him at a distance three times a day,
whenever you like. It's a long way to come for that, though."
The woman looks up quickly. If Mr. Datchery thinks she
is to be so induced to declare where she comes from, he is of a
much easier temper than she is. But she acquits him of such
an artful thought, as he lounges along, like the chartered bore
of the city, with his uncovered gray hair blowing about, and
his purposeless hands rattling the loose money in the pockets
of his trousers.
The chink of the money has an attraction for her greedy
ears. " Wouldn't you help me to pay for my travellers' lodging, dear gentleman, and to pay my way along? I am a poor
soul, I am indeed, and troubled with a grievous cough."
" You know the travellers' lodging, I perceive, and are making directly for it," is Mr. Datchery's bland comment, still
rattling his loose money. "Been here often, my good woman?"
"Once in all my life."
"Ay,'ay! "
They have arrived at the entrance to the Monks' Vineyard.
An appropriate remembrance, presenting an exemplary mode
for imitation, is revived in the woman's mind by the sight of
the place. She stops at the gate, and says energetically:



300   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
" By this token, though you mayn't believe it, That a young
gentleman gave me three and sixpence as I was coughing my
breath away on this very grass. I asked him for three and
sixpence, and he gave it me."
" Wasn't it a little cool to name your sum?" hints Mr.
Datchery, still rattling. "Isn't it customary to leave the
amount open? Mightn't it have had the appearance, to the
young gentleman-only the appearance-that he was rather
dictated to? "
" Looke'e here, deary," she replies, in a confidential and persuasive tone, " I wanted the money to lay it out on a medicine as does me good, and as I deal in. I told the young gentleman so, and he gave it me, and I laid it out honest to the
last brass farden. I want to lay out the same sum in the same
way now; and if you'll give it me, I'll lay it out honest to the
last brass farden again, upon my soul!"
"What's the medicine? "
"I'll be honest with you beforehand, as well as after. It's
opium."
Mr. Datchery, with a sudden change of countenance, gives
her a sudden look.
" It's opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it's like a
human creetur so far, that you always hear what can be said
against it, but seldom what can be said in its praise."
Mr. Datchery begins very slowly to count out the sum demanded of him. Greedily watching his hands, she continues
to hold forth on the great example set him.
" It was last Christmas Eve, just arter dark, the once that
I was here afore, when the young gentleman gave me the
three and six."
Mr. Datchery stops in his counting, finds he had counted
wrong, shakes his money together, and begins again.
" And the young gentleman's name," she adds, " was Edwin."
Mr. Datchery drops some money, stoops to pick it up, and
reddens with the exertion as he asks:



THE   DAWN     AGAIN.                301
" How do you know the young gentleman's name? "
" I asked him for it, and he told it me. I only asked him
the two questions, what was his Chris'en name, and whether
he'd a sweetheart? And he answered, Edwin, and he hadn't."
Mr. Datchery pauses with the selected coins in his hand,
rather as if he were falling into a brown study of their value,
and couldn't bear to part with them. The woman looks at
him distrustfully, and with her anger brewing for the event
of his thinking better of the gift; but he bestows it on her as
if he were abstracting his mind from the sacrifice, and with
many servile thanks she goes her way.
John Jasper's lamp is kindled, and his Lighthouse is shining when Mr. Datchery returns alone towards it. As mariners on a dangerous vogage, approaching an iron-bound coast,
may look along the beams of the warning light to the haven
lying beyond it that may never be reached, so Mr. Datchery's
wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond.
His object in now revisiting his lodging, is merely to put on
the hat which seems so superfluous an article in his wardrobe.
It is half-past ten by the cathedral clock, when he walks out
into the Precincts again; he lingers and looks about him, as
though, the enchanted hour when Mr. Durdles may be stoned
home having struck, he had some expectation of seeing the
Imp who is appointed to the mission of stoning him.
In effect, that Power of Evil is abroad. Having nothing
living to stone at that moment, he is discovered by Mr. Datchery in the unholy office of stoning the dead, through the railings of the chuchyard. The Imp finds this a relishing and
piquing pursuit; firstly, because their resting-place is announced to be sacred; and secondly, because the tall headstones are sufficiently like themselves, on their beat in the
dark, to justify the delicious fancy that they are hurt when
hit.
Mr. Datchery hails him with: " Halloa, Winks!"
He acknowedges the hail with: "Halloa, Dick!"  Their



302   THE   MYSTERY       OF EDWIN      DROOD.
acquaintance seemingly having been established on a familiar
footing.
"But I say," he remonstrates, " don't yer go a making my
name public. I never means to plead to no name, mind yer.
When they says to me in the Lock-up, a going to put me
down in the book,'What's your name?' I says to them'Find out.' Likeways when they says'What's your religion?' I says,'Find out.'"
Which, it may be observed in passing, it would be immensely difficult for the State, however statistical, to do.
"Asides which," adds the boy, "there ain't no family of
Winkses."
I think there must be."
Yer lie, there ain't. The travellers give me the name on
account of my getting no settled sleep and being knocked up
all night; whereby I gets one eye roused open afore I've shut
the other. That's what Winks means. Deputy's the nighest
name to indict me by: but yer wouldn't catch me pleading to
that, neither."
" Deputy be it always, then. We two are good friends; eh,
Deputy? "
" Jolly good."
" I forgave you the debt you owed me when we first became
acquainted, and many of my sixpences have come your way
since; eh, Deputy?"
"Ah! And what's more, yer ain't no friend o' Jasper's.
What did he go a histing me off my legs for? "
" What indeed! But never mind him now. A shilling of
mine is going your way to-night, Deputy. You have just
taken in a lodger I have been speaking to; an infirm woman
with a cough."
" Puffer," assents Deputy, with a shrewd leer of recognition,
and smoking an imaginary pipe, with his head very much on
one side and his eyes very much out of their places: "Hopeum Puffer."
" What is her name? "



THE DAWN        AGAIN.                303
"'Er Royal Highness the Princess Puffer."
"She has some other name than that; where does she
live?"
" Up in London. Among the Jacks."
" The sailors?"
"I said so; Jacks.   And Chayner men.     And hother
Knifers."
"I should like to know, through you, exactly where she
lives."
" All right. Give us'old."
A shilling passes; and, in that spirit of confidence which
should pervade all business transactions between principals of
honor, this piece of business is considered done.
" But here's a lark! " cries Deputy. "V Where did yer think'Er Royal Highness is a goin' to, to-morrow morning? Blest
if she ain't a goin' to the KIN-FREE-DER-EL!"  He greatly
prolongs the word in his ecstacy, and smites his leg, and
doubles himself up in a fit of shrill laughter.
"How do you know that, Deputy?"
"Cos she told me so just now. She said she must be hup
and hout o' purpose. She ses,'Deputy, I must'ave a early
wash, and make myself as swell as I can, for I'm goin to take
a turn at the KIN-FREE-DER-EL!'"  He separates the syllables with his former zest, and, not finding his sense of the
ludicrous sufficiently relieved by stamping about on the pavement, breaks into a slow and stately dance, perhaps supposed
to be performed by the Dean.
Mr. Datchery receives the communication with a well-satisfied though a pondering face, and breaks up the conference.
Returning to his quaint lodging, and sitting long over the
supper of bread and cheese and salad and ale which Mrs. Tope
had left prepared for him, he still sits when his supper is finished. At length he rises, throws open the door of a corner
cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth, chalked strokes on it,
inner side.



304   THE    MYSTERY      OF EDWIN      DROOD.
"I like;" says Mr. Datchery, "the old tavern way of keeping scores. Illegible, except to the scorer. The scorer not
committed, the scored debited with what is against him.
Hum; ha! A very small score this; a very poor score!"
He sighs over the contemplation of its poverty, takes a bit
of chalk from one of the cupboard shelves, and pauses with it
in his hand, uncertain what addition to make to the account.
" I think a moderate stroke," he concludes, "is all I am
justified in scoring up;" so, suits the action to the word, closes
the cupboard, and goes to bed.
A brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its antiquities
and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with the lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy air.
Changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs of birds,
scents from gardens, woods, and fields-or, rather, from the
one great garden of the whole cultivated island in its yielding
time-penetrate into the Cathedral, subdue its earthy odor,
and preach the Resurrection and the Life. The cold stone
tombs of centuries ago grow warm; and flecks of brightness
dart into the sternest marble corners of the building, fluttering there like wings.
Comes Mr. Tope with his large keys, and yawningly unlocks
and sets open. Come Mrs. Tope, and attendant sweeping
sprites. Come in due time, organist and bellows-boy, peeping
down from the red curtains in the loft, fearlessly flapping dust
from books up at that remote elevation, and whisking it from
stops and pedals. Come sundry rooks, from various quarters
of the sky, back to the great tower; who may be presumed to
enjoy vibration, and to know that bell and organ are going to
give it them. Come a very small and straggling congregation
indeed: chiefly from Minor Canon Corner and the Preciu'ts.
Come Mr. Crisparkle, fresh and bright; and his ministering
brethren, not quite so fresh and bright. Come the Choir in a
hurry (always in a hurry, and struggling into their nightgowns at the last moment, like children shirking bed), and



THE    DAWN    AGAIN.                305
comes John Jasper leading their line. Last of all comes Mr.
Datchery into a stall, one of a choice empty collection very
much at his service, and glancing about him for Her Royal
Highness the Princess Puffer.
The service is pretty well advanced before Mr. Datchery
can discern Her Royal Highness. But by that time he has
made her out, in the shade. She is behind a pillar, carefully
withdrawn from the Choir Master's view, but regards him
with the closest attention. All unconscious of her presence,
he chants and sings. She grins when he is most musically
fervid, and-yes, Mr. Datchery sees her do it!-shakes her
fist at him behind the pillar's friendly shelter.
Mr. Datchery looks again to convince himself.   Yes,
again! As ugly and withered as one of the fantastic carvings on the under brackets of the stall seats, as malignant as
the Evil One, as hard as the big brass eagle holding the sacred books upon his wings (and, according to the sculptor's
representation of his ferocious attributes, not at all converted
by them), she hugs herself in her lean arms, and then shakes
both fists at the leader of the Choir.
And at that moment, outside the grated door of the Choir,
having eluded the vigilance of Mr. Tope by shifty resources
in which he is an adept, Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through
the bars, and stares astounded from the threatener to the
threatened.
The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse to
breakfast. Mr. Datchery accosts his last new acquaintance
outside, when the Choir (as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off, as they were but now to get them on) have scuffled
away.
"Well, mistress. Good-morning. You have seen him? "
"I've seen him, deary; I've seen him!"
"And you know him? "
" Know him! Better far, than all the Reverend Parsons
put together know him."
19



806   THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Mrs. Tope's care has spread a very neat, clean breakfast
ready for her lodger. Before sitting down to it, he opens his
corner cupboard door; takes his bit of chalk from its shelf;
adds one thick line to the score, extending from the top of
the cupboard door to the bottom; and then falls to with an
appetite.
*       *       *      *       *       *       *'



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
MASTER HUMPHREY, FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE CHIMNEY
CORNER.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
THE reader must not expect to know where I live. At
present, it is true, my abode may be a question of little or no
import to anybody, but if I should carry my readers with me,
as I hope to do, and there should spring up, between them and
me, feelings of homely affection and regard attaching something of interest to matters ever so slightly connected with my
fortunes or my speculations, even my place of residence might
one day have a kind of charm for them. Bearing this possible
contingency in mind, I wish them to understand in the outset,
that they must never expect to know it.
I am not a churlish old man. Friendless I can never be, for
all mankind are my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no
one member of my great family. But for many years I have
led a lonely, solitary life;-what wound I sought to heal,
what sorrow to forget, originally, matters not now; it is sufficient that retirement has become a habit with me, and that I
am unwilling to break the spell which for so long a time has
shed its quiet influence upon my home and heart.
I live in a venerable suburb of London, in an old house,
which in bygone days was a famous resort for merry roysters and peerless ladies, long since departed. It is a silent,
shady place, with a paved court-yard so full of echoes that
sometimes I am tempted to believe that faint responses to the
noises of old times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of
sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down. I am
the more confirmed in this belief, because of late years, the
echoes that attend my walks have been less loud and marked
than they were wont to be; and it is pleasanter to imagine in
(301)



308     MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
them the rustling of silk brocade, and the light step of somlovely girl, than to recognize in their altered note the failin;
tread of an old man.
Those who like to read of brilliant rooms and gorgeous fur
titure, would derive but little pleasure from a minute description of my simple dwelling. It is dear to me for the same
reason that they would hold it in slight regard. Its worm,
eaten doors, and low ceilings crossed by clumsy beams; its
walls of wainscot, dark stairs and gaping closets; its small
chambers, communicating with each other by winding passages
or narrow steps; its many nooks, scarce larger than its cornercupboards; its very dust and dulness, all are dear to me.
The moth and spider are my constant tenants, for in my house
the one basks in his long sleep, and the other plies his busy
loom, secure and undisturbed. I have a pleasure in thinking
on a summer's day, how many butterflies have sprung for the
first time into light and sunshine from some dark corner of
these old walls.
When I first came to live here, which was many years ago,
the neighbors were curious to know who I was, and whence
I came, and why I lived so much alone. As time went on, and
they still remained unsatisfied on these points, I became the
centre of a popular ferment, extending for half a mile round,
and in one direction for a full mile. Various rumors were circulated to my prejudice. I was a spy, an infidel, a conjuror,
a kidnapper of children, a refugee, a priest, a monster. Mothers
caught up their infants and ran into their houses as I passed;
men eyed me spitefully, and muttered threats and curses. I
was the object of suspicion and distrust; ay, of downright
hatred, too.
But when in course of time they found that I did no harm,
but, on the contrary, inclined towards them despite their unjust
usage, they began to relent. I found my footsteps no longer
dogged, as they had often been before, and observed that the
women and children no longer retreated, but would stand and
gaze at me as I passed their doors. I took this for a good



MASTER      HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              309
omen, and waited patiently for better times. By degrees I
began to make friends among these humble folks, and though
they were yet shy of speaking, would give them " good day,"
and so pass on. In a little time, those whom I had thus accosted, would make a point of coming to their doors and windows at the usual hour, and nod or curtesy to me; children,
too, came timidly within my reach, and ran away quite scared
when I patted their heads and bade them be good at school.
These little people soon grew more familiar. From exchanging
mere words of course with my older neighbors, I gradually
became their friend and adviser, the depositary of their cares
and sorrows, and sometimes, it may be, the reliever, in my
small way, of their distresses. And now I never walk abroad,
but pleasant recognitions and smiling faces wait on Master
Humphrey.
It was a whim of mine, perhaps as a whet to the curiosity
of my neighbors, and a kind of retaliation upon them for their
suspicions-it was, I say, a whim of mine, when I first took
up my abode in this place, to acknowledge no other name than
Humphrey. With my detractors, I was Ugly Humphrey.
When I began to convert them into friends, I was Mr. Humphrey, and Old Mr. Humphrey. At length I settled down
into plain Master Humphrey, which was understood to be the
title most pleasant to my ear; and so completely a matter of
course has it become, that sometimes when I am taking my
morning walk in my little court-yard, I overhear my barberwho has a profound respect for me, and would not, I am sure,
abridge my honors for the world-holding forth on the other
side of the wall, touching the state of " Master Humphrey's"
health, and communicating to some friend the substance of the
conversation that he and Master Humphrey have had together
in the course of the shaving which he has just concluded.
That I may not make acquaintance with my readers under
false pretences, or give them cause to complain hereafter, that
I have withheld any matter which it was essential for them to
have learnt at first, I wish them to know-and I smile sor



IMASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                311
out which of them represented each child there, and that when
I had gone through my companions, I stopped and hesitated, wondering which was most like me. I remember the
children looking at each other, and my turning red and hot,
and their crowding round to kiss me, saying that they loved
me all the same; and then, and when the old sorrow came
into my dear mother's mild and tender look, the truth broke
upon me for the first time, and I knew, while watching my
awkward and ungainly sports, how keenly she had felt for
her poor crippled boy.
I used frequently to dream of it afterwards, and now my
heart aches for that child as if I had never been he, when I
think how often he awoke from some fairy change to his own
old form, and sobbed himself to sleep again.
Well, well-all these sorrows are past. My glancing at
them may not be without its use, for it may help in some
measure to explain why I have all my life been attached to
the inanimate objects that people my chamber and how I have
come to look upon them rather in the light of old and constant
friends, than as mere chairs and tables which a little money
could replace at will.
Chief and first among all these is my Clock-my old,
cheerful, companionable Clock. How can I ever convey to
others an idea of the comfort and consolation that this old
clock has been for years to me I
It is associated with my earliest recollections.  It stood
upon the staircase at home (I call it home still mechanically,)
nigh sixty years ago. I like it for that, but it is not on that
account, nor because it is a quaint old thing in a huge oaken
case curiously and richly carved, that I prize it as I do. I
incline to it as if it were alive, and could understand and give
me back the love I bear it.
And what other thing that has not life could cheer me as it
does; what other thing that has not life (I will not say how
few things that have) could have proved the same patient, true,
untiring friend I How often have I sat in the long winter



312    MASTER      HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
evenings feeling such society in its cricket-voice, that raising
my eyes from my book and looking gratefully towards it, the
face reddened by the glow of the shining fire has seemed to
relax from its staid expression and to regard me kindly; how
often in the summer twilight, when my thoughts have wandered back to a melancholy past, how its regular whisperings
recalled them to the calm and peaceful present; how often in
the dead tranquillity of night has its bell broken the oppressive silence, and seemed to give me assurance that the old
clock was still a faithful watcher at my chamber door  My
easy-chair, my desk, my ancient furniture, my very books, I
can scarcely bring myself to love even these last, like my old
clock I
It stands in a snug corner, midway between the fireside and
a low arched door leading to my bedroom. Its fame is diffused so extensively throughout the neighborhood, that I
have often the satisfaction of hearing the publican, or the
baker, and sometimes even the parish-clerk, petitioning my
housekeeper (of whom I shall have much to say by-and-by) to
inform him the exact time by Master Humphrey's clock. My
barber, to whom I have referred, would sooner believe it
than the sun. Nor are these its only distinctions. It has acquired, I am happy to say, another, inseparably connecting it
not only with my enjoyments and reflections, but with those
of other men; as I shall now relate.
I lived alone here for a long time without any friend or acquaintance. In the course of my wanderings by night and
day, at all hours and seasons, in city streets and quiet country
parts, I came to be familiar with certain faces, and to take it to
heart as quite a heavy disappointment if they failed to present
themselves each at its accustomed spot. But these were the
only friends I knew, and beyond them I had none.
It happened, however, when I had gone on thus for a long
time, that I formed an acquaintance with a deaf gentleman,
which ripened into intimacy and close companionship. To this
hour, I am ignorant of his name. It is his humor to conceal



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S        CLOCK.        313
it, or he has a reason and purpose for so doing. In either
case I feel that he has a right to require a return of the trust
he has reposed, and as he has never sought to discover my
secret, I have never sought to penetrate his. There may have
been something in this tacit confidence in each other, flattering
and pleasant to us both, and it may have imparted in the beginning an additional zest, perhaps, to our friendship. Be this
as it may, we have grown to be like brothers, and still I only
know him as the deaf gentleman.
I have said that retirement has become a habit with me,
When I add that the deaf gentleman and I have two friends,
I communicate nothing that is inconsistent with that declaration. I spend many hours of every day in solitude and study,
have no friends or change of friends, but these, only see them
at stated periods, and am supposed to be of a retired spirit by
the very nature and object of our association.
We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud
upon our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has
not cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet
quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a
pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are alchemists who would extract the essence of
perpetual youth from dust and ashes, tempt coy Truth in many
light and airy forms from the bottom of her well, and discover
one crumb of comfort or one grain of good in the commonest
and least regarded matter that passes through our crucible.
Spirits of past times, creatures of imagination, and people of
to-day, are alike the object of our seeking, and, unlike the objects of search with most philosophers, we can insure their
coming at our command.
The deaf gentleman and I first began to beguile our days
with these fancies, and our nights in communicating them to
each other. We are now four. But in my room there are six
old chairs, and we have decided that the two empty seats shall
always be placed at our table when we meet, to remind us
that we may yet increase our company by that number, if we



314     MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
should find two men to our mind. When one among us dies,
his chair will always be set in its usual place, but never occupied again; and I have caused my will to be so drawn out,
that when we are all dead the house shall be shut up, and the
vacant chairs still left in their accustomed places. It is pleasant to think that even then our shades may, perhaps, assemble
together as of yore we did, and join in ghostly converse.
One night in every week, as the clock strikes ten, we meet.
At the second stroke of two, I am alone.
And now shall I tell how that my old servant, besides giving us note of time, and ticking cheerful encouragement of
our proceedings, lends its name to our society, which for its
punctuality and my love, is christened " Master Humphrey's
Clock?" Now shall I tell, how that in the bottom of the old
dark closet, where the steady pendulum throbs and beats with
healthy action, though the pulse of him who made it stood
still long ago, and never moved again, there are piles of
dusty papers constantly placed there by our hands, that we
may link our enjoyments with my old friend, and draw means
to beguile time from the heart of time itself? Shall I, or can
I, tell with what a secret pride I open this repository when
we meet at night, and still find new store of pleasure in my
dear old Clock I
Friend and companion of my solitude I mine is not a selfish
love; I would not keep your merits to myself, but disperse
something of pleasant association with your image through
the whole wide world; I would have men couple with your
name cheerful and healthy thoughts; I would have them believe that you keep true and honest time; and how it would
gladden me to know that they recognized some hearty English work in Master Humphrey's Clock I
THE CLOCK-CASE.
IT is my intention constantly to address my readers from
the chimney-corner, and I would fain hope that such accounts
as I shall give them of our histories and proceedings, our



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                 315
quiet speculations or more busy adventures, will never be unwelcome. Lest, however, I should grow prolix in the outset
by lingering too long upon our little association, confounding
the enthusiasm with which I regard this chief happiness of
my life with that minor degree of interest which those to
whom I address myself may be supposed to feel for it, I have
deemed it expedient to break off as they have seen.
But, still clinging to my old friend, and naturally desirous
that all its merits should be known, I am tempted to open
(somewhat irregularly and against our laws, I must admit)
the clock-case. The first roll of paper on which I lay my
hand is in the writing of the deaf gentleman. I shall have
to speak of him in my next paper, and how can I better approach that welcome task than by prefacing it with a production of his own pen, consigned to the safe keeping of my
honest clock by his own hands.
The manuscript runs thus:
INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES.
Once upon a time, that is to say, in this our time,-the exact year, month, and day, are of no matter,-there dwelt in
the city of London a substantial citizen, who united in his
single person the dignities of wholesale fruiterer, alderman,
common-councilman, and member of the worshipful company
of Patten-makers: who had superadded to these extraordinary distinctions the important post and title of Sheriff, and
who at length, and to crown all, stood next in rotation for
the high and honorable office of Lord Mayor.
He was a very substantial citizen indeed. His face was
like the full moon in a fog, with two little holes punched out
for his eyes, a very ripe pear stuck on for his nose, and a wide
gash to serve for a mouth. The girth of his waistcoat was
hung up and lettered in his tailor's shop as an extraordinary
curiosity. He breathed like a heavy snorer, and his voice in
speaking, came thickly forth, as if it were oppressed and
stifled by feather-beds. He trod the ground like an elephant,



316    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
and eat and drank like-like nothing but an alderman, as he
was.
This worthy citizen had risen to his great eminence from
small beginnings. He had once been a very lean, weazen little boy, never dreaming of carrying such a weight of flesh
upon his bones or of money in his pockets, and glad enough
to take his dinner at a baker's door, and his tea at a pump.
But he had long ago forgotten all this, as it was proper that a
wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, member
of the worshipful company of Patten-makers, past sheriff,
and above all, a Lord Mayor that was to be, should; and he
never forgot it more completely in all his life than on the
eighth of November in the year of his election to the great
golden civic chair, which was the day before his grand dinner
at Guildhall.
It happened that as he sat that evening all alone in his
counting-house, looking over the bill of fare for the next day,
and checking off the fat capons in fifties and the turtle-soup
by the hundred quarts for his private amusement-it happened that as he sat alone occupied in these pleasant calculations, a strange man came in and asked him how he did,
adding, " If I am half as much changed as you, sir, you have
no recollection of me, I am sure."
The strange man was not over and above well-dressed and
was very far from being fat or rich looking in any sense of
word, yet he spoke with a kind of modest confidence, and assumed an easy, gentlemanly sort of an air, to which nobody but
a rich man can lawfully presume. Besides this he interrupted
the good citizen just as he had reckoned three hundred and
seventy-two fat capons and was carrying them over to the
next column, and as if that were not aggravation enough, the
learned recorder for the city of London had only ten minutes
previously gone out at that very same door, and had turned
round and said, " Good night, my lord." Yes, he had said,
" my lord;"-he, a man of birth and education, of the Honorable Society of the Middle Temple, Barrister at Law-he who



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                  81S
had an uncle in the House of Commons, and an aunt almost
but not quite in the House of Lords (for she had married a
feeble peer, and made him vote as she liked)-he, this man,
this learned recorder, had said, " my lord." "I'll not wait till
to-morrow to give you your title, my Lord Mayor," says he,
with a bow and a smile; "you are Lord Mayor defacto if
not de jure. Good night, my lord I
The Lord Mayor elect thought of this, and turning to the
stranger, and sternly bidding him "go out of his private
counting-house," brought forward the three hundred and
seventy-two fat capons, and went on with his account.
" Do you remember," said the other, stepping forward —' Do you remember little Joe Toddyhigh?"
The port wine fled for a moment from the fruiterer's nose
as he muttered, " Joe Toddyhigh I What about Joe Toddyhigh?"
" Iam Joe Toddyhigh," oried the visitor. "Look at me,
look hard at me-harder, harder. You know me now? you
know little Joe again? What a happiness to us both to meet
the very night before your grandeur I Oh I give me your
hand, Jack-both hands-both, for the sake of old times."
"You pinch me, sir. You're a hurting of me," said the
Lord Mayor electpettishly. "Don't-suppose anybody should
come-Mr. Toddyhigh, sir."
"Mr. Toddyhigh I" repeated the other ruefully.
"Oh I don't bother," said the Lord Mayor elect, scratching
his head, "Dearme I Why, I thought you was dead. What
a fellow you are I"
Indeed, it was a pretty state of things, and worthy the tone of
vexation and disappointment in which the Lord Mayor spoke.
Joe Toddyhigh had been a poor boy with him at Hull, and
had oftentimes divided his last penny and parted his last crust
to relieve his wants, for though Joe was a destitute child in
those times, he was as faithful and affectionate in his friendship as ever man of might could be. They parted one day to
seek their fortunes in different directions. Joe went to sea,



818    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
and the now wealthy citizen begged his way to London. They
separated with many tears, like foolish fellows, as they were,
and agreed to remain fast friends, and if they lived, soon to
communicate again.
When he was an errand-boy, and even in the early days of
his apprenticeship, the citizen had many a time trudged to the
Post-office to ask if there were any letter from poor little Joe,
and had gone home again with tears in his eyes, when he
found no news of his only friend. The world is a wide place,
and it was a long time before the letter came; when it did,
the writer was forgotten. It turned from white to yellow
from lying in the Post-office with nobody to claim it, and in
course of time was torn up with five hundred others, and sold
for waste paper. And now at last, and when it might least
have been expected, here was this Joe Toddyhigh turning
up and claiming acquaintance with a great public character,
who on the morrow would be cracking jokes with the Prime
Minister of England, and who had only, at any time during
the next twelve months, to say the word, and he could shut
up Temple Bar, and make it no thoroughfare for the king
himself 
"I am sure I don't know what to say, Mr. Toddyhigh,"
said the Lord Mayor elect; "I really don't. It's very inconvenient. I'd sooner have given twenty pound —it's very inconvenient, really."
A thought had come into his mind, that perhaps his old
friend might say something passionate wfich WQuld gie, him.
an excuse for being angry himself. No such thing. Joo
looked at him steadily, but very mildly, and did not open his
lips.
" Of course I shall pay you what I owe you," said the Lord
Mayor elect, fidgeting in his chair. " You lent me-I think
it was a shilling or some small coin-when we parted company, and that of course I shall pay, with good interest. I
can pay my way with any man, and always have done. If you
look into the Mansion House the day after to-morrow-some



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                 319
time after dusk-and ask for my private clerk, you'll find he
has a draft for you.  I haven't got time to say anything
more just now, unless"-he hesitated, for, coupled with a
strong desire to glitter for once in all his glory in the eyes of
his former companion, was a distrust of his appearance, which
might be more shabby than he could tell by that feeble light
-" unless you'd like to come to the dinner to-morrow. I
don't mind your having this ticket, if you like to take it, A
great many people would give their ears for it, I can tell you."
His old friend took the card without speaking a word, and
instantly departed.  His sunburnt face and gray hair were
present to the citizen's mind for a moment; but by the time
he reached three hundred and eighty-one capons, he had quite
forgotten him.
Joe Toddyhigh had never been in the capital of Europe
before, and he wandered up and down the streets that night
amazed at the number of churches and other public buildings,
the splendor of the shops, the riches that were heaped up on
every side, the glare of light in which they were displayed,
and the concourse of people who hurried to and fro, indifferent, apparently, to all the wonders that surrounded them. But
in all the long streets and broad squares, there were none
but strangers; it was quite a relief to turn down a by-way and
hear his own footsteps on the pavement. He went home to
his inn; thought that London was a dreary, desolate place,
and felt disposed to doubt the existence of one true-hearted
man in the whole worshipful company of Patten-makers.
Finally, he went to bed, and dreamed that he and the Lord
Mayor elect were boys again.
He went next day to the dinner, and when, in a burst of
light and music, and in the midst of splendid decorations and
surrounded by brilliant company, his former friend appeared at
the head of the Hall, and was hailed with shouts and cheering,
he cheered and shouted with the best, and for the moment
could have cried. The next moment he cursed his weakness
in behalf of a man so changed and selfish, and quite hated a



320    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
jolly-looking old gentleman opposite for declaring himself in
the pride of his heart a Patten-maker.
As the banquet proceeded, he took more and more to heart
the rich citizen's unkindness; and that, not from any envy, but
because he felt that a man of his state and fortune could all
the better afford to recognize an old friend, even if he were poor
and obscure. The more he thought of this, the more lonely
and sad he felt. When the company dispersed and adjourned to
the ball-room, he paced the hall and passages alone ruminating
in a very melancholy condition upon the disappointment he
had experienced.
It chanced, while he was lounging about in this moody
state, that he stumbled upon a flight of stairs, dark, steep, and
narrow, which he ascended without any thought about the
matter, and so came into a little music-gallery, empty and
deserted.  From this elevated post, which commanded the
whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon the
attendants who were clearing away the fragments of the feast
very lazily, and drinking out of all the bottles and glasses with
most commendable perseverance.
His attention gradually relaxed, and he fell fast asleep.
When he awoke, he thought there must be something the
matter with his eyes; but, rubbing them a little, he soon
found that the moonlight was really streaming through the
east window, that the lamps were all extinguished, and that
he was alone. He listened, but no distant murmur in the
echoing passages, not even the shutting of a door, broke the
deep silence; he groped his way down the stairs, and found
that the door at the bottom was locked on the other side. He
began now to comprehend that he must have slept a long time,
that he had been overlooked, and was shut up there for the
night.
His first sensation, perhaps, was not altogether a comfortable one, for it was a dark, chilly, earthly-smelling place, and
something too large, for a man so situated, to feel at home in.
However, when the momentary consternation of his surprise



MASTER HUMPIREY'S CLOCK.                 321
was over, he made light of the accident, and resolved to feel
his way up the stairs again, and make himself as comfortable
as he could in the gallery until morning. As he turned to
execute this purpose, he heard the clock strike three.
Any such invasion of a dead stillness as the striking of distant clocks, causes it to appear more intense and insupportable
when the sound has ceased. He listened with strained attention in the hope that some clock, lagging behind its fellows,
had yet to strike-looking all the time into the profound darkness before him until it seemed to weave itself into a black
tissue, patterned with a hundred reflections of his own eyes.
But the bells had all pealed out their warning for that once,
and the gust of wind that moaned through the place seemed
cold and heavy with their iron breath.
The time and circumstances were favorable to reflection.
He tried to keep his thoughts to the current, unpleasant
though it was, in which they had moved all day, and to think
with what a romantic feeling he had looked forward to shaking
his old friend by the hand before he died, and what a wide and
cruel difference there was between the meeting they had had,
and that which he had so often and so long anticipated. Still
he was disordered by waking to such sudden loneliness, and
could not prevent his mind from running upon odd tales of
people of undoubted courage, who, being shut up by night in
vaults or churches, or other dismal places, had scaled great
heights to get out, and fled from silence as they had never
done from danger. This brought to his mind the moonlight
through the window, and bethinking himself of it, he groped
his way back up the crooked stairs-but very stealthily, as
though he were fearful of being overheard.
He was very much astonished when he approached the
gallery again, to see a light in the building: still more so, on
advancing hastily and looking round, to observe no visible
source from which it could proceed. But how much greater
yet was his astonishment at the spectacle which this light
revealed.
20



322     MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
The statues of the two giants, Gog and Magog, each above
fourteen feet in height, those which succeeded to still older
and more barbarous figures after the great fire of London, and
which stand in the Guildhall to this day, were endowed with
life and motion. These guardian genii of the City had quitted
their pedestals, and reclined in easy attitudes in the great
stained glass window. Between them was an ancient cask,
which seemed to be full of wine; for the younger Giant, clapping his huge hand upon it, and throwing up his mighty leg,
burst into an exulting laugh, which reverberated through the
hall like thunder.
Joe Toddyhigh instinctively stooped down, and, more dead
than alive, felt his hair stand on end, his knees knock together,
and a cold damp break out upon his forehead. But even at
that minute curiosity prevailed over every other feeling, and
somewhat reassured by the good-humor of the Giants and
their apparent unconsciousness of his presence, he crouched
in a corner of the gallery, in as small a space as he could, and
peeping between the rails, observed them closely.
FIRST NIGHT OF THE GIANT CHRONICLES.
Turning towards his companion, the elder Giant uttered these
words in a grave, majestic tone:"Magog, does boisterous mirth beseem the Giant Warder
of this ancient city? Is this becoming demeanor for a watchful
spirit over whose bodiless head so many years have rolled so
many changes swept like empty air-in whose impalpable
nostrils the scent of blood and crime, pestilence, cruelty, and
horror, has been familiar as breath to mortals —in whose sight
Time has gathered in the harvest of centuries, and garnered
so many crops of human pride, affections, hopes, and sorrows?
Bethink you of our compact. The night wanes; feasting,
revelry, and music have encroached upon our usual hours of
solitude, and morning will be here apace. Ere we are stricken
mute again, bethink you of our compact."
Pronouncing these latter words with more of impatience than



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              823
quite accorded with his apparent age and gravity, the Giant
raised a long pole (which he still bears in his hand) and tapped
his brother Giant rather smartly on the head; indeed, the
blow was so smartly administered, that the latter quickly withdrew his lips from the cask to which they had been applied,
and catching up his shield and halberd assumed an attitude of
defence. His irritation was but momentary, for he laid these
weapons aside as hastily as he had assumed them, and said as
he did so:
" You know, Gog, old friend, that when we animate these
shapes which the Londoners of old assigned (and not unworthily) to the guardian genii of their city, we are susceptible of some of the sensations which belong to human kind.
Thus when I taste wine, I feel blows; when I relish the one I
disrelish the other. Therefore, Gog, the more especially as
your arm is none of the lightest, keep your good staff by your
side, else we may chance to differ. Peace be between us."
" Amen I" said the other leaning his staff in the windowcorner. " Why did you laugh just now?"
" To think," replied the Giant Magog, laying his hand upon
the cask, " of him who owned this wine, and kept it in a cellar
hoarded from the light of day, for thirty years, —' till it should
be fit to drink,' quoth he. He was two-score and ten years
old when he buried it beneath his house, and yet never
thought that he might be scarcely'fit to drink' when the
wine became so. I wonder it never occurred to him to make
himself unfit to be eaten. There is very little of him left by
this time."
" The night is waning," said Gog, mournfully.
"I know it," replied his companion, "and I see you are
impatient. But look. Through the eastern window-placed
opposite to us, that the first beams of the rising sun may
every morning gild our giant faces —the moon-rays fall upon
the pavement in a stream of light that to my fancy sinks
through the cold stone and gushes into the old crypt below.
The night has scarcely past its noon, and our great charge is
sleeping heavily."



324     MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
They ceased to speak, and looked upward at the moon.
The sight of their large, black, rolling eyes filled Joe Toddyhigh with such horror that he could scarcely draw his breath.
Still they took no note of him, and appeared to believe themselves quite alone.
" Our compact," said Magog, after a pause, " is, if I understand it, that, instead of watching here in silence through the
dreary nights, we entertain each other with stories of our past
experience; with tales of the past, the present, and the future;
with legends of London and her sturdy citizens from the old
simple times. That every night at midnight, when Saint
Paul's bell tolls out one and we may move and speak, we thus
discourse, nor leave such themes till the first gray gleam of
day shall strike us dumb. Is that our bargain, brother?"
" Yes," said the Giant Gog, " that is the league between us
who guard this city, by day in spirit, and by night in body
also; and never on ancient holidays have its conduits run wine
more merrily than we will pour forth our legendary lore.
We are old chroniclers from this time hence. The crumbled
walls will encircle us once more, the postern gates are closed,
the drawbridge is up, and pent in its narrow den beneath, the
water foams and struggles with the sunken starlings. Jerkins
and quarter-staves are in the streets again, the nightly watch
is set, the rebel, sad and lonely in his Tower dungeon, tries
to sleep and weeps for home and children. Aloft upon the
gates and walls are noble heads glaring fiercely down upon
the dreaming city, and vexing the hungry dogs that scent
them in the air, and tear the ground beneath with dismal
howlings. The axe, the block, the rack, in their dark chambers give signs of recent use. The Thames, floating past
long lines of cheerful windows whence comes a burst of music
and a stream of light, bears sullenly to the Palace wall the
last red stain brought on the tide from Traitor's Gate. But
your pardon brother. The night wears, and I am talking
idly."
The other Giant appeared to be entirely of this opinion, for



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              325
during the foregoing rhapsody of his fellow-sentinel he had
been scratching his head with an air of comical uneasiness, or
rather with an air that would have been very comical if he
had been a dwarf or an ordinary-sized man. He winked, too,
though it could not be doubted for a moment that he winked
to himself, still he certainly cocked his enormous eye towards
the gallery where the listener was concealed. Nor was this
all, for he gaped; and when he gaped, Joe was horribly reminded of the popular prejudice on the subject of giants, and
of their fabled power of smelling out Englishmen, however
closely concealed.
His alarm was such that he nearly swooned, and it was some
little time before his power of sight or hearing was restored.
When he recovered he found that the elder Giant was pressing the younger to commence the Chronicles, and the latter
was endeavoring to excuse himself, on the ground that the
night was far spent and it would be better to wait until the
next. Well assured by this that he was certainly about to
begin directly, the listener collected his faculties by a great
effort, and distinctly heard Magog express himself to the following effect:In the sixteenth century and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory (albeit her golden days are sadly
rusted with blood), there lived in the city of London a bold
young'prentice who loved his master's daughter.  There
were no doubt within the walls a great many'prentices in
this condition, but I speak of only one, and his name was
Hugh Graham.
This Hugh was apprenticed to an honest Bowyer, who
dwelt in the ward of Cheype and was rumored to possess
great wealth. Rumor was quite as infallible in those days as
at the present time, but it happened then as now to be sometimes right by accident. It stumbled upon the truth when it
gave the old Bowyer a mint of money. His trade had been a
profitable one in the time of King Henry the Eighth, who en



326    MASTER      HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
couraged English archery to the utmost, and he had been
prudent and discreet. Thus it came to pass that Mistress
Alice, his only daughter, was the richest heiress in all his
wealthy ward. Young Hugh had often maintained with staff
and cudgel that she was the handsomest. To do him justice,
I believe she was.
If he could have gained the heart of pretty Mistress Alice
by knocking this conviction into stubborn people's heads,
Hugh would have had no cause to fear. But though the Bowyer's daughter smiled in secret to hear of his doughty deeds
for her sake, and though her little waiting-woman reported
all her smiles (and many more) to Hugh, and though he was
at a vast expense in kisses and small coin to recompense her
fidelity he made no progress in his love. He durst not whisper it to Mistress Alice save on sure encouragement, and that
she never gave him. A glance of her dark eye as she sat at
the door on a summer's evening after prayer time, while he
and the neighboring'prentices exercised themselves in the
street with blunted sword and buckler, would fire Hugh's
blood so that none could stand before him; but then she
glanced at others quite as kindly as on him, and where was
the use of cracking crowns if Mistress Alice smiled upon the
cracked as well as on the cracker?
Still Hugh went on, and loved her more and more. He
thought of her all day, and dreamed of her all night long.
He treasured up her every word and gesture, and had a palpitation of the heart whenever he heard her footstep on the
ttairs or her voice in an adjcining room. To him, the old Bowyer's house was haunted by an angel; there was enchantment
in the air and space in which she moved. It would have been
no miracle to Hugh if flowers had.sprung from the rushstrewn floors beneath the tread of lovely Mistress Alice.
Never did'prentice long to distingush himself in the eyes
of his lady-love so ardently as Hugh. Sometimes he pictured
to himself the house taking fire by night, and he, when all
drew back in fear, rushing through flame and smoke and bear



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              32'
ing her from the ruins in his arms. At other times he thought
of a rising of fierce rebels, an attack upon the city, a strong
assault upon the Bowyer's house in particular, and he falling on the threshold pierced with numberless wounds in defense of Mistress Alice. If he could only enact some prodigy
of valor, do some wonderful deed, and let her know that she
had inspired it, he thought he could die contented.
Sometimes the Bowyer and his daughter would go out to
supper with a worthy citizen at the fashionable hour of six
o'clock, and on such occasions Hugh, wearing his blue'prentice cloak as gallantly as'prentice might, would attend with
a lantern and his trusty club to escort them home. These
were the brightest moments of his life. To hold the light
while Mistress Alice picked her steps, to touch her hand as
he helped her over broken ways, to have her leaning on his
arm-it sometimes even came to that-this was happiness indeed I
When the nights were fair, Hugh followed in the rear, his
eyes riveted on the graceful figure of the Bowyer's daughter
as she and the old man moved on before him. So they
threaded the narrow winding streets of the city, now passing
beneath the overhanging gables of old wooden houses whence
creaking signs even projected into the street, and now emerging
from some dark and frowning gate-way into the clear moonlight. At such times, or when the shouts of straggling brawlers met her ear, the Bowyer's daughter would look timidly
back at Hugh beseeching him to draw nearer; and then how
he grasped his club and longed to do battle with a dozen rufflers, for the love of Mistress Alice I
The old Bowyer was in the habit of lending money on interest to the gallants of the Court, and thus it happened that
many a richly dressed gentleman dismounted at his door.
More waving plumes and gallant steeds, indeed, were seen at
the Bowyer's house, and more embroidered silks and velvets
sparkled in his dark shop and darker private closet than at
any merchant's in the city. In those times no less than in the



328     MASTER HUMPHREY'S            CLOCK.
present it would seem that the richest looking cavaliers often
wanted money the most.
Of these glittering clients there was one who always came
alone. He was always nobly mounted, and having no attendant gave his horse in charge to Hugh while he and the Bowyer were closeted within. Once as he sprung into the saddle
Mistress Alice was seated at an upper window, and before she
could withdraw he had doffed his jewelled cap and kissed his
hand. Hugh watched him caracoling down the street, and
burnt with indignation. But how much deeper was the glow
that reddened in his cheeks when, raising his eyes to the casement, he saw that Alice watched the stranger too I
He came again and often, each time arrayed more gayly
than before, and still the little casement showed him Mistress
Alice. At length one heavy day, she fled from home. It had
cost her a hard struggle, for all her old father's gifts were
strewn about her chamber as if she had parted from them one
by one, and knew that the time must come when these tokens
of his love would wring her heart-yet she was gone.
She left a letter commending her poor father to the care of
Hugh, and wishing he might be happier than he could ever
have been with her, for he deserved the love of a better and a
purer heart than she had to bestow. The old man's forgiveness (she said) she had no power to ask, but she prayed God
to bless him-and so ended with a blot upon the paper where
her tears had fallen.
At first the old man's wrath was kindled, and he carried his
wrong to the Queen's throne itself; but there was no redress
he learnt at Court, for his daughter had been conveyed abroad.
This afterwards appeared to be the truth, as there came from
France, after an interval of several years, a letter in her hand.
It was written in trembling characters, and almost illegible.
Little could be made out save that she often thought of home
and her old dear pleasant room-and that she had dreamt her
father was dead and had not blessed her-and that her heart
was breaking.



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              329
The poor old Bowyer lingered on, never suffering Hugh to
quit his sight, for he knew now thathe had loved his daughter,
and that was'the only link that bound him to earth. It broke
at length and he died, bequeathing his old'prentice his trade
and all his wealth, and solemnly charging him with his last
breath to revenge his child if ever he who had worked her
misery crossed his path in life again.
From the time of Alice's flight, the tilting-ground, the fields,
the fencing school, the summer evening sports, knew Hugh no
more. His spirit was dead within him. He rose to great
eminence and repute among the citizens, but was seldom seen
to smile, and never mingled in their revelries or rejoicings.
Brave, humane, and generous, he was beloved by all. He was
pitied too by those who knew his story, and these were so
many that when he walked along the streets alone at dusk,
even the rude common people doffed their caps and mingled a
rough air of sympathy with their respect.
One night in May-it was her birthnight and twenty years
since she had left her home-Hugh Graham sat in the room
she had hallowed in his boyish days. He was now a grayhaired man though still in the prime of life. Old thoughts
had borne him company for many hours, and the chamber had
gradually grown quite dark, when he was roused by a low
knocking at the outer door.
He hastened down, and opening it, saw by the light of a
lamp which he had seized upon the way, a female figure crouching in the portal. It hurried swiftly past him and glided up
the stairs. He looked for pursuers. There were none in sight.
No, not one.
He was inclined to think it a vision of his own brain, when
suddenly a vague suspicion of the truth flashed upon his mind.
He barred the door and hastened wildly back. Yes, there she
was-there, in the chamber he had quitted-there in her old
innocent happy home, so changed that none but he could trace
one gleam of what she had been-there upon her kneeswith her hands clasped in agony and shame before her burning face.



330    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
"My God, my God I" she cried, "now strike me dead!
Though I have brought death and shame and sorrow on this
roof, oh, let me die at home in mercy I"
There was no tear upon her face then, but she trembled and
glanced round the chamber. Everything was in its old place.
Her bed looked as if she had risen from it but that morning.
The sight of these familiar objects, marking the dear remembrance in which she had been held, and the blight she had
brought upon herself, was more than the woman's better nature that had carried her there could bear. She wept and fell
upon the ground.
A rumor was spread about, in a few days' time, that the
Bowyer's cruel daughter had come home, and that Master
Graham had given her lodging in his house. It was rumored
too that he had resigned her fortune, in order that she might
bestow it in acts of charity, and that he had vowed to guard
her in her solitude, but that they were never to see each other
more. These rumors greatly incensed all virtuous wives and
daughters in the ward, especially when they appeared to receive corroboration from the circumstance of Master Graham
taking up his abode in another tenement hard by. The estimation in which he was held, however forbade any questioning on the subject; and as the Bowyer's house was close shut
up, and nobody came forth when public shows and festivities
were in progress, or to flaunt in the public walks, or to buy
new fashions at the mercers' booths, all the well-conducted
females agreed among themselves that there could be no woman
there.
These reports had scarcely died away when the wonder of
every good citizen, male and female, was utterly absorbed and
swallowed up by a Royal Proclamation, in which her Majesty,
strongly censuring the practice of wearing long Spanish
rapiers of preposterous length (as being a bullying and swaggering custom, tending to bloodshed and public disorder),
commanded that on a particular day therein named, certain
grave citizens should repair to the city gates, and there, in



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              331
public, break all rapiers worn or carried by persons claiming
admission, that exceeded, though it were only by a quarter of
an inch, three standard feet in length.
Royal Proclamations usually take their course, let the public
wonder never so much. On the appointed day two citizens
of high repute took up their stations at each of the gates, attended by a party of the city guard: the main body to enforce
the Queen's will, and take custody of all such rebels (if any)
as might have the temerity to dispute it: and a few to bear
the standard measures and instruments for reducing all unlawful sword-blades to the prescribed dimensions. In pursuance of these arrangements, Master Graham and another were
posted at Lud Gate, on the hill before Saint Paul.
A pretty numerous company were gathered together at this
spot, for, besides the officers in attendance to enforce the proclamation, there was a motley crowd of lookers-on of various
degrees, who raised from time to time such shouts and cries as
the circumstances called forth. A spruce young courtier was
the first who approached; he unsheathed a weapon of burnished steel that shone and glistened in the sun, and handed
it with the newest air to the officer, who, finding it exactly
three feet long, returned it with a bow. Thereupon the gallant raised his hat and crying " God save the Queen," passed
on amidst the plaudits of the mob. Then came another-a
better courtier still-who wore a blade but two feet long,
whereat the people laughed much to the disparagement of his
honor's dignity. Then came a third, a sturdy old officer
of the army girded with a rapier at least a foot and a half
beyond her Majesty's pleasure; at him they raised a great
shout, and most of the spectators (but especially those who
were armorers or cutlers) laughed very heartily at the breakage which would ensue. But they were disappointed, for the
old campaigner, coolly unbuckling his sword and bidding
his servant carry it home again, passed through unarmed
to the great indignation of all the beholders.  They relieved themselves in some degree by hooting a tall blustering



332    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
fellow with a prodigious weapon, who stopped short on
coming in sight of the preparations, and after a little consideration turned back again; but all this time no rapier had been
broken although it was high noon, and all cavaliers of any
quality or appearance were taking their way toward St. Paul's
churchyard.
During these proceedings Master Graham had stood apart,
strictly confining himself to the duty imposed upon him, and
taking little heed of anything beyond. He stepped forward
now as a richly-dressed gentleman on foot, followed by a
single attendant, was seen advancing up the hill.
As this person drew nearer, the crowd stopped their clamor
and bent forward with eager looks. Master Graham standing
alone in the gateway, and the stranger coming slowly towards
him, they seemed as it were, set face to face. The nobleman
(for he looked one) had a haughty and disdainful air, which bespoke the slight estimation in which he held the citizen. The
citizen on the other hand preserved the resolute bearing of one
who was not to be frowned down or daunted, and who cared
very little for any nobility but that of worth and manhood.
It was perhaps some consciousness on the part of each, of
these feelings in the other that infused a more stern expression into their regards as they came closer together.
"Your rapier, worthy sir I"
At the instant that he pronounced these words Graham
started, and falling back some paces laid his hand upon the
dagger in his belt.
" You are the man whose horse I used to hold before the
Bowyer's door? You are that man? Speak I"
" Out, you'prentice hound I" said the other.
" You are he I I know you -well now i" cried Graham.
"Let no man step between us two, or I shall be his murderer." With that he drew his dagger and rushed in upon
him.
The stranger had drawn his weapon from the scabbard
ready for the scrutiny, before a word was spoken. He made



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              333
a thrust at his assailant, but the dagger which Graham clutched
in his left hand being the dirk in use at that time for parrying
such blows, promptly turned the point aside. They closed.
The dagger fell rattling upon the ground, and Graham wresting his adversary's sword from his grasp, plunged it through
his heart. As he drew it out it snapped in two, leaving a
fragment in the dead man's body.
All this passed so swiftly that the by-standers looked on
without an effort to interfere; but the man was no sooner
down than an uproar broke forth which rent the air. The
attendant rushing through the gate proclaimed that his master, a nobleman, had been set upon and slain by a citizen;
the word quickly spread from mouth to mouth; Saint Paul's
Cathedral, and every book shop, ordinary, and smoking house
in the church-yard poured out its stream of cavaliers and their
followers, who mingling together in a dense tumultuous body
struggled, sword in hand, towards the spot.
With equal impetuosity, and stimulating each other by loud
cries and shouts, the citizens and common people took up the
quarrel on their side, and encircling Master Graham a hundred
deep, forced him from the gate. In vain he waved the broken
sword above his head, crying that he would die on London's
threshold for their sacred homes. They bore him on, and ever
keeping him in the midst so that no man could attack him,
fought their way into the city.
The clash of swords and roar of voices, the dust and heat
and pressure, the trampling under foot of men, the distracted
looks and shrieks of women at the windows above as they
recognized their relatives or lovers in the crowd, the rapid
tolling of alarm bells, the furious rage and passion of the scene,
were fearful. Those who, being on the outskirts of each crowd,
could use their weapons with effect, fought desperately, while
those behind, maddened with baffled rage, struck at each other
over the heads of those before them, and crushed their own
fellows. Wherever the broken sword was seen above the
people's heads, towards that spot the cavaliers made a new



334     MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
rush. Every one of these charges was marked by sudden
gaps in the throng where men were trodden down, but as fast
as they were made, the tide swept over them, and still the
multitude pressed on again, a confused mass of swords, clubs,
staves, broken plumes, fragments of rich cloaks and doublets,
and angry bleeding faces, all mixed up together in inextricable
disorder.
The design of the people was to force Master Graham to
take refuge in his dwelling, and to defend it until the authorities could interfere or they could gain time for parley. But
either from ignorance or in the confusion of the moment they
stopped at his old house, which was closely shut. Some time
was lost in.beating the doors open and passing him to the front.
About a score of the boldest of the other party threw themselves into the torrent while this was being done, and reaching
the door at the same moment with himself cut him off from
his defenders.
" I never will turn in such a righteous cause, so help me
Heaven I" cried Graham, in a voice that at last made itself
heard, and confronting them as he spoke. "Least of all will
I turn upon this threshold which owes its desolation to such
men as ye. I give no quarter, and I will have none I Strike I"
For a moment they stood at bay. At that moment a shot
from an unseen hand, apparently fired by some person who
had gained access to one of the opposite houses, struck Graham in the brain, and he fell dead. A low wail was heard in
the air-many people in the concourse cried that they had
seen a spirit glide across the little casement window of the
Bowyer's houseA dead silence succeeded. After a short time some of the
flushed and heated throng lay down their arms and softly
carried the body within doors. Others fell off or slunk away
in knots of two or three, others whispered together in groups,
and before a numerous guard which then rode up could muster
in the street, it was nearly empty.
Those who carried Master Graham to the bed up stairs



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.              835
were shocked to see a woman lying beneath the window with
her hands clasped together. After trying to recover her in
vain, they laid her near the citizen, who still retained, tightly
grasped in his right hand, the first and last sword that was
broken that day at Lud Gate.
The Giant uttered these concluding words with sudden precipitation, and on the instant the strange light which had filled
the hall faded away. Joe Toddyhigh glanced involuntarily at
the eastern window and saw the first pale gleam of morning.
He turned his head again towards the other window in
which the Giants had been seated. It was empty. The cask
of wine was gone, and he could dimly make out that the two
great figures stood mute and motionless upon their pedestals.
After rubbing his eyes and wondering for full half an hour,
during which time he observed morning come creeping on
apace, he yielded to the drowsiness which overpowered him
and fell into a refreshing slumber. When he awoke it was
broad day; the building was open, and workmen were busily
engaged in removing the vestiges of last night's feast.
Stealing gently down the little stairs and assuming the air
of some early lounger who had dropped in from the street, he
walked up to the foot of each pedestal in turn, and attentively
examined the figure it supported. There could be no doubt
about the features of either; he recollected the exact expression they had worn at different passages of their conversation,
and recognized in every line and lineament the Giants of the
night. Assured that it was no vision, but that he had heard
and seen with his own proper senses, he walked forth, determining at all hazards to conceal himself in the Guildhall again
that evening. lie further resolved to sleep all day, so that he
might be very wakeful and vigilant, and above all that he
might take notice of the figures at the precise moment of their
becoming animated and subsiding into their old state, which
he greatly reproached himself for not having done already.



336    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
CORRESPONDENCE.
TO MASTER HUMPHREY.
"SIR:-Before you proceed any further in your account
of your friends and what you say and do when you meet
together, excuse me if I proffer my claim to be elected to
one of the vacant chairs in that old room of yours. Don't
reject me without full consideration, for if you do you'll be
sorry for it afterwards-you will upon my life.
"I enclose my card, sir, in this letter.  I never was
ashamed of my name, and I never shall be. I am considered a devilish gentlemanly fellow, and I act up to the
character. If you want a reference, ask any of the men at
our club. Ask any fellow who goes there to write his
letters, what sort of conversation mine is. Ask him if he
thinks I have the sort of voice that will suit your deaf
friend and make him hear anything at all. Ask the servants what they think of me. There's not a rascal among'em, sir, but will tremble to hear my name. That reminds
me-don't you say too much about that housekeeper of
yours; it's a low subject, damned low.
"I tell you what, sir. If you vote me into one of those
empty chairs, you'll have among you a man with a fund of
gentlemanly information that'll rather astonish you. I can
let you into a few anecdotes about some fine women of title,
that are quite high life, sir-the tip-top sort of thing. I
know the name of every man who has been out on an affair
of honor within the last five-and-twenty years; I know the
private particulars of every cross and squabble that has
taken place upon the turf, at the gaming-table or elsewhere,
during the whole of that time. I have been called the
gentlemanly chronicle. You may consider yourself a lucky
dog; upon my soul you may congratulate yourself, though
I say so.
" It's an uncommon good notion that of yours, not
letting anybody know where you lire. I have tried it, but



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                337
there has always been an anxiety respecting me which has
found me out. Your deaf friend is a cunning fellow to
keep his name so close. I have tried that too, but have
always failed. I shall be proud to make his acquaintancetell him so, with my compliments.
" You must have been a queer fellow when you were a
child, confounded queer. It's odd all that about the picture
in your first paper,-prosy, but told in a devilish gentlemanly sort of way. In places like that, I could come in
with great effect with a touch of life-Don't you feel that?
"I am anxiously waiting for your next paper to know
whether your friends live upon the premises, and at your
expense, which I take it for granted is the case. If I am
right in this impression, I know a charming fellow (an excellent companion and most delightful company) who will
be proud to join you. Some years ago he seconded a great
many prize-fighters, and once fought an amateur match
himself; since then, he has driven several mails, broken at
different periods all the lamps on the right hand side of
Oxford street, and six times carried away every bell-handle
in Bloomsbury Square, besides turning off the gas in various
thoroughfares. In point of gentlemanliness he is unrivalled,
and I should say that next to myself he is of all men the
best suited to your purpose.
"' Expecting your reply,
"I am,
" &c., &c."
Master Humphrey informs this gentleman that his application, both as it concerns himself and his friend, is rejected.
MASTER HUMPHREY FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE
CHIMNEY CORNER.
My old companion tells me it is midnight. The fire
glows brightly, crackling with a sharp and cheerful sound,
as if it loved to burn. The merry cricket on the hearth (my
21t



338    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
constant visitor), this rudy blaze, my clock, and I, seemed
to share the world among us, and to be the only things
awake. The wind, high and boisterous but now, has died
away and hoarsely mutters in its sleep. I love all times
and seasons each in its turn, and am apt perhaps to think
the present one the best; but past or coming I always love
this peaceful time of night, when long buried thoughts,
favored by the gloom and silence, steal from their graves,
and haunt the scenes of faded happiness and hope.
The popular faith in ghosts has a remarkable affinity
with the whole current of our thoughts at such an hour as
this, and seems to be their necessary and natural consequence. For who can wonder that man should feel a
vague belief in tales of disembodied spirits wandering
through those places which they once dearly affected, when
he himself, scarcely less separated from his old world than
they, is forever lingering upon past emotions and by-gone
times, and hovering, the ghost of his former self, about the
places and people that warmed his heart of old? It is thus
that at this quiet hour I haunt the house where I was born,
the rooms I used to tread, the scenes of my infancy, my boyhood, and my youth; it is thus that I prowl around my
buried treasure (though not of gold or silver) and mourn
my loss; it is thus that I revisit the ashes of extinguished
fires, and take my silent stand at old bed-sides. If my
spirit should ever glide back to this chamber when my body
is mingled with the dust, it will but follow the course it
often took in the old man's lifetime, and add but one
more change to the subjects of its contemplation.
In all my idle speculations I am greatly assisted by
various legends connected with my venerable house, which
are current in the neighborhood, and are so numerous that
there is scarce a cupboard or corner that has not some
dismal story of its own. When I first entertained thoughts
of becoming its tenant I was assured that it was haunted
from roof to cellar, and I believe the bad opinion in which



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                839
my neighbors once held me had its rise in my not being
torn to pieces, or at least distracted with terror, on the
night I took possession: in either of which cases I should
doubtless have arrived by a short cut at the very summit
of popularity.
But traditions and rumors all taken into account, who so
abets me in every fancy and chimes with my every thought,
as my dear deaf friend; and how often have I cause to bless
the day that brought us two together I Of all days in the
year I rejoice to think that it should have been Christmas
Day, with which from childhood we associate something
friendly, hearty, and sincere.
I had walked out to cheer myself with the happiness of
others, and, in the little tokens of festivity and rejoicing, of
which the streets and houses present so many on that day,
had lost some hours. Now I stopped to look at a merry
party hurrying through the snow on foot to their place of
meeting, and now turned back to see a whole coachful of
children safely deposited at the welcome house. At one time,
I admired how carefully the working-man carried the baby
in its gaudy hat and feathers, and how his wife, trudging
patiently on behind, forgot even her care of her gay clothes,
in exchanging greetings with the child as it crowed and
laughed over the father's shoulder; at another, I pleased
myself with some passing scene of gallantry or courtship,
and was glad to believe that for a season half the world of
poverty was gay.
As the day closed in, I still rambled through the streets
feeling a companionship in the bright fires that cast their
warm reflection on the windows as I passed, and losing all
sense of my own loneliness in imagining the sociality and
kind-fellowship that everywhere prevailed. At length I
happened to stop before a tavern, and, encountering a Bill
of Fare in the window, it all at once brought it into my
head to wonder what kind of people dined alone in Taverns
upon Christmas Day.



840    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciously to
look upon solitude as their own peculiar property. I had
sat alone in my room on many, many anniversaries of this
great holiday, and had never regarded it but as one of
universal assemblage and rejoicing. I had accepted, and
with an aching heart, a crowd of prisoners and beggars, but
these were not the men for whom the Tavern doors were
open. Had they any customers or was it a mere form?-a
form no doubt.
Trying to feel quite sure of this, I walled away, but
before I had gone many paces, I stopped and looked back.
There was a provoking air of business in the lamp above
the door which I could not overcome. I began to be afraid
there might be many customers-young men perhaps struggling with the world, utter strangers in this great place,
whose friends lived at a long distance off, and whose means
were too slender to enable them to make the journey. The
supposition gave rise to so many distressing little pictures,
that, in preference to carrying them home with me, I
determined to encounter the realities. So I turned, and
walked in.
I was at once glad and sorry to find that there was only
one person in the dining-room; glad to know that there
were not more, and sorry that he should be there by himself. He did not look so old as I, but like me he was
advanced in life, and his hair was nearly white. Though I
made more noise in entering and seating myself than was
quite necessary, with the view of attracting his attention
and saluting him in the good old form of that time of year,
he did not raise his head, but sat with it resting on his hand,
musing over his half-finished meal.
I called for something which would give me an excuse for
remaining in the room (I had dined early, as my housekeeper was engaged at night to partake of some friend's
good cheer), and sat where I could observe without intruding
on him. After a time he looked up. He was aware that



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                341
somebody had entered, but could see very little of me as I
sat in the shade and he in the light. He was sad and
thoughtful, and I forbore to trouble him by speaking.
Let me believe that it was something better than curiosity
which rivetted my attention and impelled me strongly
towards this gentleman. I never saw so patient and kind
a face. He should have been surrounded by friends, and
yet here he sat dejected and alone when all men had their
friends about them. As often as he roused himself from
his reverie he would fall into it again, and it was plain that
whatever were the subjects of his thoughts they were of a
melancholy kind, and would not be controlled.
He was not used to solitude. I was sure of that, for I
know by myself that if he had been, his manner would have
been different, and he would have taken some slight interest
in the arrival of another. I could not fail to mark that he
had no appetite; that he tried to eat in vain; that time
after time the plate was pushed away, and he relapsed into
his former posture.
His mind was wandering among old Christmas Days, I
thought.  Many of them sprung up together, not with a
long gap between each, but in unbroken succession like
days of the week.  It was a great change to find himself
for the first time (I quite settled that it was the first) in an
empty silent room with no soul to care for. I could not
help following him in imagination through crowds of pleasant faces, and then coming back to that dull place with its
bough of misletoe sickening in the gas, and sprigs of holly
parched up already by a Simoom of roast and boiled. The
very waiter had gone home, and his representative, a poor,
lean, hungry man, was keeping Christmas in his jacket.
I grew still more interested in my friend.  His dinner
done, a decanter of wine was placed before him.  It
remained untouched for a long time, but at length with a
quivering hand he filled a glass and raised it to his lips.
Some tender wish to which he had been accustomed to give



343    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
utterance on that day, or some beloved name that he had
been used to pledge, trembled upon them at the moment.
He put it down very hastily-took it up once more-again
put it down-pressed his hand upon his face-yes-and
tears stole down his cheeks, I am certain.
Without pausing to consider whether I did right or
wrong, I stepped across the room, and sitting down beside
him laid my hand gently on his arm.
" My friend," I said, " forgive me if I beseech you to take
comfort and consolation from the lips of an old man. I will
not preach to you what I have not practiced, indeed. Whatever be your grief, be of a good heart-be of a good heart,
pray I"
" I see that you speak earnestly," he replied, " and kindly
I am very sure, but"I nodded my head to show that I understood what he
would say, for I had already gathered from a certain fixed
expression in his face, and from the attention with which he
watched me while I spoke, that his sense of hearing was destroyed. " There should be a freemasonry between us," said
I, pointing from himself to me to explain my meaning; "if
not in our gray hairs, at least in our misfortunes. You see
that I am but a poor cripple."
I never felt so happy under my affliction since the trying
moment of my first becoming conscious of it, as when he
took my hand in his with a smile that has lighted my path
in life from that day, and we sat down side by side.
This was the beginning of my friendship with the deaf
gentleman, and when was ever the slight and easy service
of a kind word in season, repaid by such attachment and
devotion as he has shown to me!
He produced a little set of tablets and a pencil to facilitate
our conversation, on that our first acquaintance, and I well
remember how awkward and constrained I was in writing
down my share of the dialogue, and how easily he guessed
my meaning before I had written half of what I had to say.



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                843
lHe told me in a faltering voice that he had not been accustomed to be alone on that day-that it had always been a
little festival with him-and seeing that I glanced at his
dress in the expectation that he wore mourning, he added
hastily that it was not that; if it had been, he thought he
could have borne it better. From that time to the present
we have never touched upon this theme. Upon every return of the same day we have been together, and although
we make it our annual custom to drink to each other hand
in hand after dinner, and to recall with affectionate garullity
every circumstance of our first meeting, we always avoid
this one as if by mutual consent.
Meantime we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and regard, and forming an attachment which, I trust
and believe, will only be interrupted by death, to be renewed
in another existence. I scarcely know how we communicate as we do, but he has long since ceased to be deaf to
me. He is frequently the companion of my walks, and even
in crowded streets replies to my slightest look or gesture
as though he could read my thoughts. From the vast number
of objects which pass in rapid succession before our eyes, we
frequently select the same for some particular notice or remark; and when one of these little coincidences occurs, I
cannot describe the pleasure which animates my friend, or
the beaming countenance he will preserve for half an hour
afterwards at least.
He is a great thinker from living so much within himself,
and having a lively imagination, has a facility ofconceiving
and enlarging upon odd ideas, which renders him invaluable
to our little body, and greatly astonishes our two friends.
His powers in this respect are much assisted by a large pipe,
which he assures us once belonged to a German Student.
Be this as it may, it has undoubtedly a very ancient and
mysterious appearance, and is of such capacity that it takes
three hours and a half to smoke it out. I have reason to
believe that my barber, who is the chief authority of a knot



344    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
of gossips who congregate every evening at a small tobacconist's hard by, has related anecdotes of this pipe and the
grim figures that are carved upon its bowl at which all the
smokers in the neighborhood have stood aghast; and I
know that my housekeeper, while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious feeling connected with it which
would render her exceedingly unwilling to be left alone in
its company after dark.
Whatever sorrow my dear friend has known, and whatever
grief may linger in some secret corner of his heart, he is
now a cheerful, placid, happy creature. Misfortune can
never have fallen upon such a man but for some good purpose; and when I see its traces in his gentle nature and his
earnest feeling, I am the less disposed to murmur at such
trials as I may-have undergone myself. With regard to
the pipe, I have a theory of my own; I cannot help thinking that it is in some manner connected with the event that
brought us together, for I remember that it was a long time
before he even talked about it; that when he did, he grew
reserved and melancholy; and that it was a long time yet
before he brought it forth. I have no curiosity, however,
upon this subject, for I know that it promotes his tranquility
and comfort, and I need no other inducement to regard it
with my utmost favor.
Such is the deaf gentleman. I can call up his figure now,
clad in sober gray, and seated in the chimney-corner. As
he puffs out the smoke from his favorite pipe he casts a look
on me brimful of cordiality and friendship, and says all
manner of kind and genial things in a cheerful smile; then
he raises his eyes to my clock which is just about to strike,
and glancing from it to me and back again, seems to divide
his heart between us. For myself, it is not too much to
say that I would gladly part with one of my poor limbs,
could he but hear the old clock's voice.
Of our two friends the first has been all his life one of that
easy, wayward, truant class whom the world is accustomed
t)o designate as nobody's enemies but their own. Bred to



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                 345
a profession for which he never qualified himself, and reared
in the expectation of a fortune he has never inherited, he
has undergone every vicissitude of which such an existence
is capable. He and his younger brother, both orphans from
their childhood, were educated by a wealthy relative who
taught them to expect an equal division of his property; but
too indolent to court, and too honest to flatter, the elder gradually lost ground in the affections of a capricious old man,
and the younger, who did not fail to improve his opportunity,
now triumphs in the possession of enormous wealth. His
triumph is to hoard it in solitary wretchedness, and probably
to feel with the expenditure of every shilling a greater pang
than the loss of his whole inheritance ever cost his brother.
Jack Redburn-he was Jack Redburn at the first little
school he went to where every other child was mastered
and surnamed, and he has been Jack Redburn all his life, or
he would perhaps have been a richer man by this time-has
been an inmate of my house these eight years past. He is
my librarian, secretary, steward, and first minister: director
of all my affairs and inspector-general of my household. He
is something of a musician, something of an author, something of an actor, something of a painter, very much of a
carpenter, and an extraordinary gardener; having had all
his life a wonderful aptitude for learning everything that
was of no use to him. He is remarkably fond of children,
and is the best and kindest nurse in sickness that ever drew
the breath of life. He has mixed with every grade of society
and known the utmost distress, but there never was a less
selfish, a more tender-hearted, a more enthusiastic, or a
more guileless man; and I dare say if few have done less
good, fewer still have done less harm in the world than he.
By what chance Nature forms such whimsical jumbles I
don't know, but I do know that she sends them among us
very often, and that the king of the whole race is Jack
Redburn.
I should be puzzled to say how old he is. Ris health is



346    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
none of the best, and he wears a quantity of iron-gray'.air
which shades his face and gives it rather a worn appearance; hut we consider him quite a young fellow notwit.hstanding, and if a youthful spirit surviving the roughest
contact with the world confers upon its possessor any title
to be considered young then he is a mere child. The only
interruptions to his careless cheerfulness are on a wet Sunday, when he is apt to be unusually religious and solemn,
and sometimes of an evening when he has been blowing i
very slow tune on the flute. On these last-named occasio"
he is apt to incline towards the mysterious or the terrible
As a specimen of his powers in this mood, I refer my
readers to the extract from the clock-case which follows this
paper: he brought it to me not long ago at midnight, and
informed me that the main incident had been suggested by
a dream of the night before.
His apartments are two cheerful rooms looking towards
the garden, and one of his great delights is to arrange and
rearrange the furniture in these chambers and put it in
every possible variety of position. During the whole time
he has been here, I do not think he has slept for two nights
running with the head of his bed in the same place, and
every time he moves it is to be the last. My housekeeper was
at first well-nigh distracted by these frequent changes, but
she has become quite reconciled to them by degrees, and
has so fallen in with his humor that they often consult together with great gravity upon the next final alteration.
Whatever his arrangements are, however, they are always
t pattern of neatness, and every one of the manifold articles
connected with his manifold occupations, is to be found in
its own particular place. Until within the last two or three
years he was subject to an occasional fit (which usually
came upon him in very fine weather), under the influence of
which he would dress himself with peculiar care, and going
out under pretense of taking a walk, disappear for several days together. At length after the interval between



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                34T
each outbreak of this disorder had gradually grown longer
and longer, it wholly disappeared, and now he seldom stirs
abroad except to stroll out a little way on a summer's evening. Whether he yet mistrusts his own constancy in this
respect, and is therefore afraid to wear a coat, I know not;
but we seldom see him in any-other upper garment than an
old spectral-looking dressing gown with very disproportionate pockets, full of a miscellaneous collection of odd matters which he picks up wherever he can lay his hands upon
them.
Everything that is a favorite with our friend is a favorite
with us, and thus it happens that the fourth among us is
Mr. Owen Miles, a most worthy gentleman who had treated
Jack with great kindness before my deaf friend and I encountered him by an accident, to which I may refer on some
future occasion. Mr. Miles was once a very rich merchant,
but receiving a severe shock in the death of his wife, he retired from business and devoted himself to a quiet, unostentatious life. He is an excellent man of thoroughly sterling
character: not of quick apprehension, and not without some
amusing prejudices, which I shall leave to their own development. He holds us all in profound veneration, but Jack
Redburn he esteems as a kind of pleasant wonder, that he
may venture to approach familiarly. He believes, not only
that no man ever lived who could do so many things as
Jack, but that no man ever lived who could do anything so
well; and he never calls my attention to any of his ingenious proceedings but he whispers in my ear, nudging me
at the same time with his elbow-" If he had only made it
his trade, sir,-if he had only made it his trade 1"
They are inseparable companions; one would almost
suppose that although Mr. Miles never by any chance does
anything in the way of assistance, Jack could do nothing
without him. Whether he is reading, writing, painting,
carpentering, gardening, flute-playing, or what not, there is
Mr. Miles beside him, buttoned up to the chin in his blue



348    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
coat, and looking on with a face of incredulous delight, as
though he could not credit the testimony of his own senses,
and had a misgiving that no man could be so clever but in
a dream.
These are my friends; I have now introduced myself and
them.
THE CLOCK-CASE.
A CONFESSION FOUND IN A PRISON IN THE TIME OF CHARLES
THE SECOND.
I HELD a lieutenant's commission in His Majesty's army,
and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678. The
treaty of Nimeguen being concluded, I returned home, and
retiring from the service withdrew to a small estate lying a
few miles east of London, which I had recently acquired in
right of my wife.
This is the last night I have to live, and I will set down
the naked truth without disguise. I was never a brave man,
and had always been from my childhood of a secret, sullen,
distrustful nature. I speak of myself as if I had passed
from the world, for while I write this my grave is digging
and my name is written in the black book of death.
Soon after my return to England, my only brother was
seized with mortal illness. This circumstance gave me slight
or no pain, for since we had been men we had associated
but very little together. He was open-hearted and generous, handsomer than I, more accomplished, and generally
beloved. Those who sought my acquaintance abroad or at
home, because they were friends of his, seldom attached
themselves to me long, and would usually say in our first
conversation that they were surprised to find two brothers
so unlike in their manners and appearance. It was my
habit to lead them on to this avowal, for I knew what comparisons they must draw between us, and having a rankling
envy in my heart, I sought to justify it to myself.



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                 349
We had married two sisters. This additional tie between
us, as it may appear to some, only estranged us the more.
His wife knew me well. I never struggled with any secret
jealousy or gall when she was present but that woman knew
it as well as I did. I never raised my eyes at such times
but I found hers fixed upon me; I never bent them on the
ground or looked another way, but I felt that she overlooked me always. It was an inexpressible relief to me
when we quarrelled, and a greater relief still when I heard
abroad that she was dead. It seems to me now as if some
strange and terrible foreshadowing of what has happened
since, must have hung over us then. I was afraid of her;
she haunted me; her fixed and steady look comes back upon
me now, like the memory of a dark dream, and makes my
blood run cold.
She died shortly after giving birth to a child-a boy.
When my brother knew that all hope of his own recovery
was passed, he called my wife to his bedside and confided
this orphan, a child of four years old, to her protection. He
bequeathed to him all the property he had, and willed that
in case of his child's death it should pass to my wife, as the
only acknowledgment he could make her for her care and
love. He exchanged a few brotherly words with me, deploring our long separation, and being exhausted fell into a
slumber from which he never awoke.
We had no children, and as there had been a strong affection between the sisters, and my wife had almost supplied
the place of a mother to this boy, she loved him as if he
had been her own. The child was ardently attached to her;
but he was his mother's image in face and spirit, and
always mistrusted me.
I can scarcely fix the date when the feeling first came
upon me, but I soon began to be uneasy when this child
was by. I never roused myself from some moody train of
thought but I marked him looking at me: not with mere
childish wonder, but with something of the purpose and



350    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
meaning that I had so often noted in his mother. It was
no etfort of my fancy, founded on close resemblance of
feature and expression. I never could look the boy down.
He feared me but seemed by some instinct to despise me
while he did so; and even when he drew back beneath my
gaze-as he would when we were alone, to get nearer to the
door-he would keep his bright eyes upon me still.
Perhaps I hide the truth from myself, but I do not think
that when this began, I meditated to do him any wrong. I
may have thought how serviceable his inheritance would be
to us, and may have wished him dead, but I believe I had
no thought of compassing his death. Neither did the idea
come upon me at once, but by very slow degrees, presenting
itself at first in dim shapes at a very great distance, as men
may think of an earthquake or the last day-then drawing
nearer and nearer and losing something of its horror and
improbability-then coming to be part and parcel, nay
nearly the whole sum and substance of my daily thoughts,
and resolving itself into a question of means and safety;
not of doing or abstaining from the deed.
While this was going on within me, I never could bear
that the child should see me looking at him, and yet I was
under a fascination which made it a kind of business with
me to contemplate his slight and fragile figure and think
how easily it might be done. Sometimes I would steal up
stairs and watch him as he slept, but usually I hovered
in the garden near the window of the room in which he
learnt his little tasks; and there, as he sat upon a low seat
beside my wife, I would peer at him for hours together from
behind a tree: starting like the guilty wretch I was at
every rustling of a leaf, and still gliding back to look and
start again.
Hard by our cottage, but quite out of sight, and (if there
were any wind astir) of hearing too, was a deep sheet of
water. I spent days in shaping with my pocket-knife a
rough model of a boat, which I finished at last and dropped



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                351
in the child's way. Then I withdrew to a secret place
which lie must pass if he stole away alone to swim this
bauble, and lurked there for his coming. He came neither
that day nor the next, though I waited from noon till nightfall. I was sure that I had him in my net, for I had heard
him prattling of the toy, and knew that in his infant
pleasure he kept it by his side in bed. I felt no weariness
or fatigue, but waited patiently, and on the third day he
passed me, running joyously along, with his silken hair
streaming in the wind, and he singing-God have mercy
upon me — singing a merry ballad-who could hardly lisp
the words.
I stole down after him, creeping under certain shrubs
which grow in that place, and none but devils know with
what terror I, a strong, full-grown man, tracked the footsteps of that baby as he approached the water's brink. I
was close upon him, had sunk upon my knee and raised my
hand to thrust him in, when he saw my shadow in the
stream and turned him round.
His mother's ghost was looking from his eyes. The sun
burst forth from behind a cloud: it shone in the bright sky,
the glistening earth, the clear water, the sparkling drops of
rain upon the leaves. There were eyes in everything. The
whole great universe of light was there to see the murder done.
I know not what he said; he came of bold and manly blood,
and child as he was, he did not crouch or fawn upon me. I
heard him cry that he would try to love me-not that he
did-and then I saw him running back towards the house.
The next I saw was my own sword naked in my hand, and
he lying at my feet stark dead-dabbled here and there
with blood, but otherwise no different from what I had seen
him in his sleep-in the same attitude too, with his cheek
resting upon his little hand.
I took him in my arms and laid him-very gently now
that he was dead-in a thicket. My wife was from home
that day and would not return until the next. Our bed



352    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
room window, the only sleeping room on that side of the
house, was but a few feet from the ground, and I resolved
to descend from it at night and bury him in the garden.
I had no thought that I had failed in my design, no thought
that the water would be dragged and nothing found, that
the money must now lie waste since I must encourage the
idea that the child was lost or stolen. All my thoughts
were bound up and knotted together, in the one absorbing
necessity of hiding what I had done.
How I felt when they came to tell me that the child was
missing, when I ordered scouts in all directions, when I
gasped and trembled at every one's approach, no tongue
can tell or mind of man conceive. I buried him that night.
When I parted the boughs and looked into the dark thicket,
there was a glow-worm shining like the visible spirit of God
upon the murdered child. I glanced down into his grave
when I had placed him there, and still it gleamed upon his
breast; an eye of fire looking up to Heaven in supplication
to the stars that watched me at my work.
I had to meet my wife, and break the news, and give her
hope that the child would soon be found. All this I didwith some appearance, I suppose, of being sincere, for I was
the object of no suspicion. This done, I sat at the bed-room
window all day long, and watched the spot where the dreadful secret lay.
It was in a piece of ground which had been dug up to
be newly turfed, and which I had chosen on that account,
as the traces of my spade were less likely to attract attention. The men who laid down the grass must have thought
me mad. I called to them continually to expedite their
work, ran out and worked beside them, trod down the earth
with my feet, and hurried them with frantic eagerness.
They had finished their task before night, and then I thought
myself comparatively safe.
I slept-not as men do who awake refreshed and cheerful,
but I did sleep, passing from vague and shadowy dreams of



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                 353
being hunted down, to visions of the plot of grass, through
which now a hand and now a foot and now the head itself
was starting out. At this point I always woke and stole to
the window, to make sure that it was not really so. That
done I crept to bed again, and thus I spent the night in fits
and starts, getting up and lying down full twenty times, and
dreaming the same dream over and over again-which was
far worse than lying awake, for every dream had a whole
night's suffering of its own. Once I thought the child was
alive and that I had never tried to kill him. To wake from
that dream was the most dreadful agony of all.
The next day I sat at the window again, never once
taking my eyes from the place, which, although it was covered by the grass, was as plain to me-its shape, its size, its
depth, its jagged sides, and all-as if it had been open to
the light of day. When a servant walked across it, I felt as
if he must sink in; when he had passed, I looked to see
that his feet had not worn the edges. If a bird lighted there,
I was in terror lest by some tremendous interposition it
should be instrumental in the discovery; if a breath of air
sighed across it, to me it whispered murder. There was not
a sight or a sound,-how ordinary, mean, or unimportant
soever,-but was fraught with fear. And in this state of
ceaseless watching I spent three days.
On the fourth, there came to the gate one who had served
with me abroad, accompanied by a brother officer of his
whom I had never seen. I felt that I could not bear to be
out of sight of the place. It was a summer evening, and I
bade my people take a table and a flask of wine into the
garden. Then I sat down with my chair upon the grave, and
being assured that nobody could disturb it now, without my
knowledge, tried to drink and talk.
They hoped that my wife was well-that she was not
obliged to keep her chamber-that they had not frightened
her away  What could I do but tell them with a faltering
tongue about the child? The officer whom 1 did not know
22



354    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
was a down-looking man, and kept his eyes upon the ground
while I was speaking. Even that terrified me  I could not
divest myself of the idea that he saw something there which
caused him to suspect the truth. I asked him hurriedly if
he supposed that-and stopped. "That the child has been
murdered?" said he, looking mildly at me. " Oh, no I what
could a man gain by murdering a poor child?" I could
have told him what a man gained by such a deed, no one
better, but I held my peace and shivered as with an ague.
Mistaking my emotion they were endeavoring to cheer
me with the hope that the boy would certainly be foundgreat cheer that was for me-when we heard a low, deep
howl, and presently there sprung over the wall two great
dogs, who, bounding into the garden, repeated the baying
sound we had heard before.
"Blood-hounds I" cried my visitors.
What need to tell me that I I had never seen one of that
kind in all my life, but I knew what they were and for what
purpose they had come. I grasped the elbows of my chair,
and neither spoke nor moved.
" They are of the genuine breed," said the man whom I
had known abroad, " and being out for exercise have no
doubt escaped from their keeper."
Both he and his friend turned to look at the dogs, who
with their noses to the ground moved restlessly about,
running to and fro, and up and down, and across, and round
in circles, careering about like wild things, and all this time
taking no notice of us, but ever and again repeating the yell
we had heard already, then dropping their noses to the
ground and tracking earnestly here and there. They now
began to snuff the earth more eagerly than they had done
yet, and although they were still very restless, no longer
beat about in such wide circuits, but kept near to one spot,
and constantly diminished the distance between themselves
and me.
At last they came up close to the great chair on which I



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                355
sat, and raising their frightful howl once more, tried to tear
away the wooden rails that kept them from the ground
beneath. I saw how I looked, in the faces of the two who
were with me.
"They scent some prey," said they, both together.
"They scent no prey I" cried I.
"In Heaven's name, move," said the one I knew, very
earnestly, "or you will be torn to pieces."
"Let them tear me from limb to limb, I'll never leave
this place!" cried I. " Are dogs to hurry men to shameful
deaths? Hew them down, cut them in pieces."
"There is some foul mystery here I" said the officer whom
I did not know, drawing his sword. "In King Charles's
name, assist me to secure this man."
They both set upon me and forced me away, though I
fought and bit and caught at them like a madman. After a
struggle they got me quietly between them, and then, my
God I I saw the angry dogs tearing at the earth and throwing it up into the air like water.
What more have I to tell? That I fell upon my knees
and with chattering teeth confessed the truth and prayed to
be forgiven. That I have since denied and now confess to
it again. That I have been tried for the crime, found
guilty, and sentenced. That I have not the courage to anticipate my doom or to bear up manfully against it. That
I have no compassion, no consolation, no hope, no friend.
That my wife has happily lost for the time those faculties
which would enable her to know my misery or hers. That
I am alone in this stone dungeon with my evil spirit, and
that I die to-morrow I
CORRESPONDENCE.
MASTER HUMPHREY has been favored with the following
letter, written on strongly scented paper, and sealed in light
blue wax with the representation of two very plump doves,



356    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
interchanging beaks. It does not commence with any of
the usual forms of address, but begins as is here set forth.
Bath, Wednesday Night.
Heavens I into what an indiscretion do I suffer myself to
be betrayed I To address these faltering lines to a total
stranger, and that stranger one of a conflicting sex 1-and
yet I am precipitated into the abyss, and have no power of
self-snatchation (forgive me if I coin that phrase) from
the yawning gulf before me.
Yes, I am writing to a man, but let me not think of that,
for madness is in the thought. You will understand my
feelings? Oh yes I I am sure you will I and you will
respect them too, and not despise them-will you?
Let me be calm. That portrait-smiling as once he
smiled on me; that cane-dangling as I have seen it dangle
from his hand I know not how oft; those legs that have
glided through my nightly dreams and never stopped to
speak; the perfectly gentlemanly, though false originalcan I be mistaken? oh no, no.
Let me be calmer yet; I would be calm as coffins. You
have published a letter from one whose likeness is engraved,
but whose name (and wherefore?) is suppressed. Shall I
breathe that name I Is it-but why ask when my heart
tells me too truly that it is I
I would not upbraid him with his treachery, I would not
remind him of those times when he plighted the most eloquent of vows, and procured from me a small pecuniary
accommodation; and yet I would see him-see him did I
say-him-alas I such is woman's nature. For as the poet
beautifully says-but you will already have anticipated the
sentiment. Is it not sweet? oh yes I
It was in this city (hallowed by the recollection) that I
met him first, and assuredly if mortal happiness be recorded
anywhere, then those rubbers with their three-and-sixpenny
points are scored on tablets of celestial brass. He always



MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.                 357
held an honor-generally two. On that eventful night, we
stood at eight. He raised his eyes (luminous in their seductive sweetness) to my agitated face. "Can you?" said
he, with peculiar meaning. I felt the gentle pressure of his
foot on mine; our corns throbbed in unison. " Can you?"
he said again, and every lineament of his expressive countenance added the words " resist me?" I murmured " No,"
and fainted.
They said when I recovered, it was the weather. I said
it was the nutmeg in the negus. How little did they suspect the truth I How little did they guess the deep mysterious meaning of that inquiry I He called next morning
on his knees: I do not mean to say that he actually came
in that position to the house door, but that he went down
upon those joints directly the servant had retired. He
brought some verses in his hat which he said were original,
but which I have since found were Milton's. Likewise a
little bottle labelled laudanum: also a pistol and a swordstick. He drew the latter, uncorked the former, and clicked
the trigger of the pocket fire-arm. He had come, he said,
to conquer or to die. He did not die. He wrested from
me an avowal of my love, and let off the pistol out of a
back window previous to partaking of a slight repast.
Faithless, inconstant man I How many ages seem to
have elapsed since his unaccountable and perfidious disappearance   Could I still forgive him both that and the
borrowed lucre that he promised to pay next week I Could
I spurn him from my feet if he approached in penitence,
and with a matrimonial object I Would the blandishing
enchanter still weave his spells around me, or should I burst
them all and turn away in coldness I 1 dare not trust my
weakness with the thought.
My brain is in a whirl again. You know his address, his
occupations, his mode of life,-are acquainted, perlaps
with his inmost thoughts. You are a humane and philanthropic character; reveal all you know-all; but especially



358    MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK.
the street and number of his lodgings. The post is departing, the bellman rings-pray heaven it be not the knell of
love and hope to
BELINDA.
P. S. Pardon the wanderings of a bad pen and a distracted mind. Address to the Post-office. The bellman,
rendered impatient by delay, is ringing dreadfully in the
passage.
P. P. S. I open this to say that the bellman is gone, and
that you must not expect it till the next post; so don't be
surprised when you don't get it.
Master Humphrey does not feel himself at liberty to
furnish his fair correspondent with the address of the gen.
tleman in question, but he publishes her letter as a public
appeal to his faith and gallantry.



MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
WHEN I am in a thoughtful mood, I often succeed in diverting the current of some mournful reflections, by conjuring up a number of fanciful associations with the objects
that surround me, and dwelling upon the scenes and characters they suggest.
I have been led by this habit to assign to every room in
my house and every old staring portrait on its walls, a separate interest of its own. Thus, I am persuaded that a
stately dame, terrible to behold in her rigid modesty, who
hangs above the chimney-piece of my bed-room, is the former
lady of the mansion. In the court-yard below is a stone
face of surpassing ugliness, which I have somehow-in a kind
of jealousy, I am afraid-associated with her husband.
Above my study is a little room with ivy peeping through
the lattice, from which I bring their daughter, a lovely girl
of eighteen or nineteen years of age, and dutiful in all respects save one, that one being her devoted attachment to
a young gentleman on the stairs, whose grandmother (degraded to a disused laundry in the garden) piques herself
upon an old family quarrel, and is the implacable enemy of
their love. With such materials as these, I work out many
a little drama, whose chief merit is, that I can bring it to a
happy end at will; I have so many of them on hand, that if
on my return home one of these evenings I were to find
some bluff old wight of two centuries ago comfortably seated
in my easy chair, and a love-lorn damsel vainly appealing
to his heart and leaning her white arm upon my clock itself,
I verily believe I should only express my surprise that they
had kept me waiting so long, and never honored me with a
call before.
(359)



3C0   MASTER     HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.
I was in such a mood as this, sitting in my garden yesterday morning under the shade of a favorite tree, revelling
in all the bloom and brightness about me, and feeling every
sense of hope and enjoyment quickened by this most beautiful season of Spring, when my meditations were interrupted by the unexpected appearance of my barber at the
end of the walk, who I immediately saw was coming towards
me with a hasty step that betokened something remarkable.
My barber is at all times a very brisk, bustling, active
little man-for he is, as it were, chubby all over, without
being stout or unwieldy-but yesterday his alacrity was so
very uncommon that it quite took me by surprise. Nor
could I fail to observe when he came up to me, that his gray
eyes were twinkling in a most extraordinary manner, that
his little red nose was in an unusual glow, that every line
in his round, bright face was twisted and curved into an expression of pleased surprise, and that his whole countenance
was radiant with glee. I was still more surprised to see
my housekeeper, who usually preserves a very staid air and
stands somewhat upon her dignity, peeping round the
hedge at the bottom of the walk, and exchanging nods and
smiles with the barber, who twice or thrice looked over his
shoulder for that purpose. I could conceive no announcement to which these appearances could be the prelude, unless it were that they had married each other that morning.
I was, consequently, a little disappointed when it only
came out that there was a gentleman in the house who
wished to speak with me.
"And who is it?" said I.
The barber, with his face screwed up still tighter than
before, replied that the gentleman would not send his name,
but wished to see me. I pondered for a moment, wondering who this visitor might be, and I remarked that he embraced the opportunity of exchanging another nod with the
housekeeper, who still lingered in the distance.
" Well 1" said I, "bid the gentleman come here."



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.            l61
This seemed to be the consummation of the barber's hopes,
for he turned sharp round, and actually ran away.
Now, my sight is not very good at a distance, and therefore when the gentleman first appeared in the walk, I was
not quite clear whether he was a stranger to me or otherwise. He was an elderly gentleman, but came tripping
along in the pleasantest manner conceivable, avoiding the
garden-roller and the borders of the beds with inimitable
dexterity, picking his way among the flower-pots, and smiling with unspeakable good-humor. Before he was half way
up the walk he began to salute me; then I thought I knew
him; but when he came towards me with his hat in his hand,
the sun shining on his bald head, his bland face, his bright
spectacles, his fawn-colored tights and his black gaitersthen, my heart warmed towards him and I felt quite certain
that it was Mr. Pickwick.
"My dear sir,"-said that gentleman as I rose to receive
him, " pray be seated. Pray sit down. Now, do not stand
on my account. I must insist upon it, really." With these
words Mr. Pickwick gently pressed me down into my seat,
and taking my hand in his, shook it again and again with
a warmth of manner perfectly irresistible. I endeavored to
express in my welcome something of that heartiness and
pleasure which the sight of him awakened, and made him sit
down beside me. All this time he kept alternately releasing my hand and grasping it again, and surveying me
through his spectacles with such a beaming countenance as
I never beheld.
"You knew me directly i" said Mr. Pickwick. "What
a pleasure it is to think that you knew me directly I"
I remarked that I had read his adventures very often,
and his features were quite familiar to me from the published portraits. As I thought it a good opportunity of
adverting to the circumstance, I condoled with him upon
the various libels on his character, which had found their
way into print. Mr. Pickwick shook his head, and for a



MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.                363
of delight. After shaking me heartily byboth hands at
once, he patted me gently on the back, and then-I well
understood why-colored up to the eyes, and hoped with
great earnestness of manner that he had not hurt me.
If he had, I would have been content that he should have
repeated the offence a hundred times rather than suppose
so; but as he had not, I had no difficulty in changing the
subject by making an inquiry which had been upon my lips
twenty times already.
" You have not told me," said I, " anything about Sam
Weller."
" Oh 1 Sam," replied Mr. Pickwick, " is the same as ever.
The same true, faithful fellow that he ever was.  What
should I tell you about Sam, my dear sir, except that he is
more indispensable to my happiness and comfort every day
of my life?"
"And Mr. Weller, senior?" said I.
"Old Mr. Weller," returned Mr. Pickwick, "is in no
respect more altered than Sam, unless it be that he is a
little more opinionated than he was formerly, and perhaps
at times more talkative. He spends a good deal of his
time now in our neighborhood, and has so constituted himself a part of my body-guard, that when I ask permission
for Sam to have a seat in your kitchen on clock nights
(supposing your three friends think me worthy to fill one
of the chairs), I am afraid I must often include Mr. Weller
too."
I very readily pledged myself to give both Sam and his
father a free admission to my house at all hours and seasons,
and this point settled, we fell into a lengthy conversation
which was carried on with as little reserve on both sides as if
we had been intimate friends from our youth, and which conveyed to me the comfortable assurance that Mr. Pickwick's
buoyancy of spirit, and indeed all his old cheerful characteristics, were wholly unimpaired. As he had spoken of the
consent of my friends as being yet in abeyance, I repeatedly



MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.                365
few seconds each, and nod his head with such complacent
gratification as I am quite unable to describe. His admiration was not confined to the clock either, but extended itself
to every article in the room, and really, when he had gone
through them every one, and at last sat himself down in all
the six chairs, one after another, to try how they felt, I
never saw such a picture of good humor and happiness as
he presented, from the top of his shining head down to the
very last button of his gaiters.
I should have been well pleased, and should have had the
utmost enjoyment of his company, if he had remained with
me all day, but my favorite, striking the hour, reminded
him that he must take his leave. I could not forbear telling him once more how glad he had made me, and we
shook hands all the way down-stairs.
We had no sooner arrived in the Hall than my housekeeper, gliding out of her little room, (she had changed her
gown and.cap, I observed), greeted Mr. Pickwick with her
best smile and curtsey; and the barber, feigning to be accidentally passing on his way out, made him a vast number of
bows. When the housekeeper curtseyed, Mr. Pickwick
bowed with the utmost politeness, and when he bowed, the
housekeeper curtseyed again; between the housekeeper and
the barber, I should say that Mr Pickwick faced about and
bowed with undiminished affability, fifty times at least.
I saw him to the door; an omnibus was at the moment
passing the corner of the lane, which Mr. Pickwick hailed
and ran after with extraordinary nimbleness. When he had
got about half way he turned his head, and seeing that I
was still looking after him and that I waved my hand,
stopped, evidently irresolute whether to come back and
shake hands again, or to go on. The man behind the omnibus shouted, and Mr. Pickwick ran a little way towards
him; then he looked round at me, and ran a little way back
again. Then there was another shout, andl he turned round
once more and ran the other way. After several of these



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                 367
and apoplectic turn, but still a man of solid parts, and one
who meant much more than he cared to show. This impression was confirmed by a very dignified way he had of
shaking his head and imparting, at the same time, a pendulous motion to his double chin; in short he passed for one
those people who, being plunged into the Thames, would
make no vain effort to set it afire, but would straightway
flop down to the bottom with a deal of gravity, and be
highly respected in consequence by all good men.
Being well to do in the world, and a peaceful widowerhaving a great appetite, which, as he could afford to gratify
it, was a luxury and no inconvenience, and a power of
going to sleep, which, as he had no occasion to keep awake,
was a most enviable faculty-you will readily suppose that
John Podgers was a happy man. But appearances are often
deceptive when they least seem so, and the truth is that,
notwithstanding his extreme sleekness, he was rendered
uneasy in his mind and exceedingly uncomfortable by a
constant apprehension that beset him night and day.
You know very well that in those times there flourished
divers evil old women who, under the name of Witches,
spread great disorder through the land, and inflicted various
dismal tortures upon Christian men; sticking pins and
needles into them when they least expected it, and causing
them to walk in the air with their feet upwards, to the great
terror of their wives and families, who were naturally very
much disconcerted when the master of the house unexpectedly came home, knocking at the door with his heels and
combing his hair on the scraper. These were their commonest pranks, but they every day played a hundred others, of
which none were less objectionable and many were much
more so being improper besides; the result was that vengeance was denounced against all old women, with whom
even the king himself had no sympathy (as he certainly
ought to have had), for with his own most Gracious hand he
penned a most Gracious consignment of them to everlasting



368        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
wrath, and devised most Gracious means for their confusion
and slaughter, in virtue whereof scarcely a day passed but
one witch at the least was most graciously hanged, drowned
or roasted in some part of his dominions. Still the press
teemed with strange and terrible news from the North or
the South, or the East or the West, relative to witches and
their unhappy victims in some corner of the country, and
the Public's hair stood on end to that degree that it lifted
its hat off its head, and made its face pale with terror.
You may believe that the little town of Windsor did not
escape the general contagion. The inhabitants boiled a
witch on the King's birthday and sent a bottle of the broth
to court, with a dutiful address expressive of their loyalty.
The King, being rather frightened by the present, piously
bestowed up it on the Archbishop of Canterbury, and returned an answer to the address, wherein he gave them golden
rules for discovering witches and laid great stress upon certain
protecting charms, and especially horseshoes. Immediately
the towns-people went to work nailing up horseshoes over
every door, and so many anxious parents apprenticed their
children to farriers, to keep them out of harm's way, that it
became quite a genteel trade and flourished exceedingly.
In the midst of all this bustle John Podgers ate and slept
as usual, but shook his head a great deal oftener than was his
custom, and was observed to look at the oxen less, and at
the old women more. He had a little shelf put up in his
sitting-room, whereon was displayed, in a row which grew
longer ever week, all the witchcraft literature of the tine;
he grew learned in charms and exorcisms, hinted at certain
questionable females on broomsticks whom he had seen
from his chamber-window, riding in the air at night, and
was in constant terror of being bewitched. At length, from
perpetually dwelling upon this one idea, which, being a'one
in his head, had it all its own way, the fear of witches
became the single passion of his life. He, who up to that
time had never known what it was to dream, began to have



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                 ZG9
visions of witches whenever he fell asleep; waking, they
were incessantly present to his imagination likewise; and
sleeping or waking, he had not a moment's peace. He
began to set witch-traps in the highway, and was often seen
lying in wait round the corner for hours together, to watch
their effect. These engines were of simple construction,
usually consisting of two straws disposed in the form of a
cross, or a piece of a bible-cover with a pinch of salt upon
it; but they were infallible, and if an old woman chanced to
stumble over them (as not unfrequently happened, the
chosen spot being a broken and stony place), John started
from a doze, pounced out upon her, and hung round her
neck till assistance arrived, when she was immediately carried away and drowned. By dint of constantly inveigling
old ladies and disposing of them in this summary manner,
he acquired the reputation of a great public character; and
as he received no harm in these pursuits beyond a scratched
face or so, he came, in course of time, to be considered
witch-proof.
There was but one person who entertained the least doubt
of John Podgers'gifts, and that person was his own nephew,
a wild, roving young fellow of twenty who had been brought
up in his uncle's house and lived there still-that is to say,
when he was at home, which was not near as often as it
might have been. As he was an apt scholar, it was he who
read aloud every fresh piece of strange and terrible intelligence that John Podgers bought; and this he always did
of an evening in the little porch in front of the house, round
which the neighbors would flock in crowds to hear the direful news-for people like to be frightened, and when they
can be frightened for nothing and at another man's expense,
they like it all the better.
One fine midsummer evening, a group of persons were
gathered in this place, listening intently to Will Marks (that
was the nephew's name,)as with his cap very much on one
side, his arm coiled slyly round the waist of a pretty girl
23



370        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
who sat beside him, and his face screwed into a comical
expression intended to represent extreme gravity, he readwith Heaven knows how many embellishments of his owna dismal account of a gentleman down in Northamptonshire
under the influence of witchcraft and taken forcible possession of by the Devil, who was playing his very self with
him. John Podgers, in a high sugar-loaf hat and short
cloak, filled the opposite seat, and surveyed the auditory
with a look of mingled pride and horror very edifying to
see; while the hearers, with their heads thrust forward and
their mouths open, listened and trembled, and hoped there
was a great deal more to come. Sometimes Will stopped
for an instant to look round upon his eager audience, and
then, with a more comical expression of face than before
and a settling of himself comfortably, which included a
squeeze of the young lady before mentioned, he launched
into some new wonder surpassing all the others.
The setting sun shed his last golden rays upon this
little party who, absorbed in their present occupation, took
no heed of the approach of night or the glory in which the
day went down, when the sound of a horse, approaching
at a good round trot, invading the silence of the hour,
caused the reader to make a sudden stop and the listeners
to raise their heads in wonder. Nor was their wonder
diminished when a horseman dashed up to the porch, and
abruptly checking his steed, inquired where one John
Podgers dwelt.
"Here 1" cried a dozen voices, while a dozen hands
pointed out sturdy John, still basking in the terrors of the
pamphlet.
The rider giving his bridle to one of those who surrounded
him, dismounted, and approached John, hat in hand, but
with great haste.
"Whence come ye?" said John.
"From Kingston, master."
"And wherefore?"



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                 371
"On most pressing business."
"Of what nature?"
"Witchcraft."
Witchcraft I Everybody looked aghast at the breathless
messenger, and the breathless messenger looked equally
aghast at everybody-except Will Marks, who, finding himself unobserved, not only squeezed the young lady again,
but kissed her twice. Surely he must have been bewitched
himself, or he never could have done it-and the young lady
too, or she never would have let him.' Witchcraft?" cried Will, drowning the sound of his last
kiss, which was rather a loud one.
The messenger turned towards him, and with a frown,
repeated the word more solemnly than before; then told his
errand, which was, in brief, that the people of Kingston had
been greatly terrified for some nights past by hideous revels,
held by witches beneath the gibbet within a mile of the
town, and related and deposed to by chance wayfarers who
had passed within ear-shot of the spot; that the sound of
their voices in their wild orgies had been plainly heard by
many persons; that three old women labored under strong
suspicion, and that precedents had been consulted and solemn council had, and it was found that to identify the hags
some single person must watch upon the spot alone; that
no single person had the courage to perform the task, and
that he had been dispatched express to solicit John Podgers
to undertake it that very night, as being a man of great
renown, who bore a charmed life, and was proof against
unholy spells.
John received this communication with much composure,
and said in a few words, that it would have afforded him
inexpressible pleasure to do the Kingston people so slight a
service, if it were not for his unfortunate propensity to fall
asleep, which no man regretted more than himself upon the
present occasion, but which quite settled the question.
Nevertheless, he said, there was a gentleman present (and



372        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
here he looked very hard at a tall farrier) who, having been
engaged all his life in the manufacture of horseshoes, must
be quite invulnerable to the power of witches, and who, he
had no doubt, from his own reputation for bravery and good
nature, would readily accept the commission. The farrier
politely thanked him for his good opinion, which it would
always be his study to deserve, but added that, with regard
to the present little matter, he couldn't think of it on any
account, as his departing on such an errand would certainly
occasion the instant death of his wife, to whom, as they all
knew, he was tenderly attached. Now, so far from this circumstance being notorious, everybody had suspected the reverse, as the farrier was in the habit of beating his lady rather
more than tender husbands usually do; all the married men
present, however, applauded his resolution with great vehemence, and one and all declared that they would stop at
home and die if needful (which happily it was not) in defence
of their lawful partners.
This burst of enthusiasm over, they began to look, as by
one consent, toward Will Marks, who, with his cap more
on one side than ever, sat watching the proceedings with
extraordinary unconcern. He had never been heard openly
to express his disbelief in witches, but had often cut such
jokes at their expense as left it to be inferred; publicly
stating on several occasions that he considered a broomstick an inconvenient charger, and one especially unsuited
to the dignity of the female character, and indulging in
other free remarks of the same tendency, to the great
amusement of his wild companions.
As they looked at Will, they began to whisper and murmur among themselves, and at length one man cried, "Why
don't you ask Will Marks?"
As this was what everybody had been thinking of, they
all took up the word, and cried in concert, " Ah I why don't
you ask Will?"
" He don't care," said the farrier.



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                 873
"Not he," added another voice in the crowd.
"IHe don't believe in it, you know," sneered a little man
with a yellow face and a taunting nose and chin, which he
thrust out from under the arm of a long man before him.
"Besides," said a red-faced gentleman with a gruff voice,
"he's a single man."
" That's the point I" said the farrier; and all the married
men murmured, ah I that was it, and they only wished they
were single themselves; they would show him what spirit
was, very soon.
The messenger looked towards Will Marks beseechingly.
"It will be a wet night, friend, and my gray uag is tired
after yesterday's work "Here there was a general titter.
"But," resumed Will, looking about him with a smile,
"if nobody else puts in a better claim to go, for the credit
of the town I am your man, and I would be if I had to go
afoot. In five minutes I shall be in the saddle, unless I am
depriving any worthy gentleman here of the honor of the
adventure, which I wouldn't do for the world."
But here arose a double difficulty, for not only did John
Podgers combat the resolution with all the words he had,
which were not many, but the young lady combatted it too
with all the tears she had, which were very many indeed.
Will, however, being inflexible, parried his uncle's objections
with a joke, and coaxed the young lady into a smile in three
short whispers. As it was plain that he would go and set
his mind upon it, John Podgers offered him a few first-rate
charms out of his own pocket which he dutifully declined
to accept, and the young lady gave him a kiss which he also
returned.
"You see what a rare thinwg it is to be married," said
Will, "and how careful and considerate all these husbands
are. There's not a man among them but his heart is leaping to forestall me in this adventure, and yet a strong sense
of duty keeps him back. The husbands in this one little



374        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
town are a pattern to the world, and so must the wives be
too, for that matter, or they could never boast half the
influence they have?"
Waiting for no reply to this sarcasm, he snapped his
fingers and withdrew into the house, and thence into the
stable, while some busied themselves in refreshing the messenger, and others in baiting his steed. In less than the
specified time, he returned by another way, with a good
cloak hanging over his arm, a good sword girded by his side,
and leading his good horse caparisoned for the journey.
"Now," said Will, leaping into the saddle at a bound,
"up and away. Upon your mettle, friend, and push on.
Good night I"
He kissed his hand to the girl, nodded to his drowsy
uncle, waived his cap to the rest-and off they flew pellmell, as if all the witches in England were in their horses'
legs. They were out of sight in a minute.
The men who were left behind, shook their heads doubtfully, stroked their chins, and shook their heads again.
The farrier said that certainly Will Marks was a good
horseman, nobody should ever say he denied that; but he
was rash, very rash, and there was no telling what the end
of it might be: what did he go for, that was what he wanted
to know? He wished the young fellow no harm, but why
did he go? Everybody echoed these words, and shook
their heads again, having done which they wished John
Podgers good-night, and straggled home to bed.
The Kingston people were in their first sleep, when Will
Marks and his conductor rode through the town and up to
the door of a house where sundry grave functionaries were
assembled, anxiously expecting the arrival of the renowned
Podgers. They were a little disappointed to find a gay
young man in his place, but they put the best face upon
the matter, and gave him full instructions how he was to
conceal himself behind the gibbet, and watch and listen to
the witches, and how at a certain time he was to burst forth



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                375
and cut and slash among them vigorously, so that the suspected parties might be found bleeding in their beds next
day, and thoroughly confounded. They gave him a great
quantity of wholesome advice besides, and-which was
more to the purpose with Will-a good supper. All these
things being done, and midnight nearly come, they sallied
forth to show him the spot where he was to keep his dreary
vigil.
The night was by this time dark and threatening. There
was a rumbling of distant thunder,   and a low sighing of
wind among the trees, which was very dismal. The potentates of the town kept so uncommonly close to Will that
they trod upon his toes, or stumbled against his ankles, or
nearly tripped up his heels at every step he took, and,
besides these annoyances, their teeth chattered so with
fear that he seemed to be accompanied by a dirge of castanets.
At last they made a halt at the opening of a lonely, desolate space, and, pointing to a black object at some distance,
asked Will if he saw that yonder.
" Yes," he replied. " What then?"
Informing him abruptly that it was the gibbet where he
was to watch, they wished him good-night in an extremely
friendly manner, and ran back as fast as their feet would
carry them.
Will walked boldly to the gibbet, and, glancing upward
when he came under it, saw-certainly with satisfactionthat it was empty, and that nothing dangled from the top
but some iron chains, which swung mournfully to and fro
as they were moved by the breeze. After a careful survey
of every quarter, he determined to take his station with his
face towards the town; both because that would place him
with his back to the wind, and because if any trick or surprise were attempted, it would probably come from that direction in the first instance. Having taken these precautions, he wrapped his cloak about him so that it left the



376        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
handle of his sword free, and ready to his hand, and leaning
against the gallows-tree with his cap not quite so much on
one side as it had been before, took up his position for the
night.
SECOND CHAPTER OF MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
We left Will Marks leaning under the gibbet with his face
towards the town, scanning the distance with a keen eye,
which sought to pierce the darkness and catch the earliest
glimpse of any person or persons that might approach towards him. But all was quiet, and, save the howling of
the wind as it swept across the heath in gusts, and the
creaking of the chains that dangled above his head, there was
no sound to break the sullen stillness of the night. After half
an hour or so, this monotony became more disconcerting to
Will than the most furious uproar would have been, and he
heartily wished for some one antagonist with whom he might
have a fair stand-up fight, if it were only to warm himself.
Truth to tell, it was a bitter wind, and seemed to blow to
the very heart of a man whose blood, heated but now with
rapid riding, was the more sensitive to the chilling blast.
Will was a daring fellow, and cared not a jot for hard knocks
or sharp blades; but he could not persuade himself to move
or walk about, having just that vague expectation of a sudden assault which made it a comfortable thing to have something at his back, even though that something were a gallows-tree. He had no great faith in the superstitions of the
age, still such of them as occurred to him did not serve to
lighten the time, or to render his situation the more endurable. He remembered how witches were said to repair at
that ghostly hour to church-yards and gibbets, and such
like dismal spots, to pluck the bleeding mandrake or scrape
the flesh from dead men's bones, as choice ingredients for
their spells; how, stealing by night to lonely places, they
dug graves with their finger-nails, or anointed themselves



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                 877
before riding in the air with a delicate pomatum made of
the fat of infants newly boiled. These, and many other
fabled practices of a no less agreeable nature, and all having
some reference to the circumstances in which he was placed,
passed and repassed in quick succession through the mind
of Will Marks, and adding a shadowy dread to that distrust
and watchfulness which his situation inspired, rendered it,
upon the whole, sufficiently uncomfortable. As he had
foreseen, too, the rain began to descend heavily, and driving
before the wind in a thick mist, obscured even those few
objects which the darkness of the night had before imperfectly revealed.
" Look!" shrieked a voice; "Great Heaven, it has fallen
down and stands erect as if it lived!"
The speaker was close behind him; the voice was almost
at his ear. Will threw off his cloak, drew his sword, and
darting swiftly round, seized a woman by the wrist, who
recoiling from him with a dreadful shriek, fell struggling
upon her knees. Another woman clad, like her whom he
had grasped, in mourning garments, stood rooted to the
spot on which they were gazing upon his face with wild and
glaring eyes that quite appalled him.
"Say," cried Will, when they had confronted each other
thus for some time, " what are ye?"
"Say what are you," returned the woman, "who trouble
even this obscene resting-place of the dead, and strip the
gibbet of its honored burden? Where is the body?"
He looked in wonder and affright from the woman who
questioned him to the other whose arm he clutched.
"Where is the body?" repeated his questioner more
firmly than before. " You wear no livery which marks you
for the hireling of the government. You are no fiiend to
us, or I should recognize you, for the friends of such as we
are few in number. What are you then, and wherefore are
you here?"
"I am no foe to the distressed and helpless," said Will.



378        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
"Are ye among that number? ye should be by your
looks."
" We are!" was the answer,
"' It is ye who have been wailing and weeping here, under
cover of the night?" said Will.
"It is," replied the woman sternly; and pointing as she
spoke, towards her companion, "she mourns a husband and
I a brother. Even the bloody law that wreaks its vengeance
on the dead does not make that a crime, and if it did'twould
be alike to us who are past its fear or favor."
Will glanced at the two females, and could barely discern
that the one whom he addressed was much the elder, and
that the other was young and of a slight figure. Both were
deadly pale, their garments wet and worn, their hair dishevelled and streaming in the wind, themselves bowed down
with grief and misery; their whole appearance most dejected,
wretched, and forlorn. A sight so different from any he
had expected to encounter touched him to the quick, and
all idea of anything but their pitiable condition vanished
before it.
"I am a rough, blunt yeoman," said Will. "Why I came
here is told in a word: you have been overheard at a distance in the silence of the night, and I have undertaken a
watch for hags or spirits. I came here expecting an adventure, and prepared to go through with any. If there be
aught that I can do to help or aid you, name it, and on the
faith of a man who can be secret and trusty, I will stand by
you to the death "
" How comes this gibbet to be empty?" asked the elder
female.
"I swear to you," replied Will, "that I know as little as
yourself. But this I know, that when I came here an hour
ago or so, it was as it is now; and if, as I gather from your
question, it was not so last night, sure I am that it has been
secretly disturbed without the knowledge of the folks in
yonder town. Bethink you, therefore, whether you have



380        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
apart from any other, they alighted, and giving their horses
to one who was already waiting, passed in by a side door,
and so up some narrow, creaking stairs into a small panelled chamber, where Will was left alone. He had not
been here very long, when the door was softly opened, and
there entered to him a cavalier whose face was concealed
beneath a black mask.
Will stood upon his guard, and scrutinized this figure
from head to foot. The form was that of a man pretty far
advanced in life, but of a firm and stately carriage. His
dress was of a rich and costly kind, but so soiled and disordered that it was scarcely to be recognized for one of
those gorgeous suits which the expensive taste and fashion
of the time prescribed for men of any rank or station. He
was booted and spurred, and bore about him even as many
tokens of the state of the road as Will himself. All this he
noted, while the eyes behind the mask regarded him with
equal attention. This survey over, the cavalier broke the
silence.
" Thou'rt young and bold, and wouldst be richer than
thou art?"
" The two first I am," returned Will. "The last I have
scarcely thought of. But be it so. Say that I would be
richer than I am; what then?"
"The way lies before thee now," replied the Mask.
"Show it me."
"First let me inform thee, that thou wert brought here
to-night less thou shouldst too soon have told thy tale to
those who placed thee on the watch."
"I thought as much when I followed," said Will. "But
I am no blab, not I."
"Good," returned the Mask. "Now listen. He who
was to have executed the enterprise of burying that body,
which, as thou bast suspected, was taken down to-night, has
left us in our need."
Will nodded, and thought within himself that if the Mask



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                 381
were to attempt to play any tricks, the first eyelethole on
the left-hand side of his doublet, counting from the buttons
up the front, would be a very good place in which to pink
him neatly.
" Thou art here, and the emergency is desperate. I propose his task to thee. Convey the body (now coffined in
this house) by means that I shall show, to the church of
Saint Dunstan in London to-morrow night, and thy services
shall be richly paid. Thou'rt about to ask whose corpse it
is. Seek not to know. I warn thee, seek not to know.
Felons hang in chains on every moor and heath. Believe,
as others do, that this was one, and ask no further. The
murders of state policy, its victims or avengers, had best
remain unknown to such as thee."
" The mystery of this service," said Will, "bespeaks its
danger. What is the reward?"
" One hundred golden unities," replied the cavalier.
"The danger to one who cannot be recognized as the friend
of a fallen cause is not great, but there is some hazard to
be run. Decide between that and the reward."
"What if I refuse?" said Will.
"Depart in peace, in God's name," returned the Mask in
a melancholy tone, "and keep our secret: remembering
that those who brought thee here were crushed and stricken
women, and that those who bade thee go free could have
had thy life with one word, and no man the wiser."
Men were readier to undertake desperate adventures in
those times, than they are now. In this case the temptation was great, and the punishment, even in case of detection, was not likely to be very severe, as Will came of a
loyal stock, and his uncle was in good repute, and a
passable tale to account for his possession of the body and
his ignorance of the identity, might be easily devised. The
cavalier explained that a covered cart had been prepared
for the purpose; that the time of departure could be arranged so that he should reach London Bridge at dusk,



382        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
and proceed through the city after the day had closed in;
that people would be ready at his journey's end to place the
coffin in a vault without a minute's delay; that officious
inquiries in the streets would be easily repelled by the tale
that he was carrying for interment the corpse of one who
had died of the plague; and in short showed him every
reason why he should succeed, and none why he should fail.
After a time they were joined by another gentleman, masked
like the first, who added new arguments to those which had
been already urged; the wretched wife, too, added her
tears and prayers to their calmer representations; and in
the end, Will moved by compassion and good nature, by a
love of the marvellous, by a mischievous anticipation of the
terrors of the Kingston people when he should be missing
next day, and finally by the prospect of gain, took upon
himself the task, and devoted all his energies to its successful execution.
The following night, when it was quite dark, the hollow
echoes of old London Bridge responded to the rumbling of
the cart which contained the ghastly load, the object of Will
Marks's care. Sufficiently disguised to attract no attention
by his garb, Will walked at the horse's head, as unconcerned
as a man could be who was sensible that he had now
arrived at the most dangerous part of his undertaking, but
full of boldness and confidence.
It was now eight o'clock. After nine, none could walk
the streets without danger of their lives, and even at this
hour robberies and murder were of no uncommon occurrence. The shops upon the bridge were all closed; the low
wooden arches thrown across the way were like so many
black pits, in every one of which ill-favored fellows lurked
in knots of three or four; some standing upright against
the wall, lying in wait; others skulking in gateways, and
thrusting out their unoeombed heads and scwl)fflg eyes;
others crossing and recrossing, and constantly jostling both
horse and man to provoke a quarrel; others stealing away
I —-  -— ~ ~ —- — r —----- l'"'"  ~''~~~""~'



MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.                  383
and summoning their companions in a low whistle. Once,
even in that short passage, there was a noise of scuffling and
the clash of swords behind him, but Will, who knew the city
and its ways, kept straight on and scarcely turned his head.
The streets being unpaved, the rain of the night before
had converted them into a perfect quagmire, which the
splashing water-spouts from the gables, and the filth and
offal cast from the different houses, swelled in no small degree. These odious matters being left to putrify in the close
and heavy air, emitted an insupportable stench, to which
every court and passage poured forth a contribution of its
own. Many parts, even of the main streets, with their projecting stories tottering overhead and nearly shutting out
the sky, were more like huge chimneys than open ways.
At the corners of some of these, great bonfires were burning to prevent infection from the plague, of which it was
rumored that some citizens had lately died; and few, who
availing themselves of the light thus afforded paused for a
moment to look around them, would have been disposed to
doubt the existence of the disease, or wonder at its dreadful visitations.
But it was not in such scenes as these, or even in the deep
and miry road, that Will Marks found the chief obstacles
to his progress. There were kites and ravens feeding in the
streets (the only scavengers the city kept), who, scenting
what he carried, followed the cart or fluttered on its top,
and croaked their knowledge of its burden and their ravenous appetite for prey. There were distant fires, where the
poor wood and plaster tenements wasted fiercely, and whither
crowds made their way, clamoring eagerly for plunder, beating down all who came within their reach, and yelling like
devils let loose. There were single-handed men flying from
bands of ruffians, who pursued them with naked weapons,
and hunted them savagely; there were drunken, desperate
robbers issuing from their dens and staggering through
the open streets where no man dared molest them; there



384        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
were vagabond servitors returning from the Bear Garden,
where had been good sport that day, dragging after
them their torn and bleeding dogs, or leaving them to die
and rot upon the road. Nothing was abroad but cruelty,
violence, and disorder.
Many were the interruptions which Will Marks encountered from these stragglers, and many the narrow escapes he
made. Now some stout bully would take his seat upon the
cart, insisting to be driven to his own home, and now two
or three men came down upon him together and demanded
that on peril of his life he showed them what he had insile.
Then a party of the City Watch, upon their rounds, would
draw across the road, and not satisfied with his tale, question
him closely and revenge themselves by a little cuffing and
hustling for maltreatment sustained at other hands that
night. All these assailants had to be rebutted, some by fair
words, some by foul, and some by blows. But Will Marks
was not the man to be stopped or turned back now he had
penetrated so far, and though he got on slowly, still he
made his way down Fleet street and reached the church at
last.
As he had been forewarned, all was in readiness. Directly
he stopped, the coffin was removed by four men who appeared so suddenly that they seemed to have started from
the earth. A fifth mounted the cart, and scarcely allowing
Will time to snatch from it a little bundle containing such
of his own clothes as he had thrown off on assuming his disguise, drove briskly away. Will never saw cart or man again.
He followed the body into the church, and it was well he
lost no time in doing so, for the door was immediately
closed. There was no light in the building save that which
came from a couple of torches borne by two men in cloaks
who stood upon the brink of a vault. Each supported a
female figure, and all observed a profound silence.
By this dim and solemn glare, which made Will feel as
though light itself were dead, and its tomb the dreary



386        MR. PICKWICK'S TALE.
ter was not but poorly armed for single combat with the
devil, and whether he himself would not have been a
stronger opponent; but the clerical gentleman, sharply reproving them for their presumption in discussing such questions, clearly showed that a fitter champion than Will could
scarcely have been selected, not only for that being a child
of Satan he was the less likely to be alarmed by the appearance of his own father, but because Satan himself would be
at his ease in such company, and would not scruple to kick
up his heels to an extent which it was quite certain he would
never venture before clerical eyes, under whose influence (as
was notorious) he became quite a tame and milk-and-water
character.
But when next morning arrived, and with it no Will
Marks, and when a strong party repairing to the spot, as a
strong party ventured to do in broad day, found Will gone
and the gibbet empty, matters grew serious indeed. The
day passing away and no news arriving, and the night going
on also without any intelligence, the thing grew more tremendous still; in short the neighborhood worked itself up
to such a comfortable pitch of mystery and horror that it is
a great question whether the general feeling was not one of
excessive disappointment, when, on the second morning,
Will Marks returned.
However this may be, back Will came in a very cool and
collected state, and appearing not to trouble himself much
about anybody except old John Podgers, who having been
sent for, was sitting in the Town Hall crying slowly and
dozing between whiles. Having embraced his uncle and
assured him of his safety, Will mounted on a table and told
his story to the crowd.
And surely they would have been the most unreasonable
crowd that ever assembled together, if they had been in the
least respect disappointed with the tale he told them, for
besides describing the Witches' Dance to the minutest motion of their legs, and performing it in character on the



388         THE WELLER FAMILY.
night that it was a great comfort to him to think those
bones, to whomsoever they might have once belonged, were
not bleaching in the troubled air, but were mouldering
away with the dust of their own kith and kindred in a quiet
grave.
FURTHER PARTICULARS OF MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR.
THE WELLER FAMILY.
Being very full of Mr. Pickwick's application, and highly
pleased with the compliment he had paid me, it will be
readily supposed that long before our next night of meeting
I communicated it to my three friends, who unanimously
voted his admission into our body. We all looked forward
with some impatience to the occasion which would enroll
him among us, but I am greatly mistaken if Jack Redburn
and myself were not by many degrees the most impatient of
the party.
At length the night came, and a few minutes after ten Mr.
Pickwick's knock was heard at the street door. He was
shown into a lower room, and I directly took my crooked
stick and went to accompany him up stairs, in order that
he might be presented with all honor and formality.
"Mr. Pickwick," said I, on entering the room, I am rejoiced to see you-rejoiced to believe that this is but the
opening of a long series of visits to this house, and but the
beginning of a close and lasting friendship."
That gentleman made a suitable reply with a cordiality
and frankness peculiarly his own, and glanced with a smile
towards two persons behind the door, whom, I had not at
first observed, and whom I immediately recognized as Mr.
Samuel Weller and his father.
It was a warm evening, but the elder Mr. Weller was
attired, notwithstanding, in a most capacious great-coat,
and his chin enveloped in a large speckled shawl, such as is



THE WELLER FAMILY.                  389
usually worn by stage coachmen on active service. He
looked very rosy and very stout, especially about the legs,
which appear to have been compressed into his top-boots
with some difficulty. His broad-brimmed hat he held under
his left arm, and with the fore-finger of his right hand he
touched his forehead a great many times in acknowledgment
of my presence.
"I am very glad to see you in such good health, Mr.
Weller," said I.
"Why, thankee, sir," returned Mr. Weller, "the axle an't
broke yet. We keeps up a steady pace-not too sewere but
vith a moderate degree o' friction-and the consekens is
that ve're still a runnin' and comes in to the time reg'lar.
My son Samivel, sir, as you may have read on in history,"
added Mr. Weller, introducing his first-born.
I received Sam very graciously, but before he could say
a word his father struck in again.
"Samivel Veller, sir," said the old gentleman, "has conferred upon me the ancient title o' grandfather vich had long
laid dormouse, and wos s'posed to be nearly hex-tinct in
our family. Sammy, relate a anecdote o' vun o' them boysthat'ere little anecdote about young Tony sayin' as he vould
smoke a pipe unbeknown to his mother."
"Be quiet, can't you?" said Sam; " I never see such a
old magpie-never I"
"That'ere Tony is the blessedest boy," said Mr. Weller,
heedless of this rebuff, "the blessedest boy as ever I see in
my days! of all the charmin'est infants as ever I heerd tell
on, includin' them as wos kivered over by the robin redbreasts arter they'd committed sooicide with blackberries,
there never wos any like that'ere little Tony. He's alvays
a playin' vith a quart pot, that boy is l To see him a
settin' down on the door-step pretending to drink out of it,
and fetching a long breath artervards, and smoking a bit
of fire-vood and sayin','Now I'm grandfather!'-to see him
a doin' that at two year old is better than any play as wos



THE WELLER FAMILY.                  391
"Wot are you goin' away for?" demanded Sam, seizing
his father by the coat tail.
"I never see such a undootiful boy as you, Samivel," returned Mr. Weller. "Didn't you make a solemn promise,
amountin' almost to a speeches o' wow, that yo'ud put that
ere qvestion on my account?"
"Well, I'm agreeable to do it," said Sam, "but not if
you go cuttin' away like that, as the bull turned round and
mildly observed to the drover ven they vos a goadin' him
into the butcher's door. The fact is, sir," said Sam, addressing me, "that he wants to know somethin' respectin'
that ere lady as is housekeeper here."
"Aye. What is that?"
"Vy, sir," said Sam, grinning still more," he wishes to
know vether she ""In short," interposed old Mr. Weller, decisively, a perspiration breaking out upon his forehead, " vether that'ere old creetur is or is not a widder."
Mr. Pickwick laughed heartily, and so did I, as I replied,
decisively, that "my housekeeper was a spinster."
"There l" cried Sam, "now you're satisfied. You hear
she's a spinster."
"A wot?" said his father, with deep scorn.
" A spinster," replied Sam.
Mr. Weller looked very hard at his son for a minute or
two, and then said,"Never mind vether she makes jokes or not, that's no
matter. Wot I say is, is that ere female a widder, or is she
not?"
" Wot do you mean by her making jokes?" demanded
Sam, quite aghast at the obscurity of his parent's speech.
"Never you mind, Samivel," returned Mr. Weller,
gravely; " puns may be wery good things or they may be
wery bad'uns, and a female may be none the better or she
may be none the vurse for making of'em; that's got nothing
to do vith widders."'"Wy now," said Sam, looking round, "would anybody



392        THE WELLER FAMILY.
believe as a man at his time o' life could be a running his
head agin spinsters and punsters being the same thing?"
"There an't a straw's difference between'em," said Mr.
Weller. " Your father didn't drive a coach for so many
years, not to be ekal to his own langvidge as far as that
goes, Sammy."
Avoiding the question of etymology, upon which the old
gentleman's mind was quite made up, he was several times
assured that the housekeeper had never been married. He
expressed great satisfaction on hearing this, and apologized
for the question, remarking that he had been greatly terrified by a widow not long before, and that his natural
timidity was increased in consequence.
" It wos on the rail," said Mr. Weller, with strong emphasis; " I wos a goin' down to Birmingham by the rail,
and I wos locked up in a close carriage vith a living widder.
Alone we wos; the widder and me wos alone; and I believe
it wos only because we wos alone and there was no clergy.
man in the conwayance, that that'ere widder didn't marry
me afore ve reached the half-way station. Ven I think how
she began a screaming as we wos a goin' under them tunnels in the dark-how she kept on a faintin' and ketchin'
hold o' me-and how I tried to bust open the door as was
tight-locked and perwented all escape-Ah! It was a awful
thing, most awful i"
Mr. Weller was so very much overcome by this retrospect
that he was unable, until he had wiped his brow several
times, to return any reply to the question whether he approved of railway communication, notwithstanding that it
would appear from the answer which he ultimately gave,
that he entertained strong opinions on the subject.
"I con-sider," said Mr. Weller, "that the rail is unconstitootional and an inwaser o' priwileges, and I should wery
much like to know what that'ere old Carter as once stood
up for our liberties and wun'em too-I should like to know
wot he vould say if he wos alive now, to Englishmen being



THE WELLER       FAMILY.            393
locked up with widders, or with anybody, again their wills.
Wot a old Carter would have said, a old Coachman may
say, and I as-sert that in that pint o' view alone, the rail is
an inwaser. As to the comfort, vere's the comfort o' sittin'
in a harm cheer lookin' at brick walls or heaps o' mud, never
comin' to a public house, never seein' a glass o' ale, never
goin' through a pike, never meetin' a change o' no kind
(horses or othervise), but alvays comin' to a place, ven you
come to one at all, the wery picter o' the last, vith the same
p'leesemen standing about, the same blessed old bell a
ringin', the same unfort'nate people standing behind the
bars, a waitin' to be let in; and everythin' the same except
the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the
last name, and vith the same colors. As to the honor and
dignity o' travellin', vere can that be vithout a coachman;
and wot's the rail to sich coachmen and guards as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and a insult? As
to the pace, wot sort o' pace do you think I, Tony Veller,
could have kept a coach goin' at, for five hundred thousand
pound a mile, paid in advance afore the coach was on the
road? And as to the ingein-a nasty, wheezin', creaking,
gasping, puffin', bustin' monster, alvays out o' breath, vith
a shiny green and gold back, like a unpleasant beetle in that'ere gas magnifier-as to the ingein as is alvays a pourin'
out red hot coals at night, and black smoke in the day, the
sensiblest thing it does in my opinion, is, ven there's
somethin' in the vay and it sets up that'ere frightful scream
vich seems to say,'Now here's two hundred and forty passengers in the wery greatest extremity o' danger, and here's
their two hundred and forty screams in vun I'"
By this time I began to fear that my friends would be
rendered impatient by my protracted absence. I therefore
begged Mr. Pickwick to accompany me up stairs, and left
the two Mr. Wellers in the care of the housekeeper; laying
strict injunctions upon her to treat them with all possible
hospitality.



THE CLOCK COMPANY.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
As we-were going up stairs, Mr. Pickwick put on his spec
tacles, which he had held in his hand hitherto; arranged his
neckerchief, smoothed down his waistcoat, and made many
other little preparations of that kind which men are accustomed to be mindful of, when they are going among strangers
for the first time, and are anxious to impress them pleasantly.
Seeing that I smiled, he smiled too, and said that if it had
occurred to him before he left home, he would certainly have
presented himself in pumps and silk stockings.
I would, indeed, my dear sir," he said, very seriously; "I
would have shown my respect for the society, by laying aside
my gaiters."
"You may rest assured," said I, "that they would have regretted your doing so very much, for they are quite attached
to them."
"No, really I" cried Mr. Pickwick, with manifest pleasure.
" Do you think they care about my gaiters? Do you seriously
think that they identify me at all with my gaiters?"
" I am sure they do," I replied.
"Well, now," said Mr. Pickwick, "that is one of the most
charming and agreeable circumstances that could possibly
have occurred to me 1"
I should not have written down this short conversation, but
that it developed a slight point in Mr. Pickwick's character,
with which I was not previously acquainted. He has a secret
pride in his legs. The manner in which he spoke, and the
accompanying glance he bestowed upon his tights, convince
me that Mr. Pickwick regards his legs with much innocent
vanity.
(394)



THE CLOCK COMPANY.                     395
"But here are our friends," said I, opening the door and taking his arm in mine; " let them speak for themselves. Gentlemen, I present to you Mr. Pickwick."
Mr. Pickwick and I must have been a good contrast just
then. I, leaning quietly on my crutch-stick, with something
of a care-worn, patient air; he, having hold of my arm, and
bowing in every direction with the most elastic politeness, and
an expression of face whose sprightly cheerfulness and goodhumor knew no bounds. The difference between us must
have been more striking yet as we advanced towards the table,
and the amiable gentleman, adapting his jocund step to my
poor tread, had his attention divided between treating my infirmities with the utmost consideration, and affecting to be
wholly unconscious that I required any.
I made him personally known to each of my friends in turn.
First, to the deaf gentleman, whom he regarded with much
interest, and accosted with great frankness and cordiality.
He had evidently some vague idea, at the moment, that my
friend being deaf must be dumb also; for when the latter
opened his lips to express the pleasure it afforded him to know
a gentleman of whom he had heard so much, Mr. Pickwick
was so extremely disconcerted that I was obliged to step in
to his relief.
His meeting with Jack Redburn was quite a treat to see.
Mr. Pickwick smiled, and shook hands, and looked at him
through his spectacles, and under them, and over them, and
nodded his head approvingly, and then nodded to me, as much
as to say, " This is just the man; you were quite right;" and
then turned to Jack and said a few hearty words, and then did
and said everything over again with unimpaired vivacity. As
to Jack himself, he was quite as much delighted with Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Pickwick could possibly be with him. Two
people never can have met together since the world began,
who exchanged a warmer or more enthusiastic greeting.
It was amusing to observe the difference between this encounter and that which succeeded between Mr. Pickwick and



THE CLOCK       COMPANY.              397
Our salutation over, the venerable piece of antiquity from
which we take our name is wound up in silence. This ceremolly is always performed by Master Humphrey himself (in
treating of the club, I may be permitted to assume the historical style, and speak of myself in the third person), who mounts
upon a chair for the purpose, armed with a large key. While
it is in progress, Jack Redburn is required to keep at the
further end of the room under the guardianship of Mr. Miles,
for he is known to entertain certain aspiring and unhallowed
thoughts connected with the clock, and has even gone so far
as to state that if he might take the works out for a day or
two, he thinks he could improve them. We pardon him his
presumption in consideration of his good intentions, and his
keeping this respectful distance, which last penalty is insisted
on, lest by secretly wounding the object of our regard in some
tender part, in the ardor of his zeal for its improvement, he
should fill us all with dismay and consternation.
This regulation afforded Mr. Pickwick the highest delight,
and seemed, if possible, to exalt Jack in his good opinion.
The next ceremony is the opening of the clock-case (of
which Master Humphrey has likewise the key), the taking
from it as many papers as will furnish forth our evening's
entertainment, and arranging in the recess such new contributions as have been provided since our last meeting. This is
always done with peculiar solemnity. The deaf gentleman
then fills and lights his pipe, and we once more take our seats
round the table before-mentioned, Master Humphrey acting as
president-if we can be said to have any president, where all
are on the same social footing-and our friend Jack as secretary. Our preliminaries being now concluded, we fall into
any train of conversation that happens to suggest itself, or
proceed immediately to one of our readings. In the latter
case, the paper selected is consigned to Master Humphrey,
who flattens it carefully on the table and makes dog's ears in
the corner of every page, ready for turning over easily; Jack
IBedburn trims the lamp with a small machine of his own in



398         THE CLOCK COMPANY.
vention which usually puts it out; Mr. Miles look on with
great approval notwithstanding; the deaf gentleman draws
in his chair, so that he can follow the words on the paper or
on Master Humphrey's lips as he pleases; and Master Hum.
phrey himself, looking round with mighty gratification, and
glancing up at his old clock, begins to read aloud.
Mr. Pickwick's face while his tale was being read, would
have attracted the attention of the dullest man alive. The
complacent motion of his head and forefinger as he gently beat
time and corrected the air with imaginary punctuation, the
smile that mantled on his features at every jocose passage,
and the sly look he stole around to observe its effect, the calm
manner in which he shut his eyes and listened when there was
some little piece of description, the changing expression with
which he acted the dialogue to himself, his agony that the deaf
gentleman should know what it was all about, and his extraordinary anxiety to correct the reader when he hesitated at a
word in the manuscript, or substituted a wrong one, were alike
worthy of remark. And whed at last, endeavoring to communicate with the deaf gentleman by means of the finger
alphabet, with which he constructed such words as are unknown in any civilized or savage language, he took up a slate
and wrote in large text, one word in a line, the question,
" How-do-you-like-it?"      When he did this, and handing it over the table awaited the reply, with a countenance
only brightened and improved by his great excitement, even
Mr. Miles relaxed, and could not forbear looking at him for
the moment with interest and favor.' It has occurred to me," said the deaf gentleman, who had
watched Mr. Pickwick and everybody else with silent satisfaction, -" it has occurred to me," said the deaf gentleman, taking his pipe from his lips, "that now is our time for filling
our only empty chair."
As our conversation had naturally turned upon the vacant
seat, we lent a willing ear to this remark, and looked at our
friend inquiringly.



THE   CLOCK     COMPANY.               399
"I feel sure," said he, " that Mr. Pickwick must be acquainted with somebody who would be an acquisition to us;
that he must know the man we want. Pray let us not lose
any time, but set this question at rest. Is it so, Mr. Pickwick?"
The gentleman addressed was about to return a verbal reply, but remembering our friend's infirmity, he substituted for
this kind of answer some fifty nods. Then taking up the
slate and printing on it a gigantic " Yes," he handed it across
the table, and rubbing his hands as he looked round upon our
faces, protested that he and the deaf gentleman quite understood each other already.
" The person I have in my mind," said Mr. Pickwick, "and
whom I should not have presumed to mention to you until
some time hence, but for the opportunity you have given me,
is a very strange old man. His name is Bamber."
"Bamber I" said Jack. "I have certainly heard the name
before."
" I have no doubt, then, "returned Mr. Pickwick, "that
you remember him in those adventures of mine (the Posthumous Papers of our old club, I mean), although he is only incidentally mentioned; and, if I remember right, appears but
once."
" That's it," said Jack. "Let me see. He is a person who
has a grave interest in old mouldy chambers and the Inns of
Court, and who relates some anecdotes having reference to his
favorite theme-and an odd ghost-story-is that the man?"
"The very same. Now," said Mr. Pickwick, lowering his
voice to a mysterious and confidential tone, " he is a very extraordinary and remarkable person; living, and talking, and
looking, like some strange spirit, whose delight is to haunt
old buildings; and absorbed in that one subject which you
have just mentioned, to an extent which is quite wonderful.
When I retired into private life, I sought him out, and I do
assure you that the more I see of him, the more strongly 1 am
impressed with the strange and dreamy character of his mind."
" Where does he live?" I inquired.



400         THE CLOCK COMPANY.
" He lives," said Mr. Pickwick, " in one of those dull, lonely
old places with which his thoughts and stories are all connected; quite alone, and often shut up close, for several weeks
together. In this dusty solitude he broods upon the fancies
he has so long indulged, and when he goes into the world, or
anybody from the world without goes to see him, they are still
present to his mind and still his favorite topic. I may say, I
believe, that he has brought himself to entertain a regard for
me, and an interest in my visits; feelings which I am certain
he would extend to Master Humphrey's Clock if he were once
tempted to join us. All I wish you to understand is, that he
is a strange secluded visionary, in the world but not of it;
and as unlike anybody here as he is unlike anybody elsewhere
that I have ever met or known."
Mr. Miles received this account of our proposed companion
with rather a wry face, and after murmuring that perhaps he
was a little mad, inquired if he were rich.
"I never asked him," said Mr. Pickwick.
"You might know, sir, for all that," retorted Mr. Miles,
sharply.
" Perhaps so, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, no less sharply than
the other, " but I do not. Indeed," he added, relapsing into
his usual mildness, "I have no means of judging. He lives
poorly, but that would seem to be in keeping with his character.
I never heard him allude to his circumstances, and never fell
into the society of any man who had the slightest acquaintance
with them. I have really told you all I know about him, and
it rests with you to say whether you wish to know more, or
know quite enough already."
We were unanimously of opinion that we would seek to
know more; and as a sort of compromise with Mr. Miles
(who, although he said "Yes-oh certainly-he should like to
know more about the gentleman-he had no right to put himself in opposition to the general wish," and so forth, shook
his head doubtfully and hemmed several times with peculiar
gravity), it was arranged that Mr. Pickwick should carry me



THE   CLOCK     COMPANY.              401
with him on an evening visit to the subject of our discussion,
for which purpose an early appointment between that gentleman and myself was immediately agreed upon; it being understood that I was to act upon my own responsibility, and to
invite him to join us or not, as I might think proper. This
solemn question determined, we returned to the clock-case
(where we have been forstalled by the reader), and between
its contents, and the conversation they occasioned, the remainder of our time passed very quickly.
When we broke up, Mr. Pickwick took me aside to tell me
that he had spent a most charming and delightful evening.
Having made this communication with an air of the strictest
secrecy, he took Jack Redburn into another corner to tell
him the same, and then retired into another corner with the
deaf gentleman and the slate, to repeat the assurance. It was
amusing to observe the contest in his mind whether he should
extend his confidence to Mr. Miles, or treat him with dignified
reserve. Half-a-dozen times he stepped up behind him with
a friendly air, and as often stepped back again without saying
a word; at last, when he was close at that gentleman's ear
and upon the very point of whispering something conciliating
and agreeable, Mr. Miles happened suddenly to turn his head,
upon which Mr. Pickwick skipped away, and said with some
fierceness, " Good-night, sir-I was about to say good-night,
sir-nothing more;" and so made a bow and left him.
"Now, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, when he had got down
stairs.
"All right, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Hold hard, sir.
Right arm fust-now the left-now one strong conwulsion,
and the great-coat's on, sir."
Mr. Pickwick acted upon these directions, and being further
assisted by Sam, who pulled at one side of the collar, and
Mr. Weller, who pulled hard at the other, was speedily enrobed. Mr. Weller, senior, then produced a full-sized stable
lantern, which he had carefully deposited in a remote corner,
on his arrival, and inquired whether Mr. Pickwick would'have' thle lamlps aliglt."
2.5



402         THE CLOCK COMPANY.
"I think not to-night," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Then if this here lady vill per-mit," rejoined Mr. Weller,
"we'll leave it here, ready for next journey. This here lantern, mum," said Mr. Weller, handing it to the housekeeper,
" vunce belonged to the celebrated Bill Blinder as is now at
grass, as all on us vill be in our turns. Bill, mum, wos the
hostler as had charge o' them two veil known piebald leaders
that run in the Bristol fast coach, and vould never go to no
other tune but a sutherly vind and a cloudy sky, which wos
consekvently played incessant, by the guard, wenever they wos
on duty. He wos took wery bad one arternoon, arter having
been off his feed, and wery shaky on his legs for some veeks;
and he says to his mate,'Matey,' he says,' I think I'm a-goin'
the wrong side o' the post, and that my foot's wery near the
bucket. Don't say I an't,' he says,'for I know I am, and
don't let me be interrupted,' he says,'for I've saved a little
money, and I'm a-goin' into the stable to make my last vill
and testymint.'' I'll take care as nobody interrupts,' says his
mate' but you on'y hold up your head, and shake your ears a
bit, and you're good for twenty years to come.' Bill Blinder
makes him no answer, but he goes avay into the stable, and
there he soon artervards lays himself down a'tween the two
piebalds, and dies —prevously a-writin' outside the corn-chest,' This is the last vill and testymint of Yilliam Blinder.' They
wos nat'rally wery much amazed at this, and arter looking
among the litter, and up in the loft, and vere not, they opened
the corn-chest, and finds that he'd been and chalked his vill
inside the lid; so the lid wos obligated to be took off the
hinges, and sent up to Doctor Commons to be proved, and
under that ere wery instrument this here lantern was passed
to'Tony Yeller, vich circumstance, mum, gives it a wally in
my eyes, and makes me rek-vest, if you vill be so kind, as to
take partickler care on it."
The housekeeper graciously promised to keep the object of
Mr. Weller's regard in the safest possible custody, and Mr.
Pickwick, with a laughing face, took his leave. The body



THE CLOCK COMPANY.                   403
guard followed, side by side: old Mr. Weller buttoned and
wrapped up from his boots to his chin; and Sam with his
hands in his pockets and his hat half off his head, remonstrating with his father, as he went, on his extreme loquacity.
I was not a little surprised, on turning to go up stairs, to
encounter the barber in the passage at that late hour; for his
attendance is usually confined to some half-hour in the morning. But Jack Redburn, who finds out (by instinct, I think)
everything that happens in the house, informed me with great
glee, that a society in imitation of our own had been that
night formed in the kitchen, under the title of " Mr. Weller's
Watch," of which the barber was a member; and that he
could pledge himself to find means of making me acquainted
with the whole of its future proceedings, which I begged him,
both on my own account and that of my readers, by no means
to neglect doing.



406        MR. WELLER'S WATCH.
kers to that extent that razors is Christian charity. If they
take it in turns to mind the carriage wen it's a waitin' below,'
he says,'wot's to hinder you from operatin' on both of'em
ev'ry day as well as upon me? you've got six children,' he
says,'wot's to hinder you from shavin' all their heads and
keepin''em shaved? you've got two assistants in the shop
down stairs, wot's to hinder you from cuttin' and curlin'
them as often as you like? Do this,' he says,'and you're
a man agin.' Jinkinson squeedged the doctor's hand and
begun that wery day; he kept his tools upon the bed, and
wenever he felt his-self gettin' worse, he turned to at vun o'
the children who wos a runnin' about the house vith heads
like clean Dutch cheeses, and shaved him agin. Vun day
the lawyer come to make his vill; all the time he wos a
takin' it down, Jinkinson was secretly a clippin' avay at his
hair vith a large pair of scissors.' Wot's that'ere snippin'
noise?' says the lawyer every now and then;'it's like a
man havin' his hair cut.'' It is wery like a man havin' his
hair cut,' says poor Jinkinson, hidin' the scissors, and
lookin' quite innocent. By the time the lawyer found it
out, he was wery nearly bald. Jinkinson wos kept alive in
this vay for a long time, but at last vun day he has in all the
children vun arter another, shaves each on'em wery clean,
and gives him vun kiss on the crown o' his head; then he
has in the two assistants, and arter cuttin' and curlin' of'em in the first style of elegance, says he should like to hear
the woice of the greasiest bear, vich rekvest is immedetly
complied with; then he says that he feels werry happy in
his mind and vishes to be left alone; and then he dies, prevously cutting his own hair and making one flat curl in the
wery middle of his forehead."
This anecdote produced an extraordinary effect not only
upon Mr. Slithers but upon the housekeeper also, who
evinced so much anxiety to please and be pleased, that Mr.
Weller, with a manner betoking some alarm, conveyed a
whispered inquiry to his son whether he had gone " too
fur."



MR. WELLER'S WATCH.                 407
"Wot do you mean by too fur?" demanded Sam.
"In that'ere little compliment respectin' the want of
hock'erdness in ladies, Sammy," replied his father.
" You don't think she's fallen in love with you in consekens o' that, do you? " said Sam.
"More unlikelier things have come to pass, my boy," replied Mr. Weller in a hoarse whisper; "I'm always afeerd
of inadwertent captiwation, Sammy. If I know'd how to
make myself ugly or unpleasant, I'd do it, Samivel, rayther
than live in this here state of perpetival terror I"
Mr. Weller had, at this time, no further opportunity of
dwelling upon the apprehensions which beset his mind, for
the immediate occasion of his fears proceeded to lead the
way down stairs, apologizing as they went for conducting
him into the kitchen, which apartment, however, she was
induced to proffer for his accommodation in preference to her
own little room, the rather as it afforded greater facilities
for smoking, and was immediately adjoining the ale-cellar.
The preparations which were already made, sufficiently
proved that these were not mere words of course, for on the
deal table were a sturdy ale-jug and glasses, flanked with
clean pipes and a plentiful supply of tobacco for the old gentleman and his son, while on a dresser hard by was goodly
store of cold meat and other eatables. At sight of these arrangements Mr. Weller was at first distracted between his
love of joviality and his doubts whether they were not to be
considered as so many evidences of captivation having already taken place; but he soon yielded to his natural
impulse, and took his seat at the table with a very jolly
countenance.
"As to imbibin' any o' this here flagrant veed, mum, in
the presence of a lady," said Mr. Weller, taking up a pipe
and laying it down again, "it couldn't be. Samivel, total
abstinence, if you please."
"But I like it of all things," said the housekeeper.
"No," rejoined Mr. Weller, shaking his head. "No."



MR. WELLER'S WATCH.                  409
having applied the watch to his ear to ascertain that it was
still going, gave it some half-dozen hard knocks on the table
to improve its performance.
" That," said Mr. Weller, laying it on the table with its
face upwards, " is the title and emblem o' this here society.
Sammy, reach them two stools this vay for the wacant
cheers. Ladies and gen'lmen, Mr. Weller's Watch is vound
up and now a goin'. Order!"
By way of enforcing this proclamation, Mr. Weller using
the watch after the manner of a president's hammer, and
remarking with great pride that nothing hurt it, and that
falls and concussions of all kinds materially enhanced the
excellence of the works and assisted the regulator, knocked
the table a great many times, and declared the association
formally constituted.
" And don't let's have no grinnin' at the cheer, Samivel,"
said Mr. Weller to his son, " or I shall be committin' you to
the cellar, and then p'raps we may get into wot the'Merri
kins call a fix, and the English a question o' privileges."
Having uttered this friendly caution, the president settled
himself in his chair with great dignity, and requested that
Mr. Samuel would relate an anecdote.
"I've told one," said Sam.
"Wery good, sir; tell another," returned the chair.
"We wos a talking just now," said Sam, turning to
Slithers, "about barbers. Pursuing that'ere fruitful theme,
sir, I'll tell you in a wery few words a romantic little story
about another barber as p'raps you may never have heerd."
"Samivel!" said Mr. Weller, again bringing his watch
and the table into smart collision, "address your obserwations to the cheer, sir, and not to private individuals!"
"And if I might rise to order," said the barber, in a soft
voice, and looking round him with a conciliatory smile as
he leant over the table, with the knuckles of his left hand
Yesting upon it,-" if I might rise to order, I would suggest
that'barbers' is not exactly the kind of language which is



410        MR. WELLER'S WATCH.
agreeable and soothing to our feelings. You, sir, will
correct me if I am wrong, but T believe there is such a word
in the dictionary as hair-dressers."
"Well, but suppose he wasn't a hair-dresser," suggested
Sam.
" Wy then, sir, be parliamentary, and call him vun all
the more," returned his father. " In the same vay as ev'ry
gen'lman in another place is a honorable, ev'ry barber
in this place is a hair-dresser.  Yen you read the
speeches in the papers, and see as vun gen'lman says of
another,'the honorable member, if he vill allow me to
call him so,' you vill understand, sir, that that means'if he
vill allow me to keep up that'ere pleasant and uniwersal
fiction?' "
It is a common remark, confirmed by history and experience, that great men rise with the circumstances in which
they are placed. Mr. Weller came out so strong in his
capacity of chairman, that Sam was for some time prevented from speaking by a grin of surprise, which held
his faculties enchained, and at last subsided in a long whistle
of a single note. Nay, the old gentleman appeared even to
have astonished himself, and that to no small extent, as was
demonstrated by the vast amount of chuckling in which he
indulged, after the utterance of these lucid remarks.
"Here's the story," said Sam. "Vunce upon a time
there wos a young hair-dresser as opened a wery smart
little shop vith four wax dummies in the winder, two
gen'lmen and two ladies-the gen'lmen vith blue dots for
their beards, wery large viskers, ou-dacious heads of hair,
uncommon clear eyes, and nostrils of amazin pinkness-the
ladies vith their heads o' one side, their right forefingers on
their lips, and their forms deweloped beautiful, in vich last
respect they had the adwantage over the gen'lmen, as was'nt
allowed but wery little shoulder, and terminated rayther
abrupt, in fancy drapery. He had also a many hair-brushes
and tooth-brushes bottled up in the winder, neat glass cases



412        MR. WELLER'S WATCH.
he says,'Oh!' he says,'here's a community o' feelin', here's
a flow o' soul!' he says,'here's a interchange o' sentiment 1'
The young lady didn't say much, o' course, but she expressed herself agreeable, and shortly artervards vent to
see him vith a mutual friend. The hair-dresser rushes out
to meet her, but d'rectly she sees the dummies she changes
color and falls a tremblin' wiolently.' Look up, my love,'
says the hair-dresser,' behold your imige in my winder, but
not correcter than in my art!''My imige I' she says.'Your'n!' replies the hair-dresser.'But whose imige is
that!' she says, a pinting at vun o' the gen'lmen.'No
vun's, my love,' he says,'it is but a idea.''A idea!' she
cries;''it is a portrait, I feel it is a portrait, and that'ere
noble face must be in the millingtary'' Wot do I hear'
says he, a crumplin' his curls.'Villiam Gibbs,' she says,
quite firm,'never renoo the subject. I respect you as a
friend,' she says,'but my affections is set upon that manly
brow.''This,' says the hair-dresser,'is a reg'lar blight,
and in it I perceive the hand of Fate. Farevell' Vith
these vords he rushes into the shop, breaks the dummy's
nose vith a blow of his curlin' irons, melts him down at the
parlor fire, and never smiles artervards."
" The young lady, Mr. Weller?" said the housekeeper.
"Wy, ma'm," said Sam, "finding that Fate had a spite
agin her, and everybody she come into contact vith, she
never smiled neither, but read a deal o' poetry and pined
avay-by rayther slow degrees, for she an't dead yet. It
took a deal o' poety to kill the hair-dresser, and some people
say arter all that it was more than gin and water as caused
him to be run over; p'raps it wos a little o' both, and came
o' mixing the two."
The barber declared that Mr. Weller had related one of
the most interesting stories that had ever come within his
knowledge, in which opinion the housekeeper entirely concurred.
"Are you married man, sir?" inquired Sam.



414        MR. WELLER'S WATCH.
you?   You're a nice man, you are, arter pretendin' all
kinds o' terror, to go a payin' compliments and talkin' about
hearts and piercers."
The imputation of gallantry appeared to afford Mr. Weller
the utmost delight, for he replied in a voice choked by suppressed laughter, and with the tears in his eyes,"Wos I a talkin' about hearts and piercers-was I though,
Sammey, eh?"
"Wos you? of course you was?"
" She don't know no better, Sammy, there an't no harm
in it-no danger, Sammy; she's only a punster. She seemed
pleased, though, didn't she? 0' course, she wos pleased,
it's nat'ral she should be, wery nat'ral."
" He's wain of it 1" exclaimed Sam, joining in his father's
mirth. " He's actually wain I"
"Hush!" replied Mr. Weller, composing his features,
"they're comin' back-the little heart's a comin' back.
But mark these wurds o' mine once more, and remember'em ven your father says he said'em. Samivel I mistrust
that'ere deceitful barber."



SAM WELLER'S SON.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
Two or three evenings after the institution of Mr. Weller's
Watch, I thought I heard, as I walked in the garden, the
voice of Mr. Weller himself at no great distance; and
stopping once or twice to listen more attentively, I found
that the sounds proceeded from my housekeeper's little
sitting-room, which is at the back of the house. I took no
further notice of the circumstance at that time, but it formed
the subject of a conversation between me and my friend
Jack Redburn next morning, when I found that I had not
been deceived in my impression. Jack furnished me with
the following particulars, and as he appeared to take extraordinary pleasure in relating them, I have begged him in
future to jot down any such domestic scenes or occurrences
that may please his humor, in order that they may be told
in his own way. I must confess that, as Mr. Pickwick and
he are constantly together, I have been influenced, in making
this request, by a secret desire to know something of their
proceedings.
On the evening in question, the housekeeper's room was
arranged with particular care, and the housekeeper herself
was very smartly dressed. The preparations, however,
were not confined to mere showy demonstrations, as tea
was prepared for three persons, with a small display of
preserves and jams and sweet cakes, which heralded some
uncommon occasion. Miss Benton (my housekeeper bears
that name) was in a state of great expectation, too, frequently going to the front door and looking anxiously down
the lane, and more than once observing to the serving girl
that she expected company, and hoped that no accident had
happened to delay them.
(415)



416          SAM WELLER'S SON.
A modest ringing at the bell at length allayed her fears,
and Miss Benton, hurrying into her own room and shutting
herself up in order that she might preserve that appearance
of being taken by surprise which is so essential to the polite
reception of visitors, awaited their coming with a smiling
countenance.
"Good ev'nin', mum," said the older Mr. Weller, looking
in at the door after a prefatory tap. "I'm  afeerd we've
come in rayther arter the time, mum, but the young colt
being full o' wice, has been a boltin' and shyin' and gettin'
his leg over the traces to sich a extent that if he an't wery
soon broke in, he'll wex me into a broken heart, and then
he'll never be brought out no more except to learn his
letters from the writin' on his grandfather's tombstone."
With these pathetic words, which were addressed to
something outside the door about two feet six from the
ground, Mr. Weller introduced a very small boy firmly set
upon a couple of very sturdy legs, who looked as if nothing
could ever knock him down. Besides having a very round
face strongly resembling Mr. Weller's, and a stout little
body of exactly his build, this young gentleman, standing
with his little legs very wide apart as if the top-boots were
familiar to them, actually winked upon the housekeeper
with his infant eye, in imitation of his grandfather.
" There's a naughty boy, mum," said Mr. Weller, bursting with delight, "there's a immoral Tony. Wos there
ever a little chap o' four years and eight months old as
vinked his eye at a strange lady afore?"
As little effected by this observation as by the former
appeal to his feelings, Master Weller elevated in the air a
small model of a coach whip which he carried in his hand,
and addressing the housekeeper with a shrill "ya-hip I"
inquired if she was " going down the road;" at which happy
adaptation of a lesson he had been taught from infancy, Mr.
Weller could restrain his feelings no longer, but gave him
twopence on the spot.



418          SAMI WELLER'S SON.
" v'e offered my son Samivel, mum, agen and agen," returned the old gentleman, " to purwide him at my own
cost vith a suit o' clothes as'ud be the makin' on him, and
form his mind in infancy for those pursuits as I hope the
family o' the Vellers vill alvays dewote themselves to.
Tony, my boy, tell the lady wot them clothes are, as grandfather says, father ought to let you vear."
"A little white hat and a little sprig weskut and little
knee cords and little top-boots and a little green coat with
little bright buttons and a little welwet collar," replied
Tony, with great readiness and no stops.
"That's the cos-toom, mum," said Mr. Weller, looking
proudly at the housekeeper. " Once make sich a model
on him as that, and you'd say he wos a angel I"
Perhaps the housekeeper thought that in such a guise
young Tony would look more like the angel at Islington
than anything else of that name, or perhaps she was disconcerted to find her previously conceived ideas disturbed,
as angels are not commonly represented in top-boots and
sprig waistcoats.  She coughed  doubtfully, but said
nothing.
" How many brothers and sisters have you, my dear?"
she asked, after a short silence.
" One brother and no sister at all," replied Tony. " Sam his
name is, and so's my father's. Do you know my father?"
"Oh yes, I know him," said the housekeeper, graciously.
"Is my father fond of you?" pursued Tony.
"I hope so," rejoined the smiling housekeeper.
Tony considered a moment, and then said, " Is my grandfather bond of you?"
This would seem a very easy question to answer, but
instead of replying to it, the housekeeper smiled in great
confusion, and said that really children did ask such extraordinary questions that it was the most difficult thing in
the world to talk to them. Mr. Weller took upon himself
to reply that he was very fond of the lady; but the house



SAMI WELLER'S SON.                419
keeper entreating that he would not put such things into
the child's head, Mr. Weller shook his own while she looked
another way, and seemed to be troubled with a misgiving
that captivation was in progress. It was, perhaps, on this
account that he changed the subject precipitately.
"It's wery wrong in little boys to make game o' their
grandfathers, an't it mum?" said Mr. Weller, shaking his
head waggishly, until Tony looked at him, when he counterfeited the deepest dejection and sorrow.
" Oh very sad 1" assented the housekeeper. "But I hope
no little boys do that?"
" There is vun young Turk, mum," said Mr. Weller, "as
havin' seen his grandfather a little overcome vith drink on
the occasion of a friend's birthday, goes a reelin' and
staggerin' about the house, and makin' believe that he's
the old gen'lm'n."
Oh quite shocking!" cried the housekeeper.
"Yes, mum," said Mr. Weller, "and previously to so
doin', this here young traitor that I'm a speakin' of, pinches
his little nose to make it red, and then he gives a hiccup and
says,'I'm all right,' he says,'give us another song 1' Ha,
ha!'Give us another song,' he says. Ha, ha, ha I"
In his excessive delight, Mr. Weller was quite unmindful
of his moral responsibility, until little Tony kicked up his
legs, and laughing immoderately, cried, " That was me,
that was;" whereupon the grandfather, by a great effort,
became extremely solemn.
"No, Tony, not you," said Mr. Weller. "I hope it
warn't you, Tony. It must ha' been that'ere naughty
little chap as comes sometimes out o' the empty watch-box
round the corner-that same little chap as wos found
standing on the table afore the looking-glass, pretending
to shave himself vith a oyster-knife."
" He didn't hurt himself, I hope?" observed the housekeeper.
"Not he, mum," said Mr. Weller, proudly; "bless vour



420          SAM WELLER'S SON.
heart, you might trust that'ere boy vith a steam engine
a'most, he's such a knowin' young "-but suddenly recollecting himself and observing that Tony perfectly understood and appreciated the compliment, the old gentleman
groaned and observed that "it wos all wery shockin'wery."
" Oh he's a bad'un," said Mr.Weller, "is that'ere watchbox boy, makin' such a noise and litter in the back-yard, he
does, waterin' wooden horses and feedin' of'em vith grass,
and perpetivally spillin' his little brother out of a veelbarrow
and frightenin' his mother out of her wits, at the wery
moment wen she's expectin' to increase his stock of happiness vith another play-feller-oh he's a bad'un I He's
even gone so far as to put on a pair o' paper spectacles as
he got his father to make for him, and walk up and down
the garden vith his hands behind him in imitation of Mr.
Pickwick-but Tony don't do sich things, oh no I"
"Oh no!" echoed Tony.
"He knows better, he does," said Mr. Weller. "He
knows that if he wos to come sich games as these nobody
wouldn't love him, and that his grandfather in partickler
couldn't abear the sight on him; for vich reasons Tony's
always good."' Always good," echoed Tony; and his grandfather
immediately took him on his knee and kissed him, at the
same time, with many nods and winks, slyly pointing at
the child's head with his thumb, in order that the housekeeper, otherwise deceived by the admirable manner in
which he (Mr. Weller) had sustained his character, might
not suppose that any other young gentleman was referred
to, and might clearly understand that the boy of the watchbox was but an imaginary creation, and a fetch of Tony
himself, invented for his improvement and reformation.
Not confining himself to a mere verbal description of his
grandson's abilities, Mr. Weller, when tea was finished, incited him by various gifts of pence and halfpence to smoke



424  INTRODUCING BARNABY RUDGE.
was received; nor how often it had risen to my lips before;
nor how difficult I had found it-how impossible, when I
came to those passages which touched me most, and most
nearly concerned me-to sustain the character I had assumed. It is enough to say that I replaced in the clock
case the record of so many trials-sorrowfully, it is true,
but with a softened sorrow which was almost pleasure; and
felt that in living through the past again, and communicating to others the lesson it had helped to teach me, I had
been a happier man.
We lingered so long over the leaves from which I had
read, that as I consigned them to their former resting-place,
the hands of my trusty clock pointed to twelve, and there
came towards us upon the wind the voice of the deep and distant bell of St. Paul's as it struck the hour of midnight.
"This," said I returning with a manuscript I had taken,
at the moment, from the same repository, "to be opened to
such music, should be a tale where London's face by night
is darkly seen, and where some deed of such a time as this
is dimly shadowed out. Which of us here has seen the
working of that great machine whose voice has just now
ceased?"
Mr. Pickwick had, of course, and so had Mr. Miles. Jack
and my deaf friend were in the minority.
I had seen it but a few days before, and could not help
telling them of the fancy I had had about it.
I paid my fee of twopence upon entering, to one of the
money-changers who sit within the Temple; and falling,
after a few turns up and down, into the quiet train of thought
which such a place awakens, paced the echoing stones like
some old monk whose present world lay all within its walls.
As I looked afar up into the lofty dome, I could not help
wondering what were his reflections whose genius reared that
mighty pile, when, the last small wedge of timber fixed, the
last nail driven into its home for many centuries, the clang
of hammers, and the hum of busy voices gone, and the Great



INTRODUCING BARNABY RUDGE.                 425
Silence whole years of noise had helped to make, reigning
undisturbed around, he mused as I did now upon his work,
and lost himself amid its vast extent. I could not quite
determine whether the contemplation of it would impress
him with a sense of greatness or of insignificance; but when
I remembered how long a time it had taken to erect, in how
short a space it might be traversed even to its remotest parts,
for how brief a term he, or any of those who cared to bear
his name, would live to see it or know of its existence, I
imagined him far more melancholy than proud, and looking
with great regret upon his labor done. With these thoughts
in my mind, I began to ascend, almost unconsciously, the
flight of steps leading to the several wonders of the building,
and found myself before a barrier where another moneytaker sat, who demanded which among them I would choose
to see. There were the stone-gallery, he said, and the whispering gallery, the geometrical staircase, the room of models,
the clock-the clock being quite in my way, I stopped him
there, and chose that sight fiom all the rest.
I groped my way into the Turret which it occupies, and
saw before me, in a kind of loft, what seemed to be a great,
old, oaken press with folding doors. These being thrown
back by the attendant (who was sleeping when I came upon
him, and looked a drowsy fellow, as though his close companionship with Time had made him quite indifferent to it,)
disclosed a complicated crowd of wheels and chains in iron
and brass-great, sturdy, rattling engines-suggestive of
breaking a finger put in here or there, and grinding the bone
to powder-and these were the Clock I Its very pulse, if
I may use the word, was like no other clock. It did not
mark the flight of every moment with a gentle second stroke
as though it would check old Time, and have him stay his
pace in pity, but measured it with one sledge-hammer beat,
as if its business were to crush the seconds as they came
trooping on, and remorselessly to oeear a path before the
Day of Judgment.



426  INTRODUCING BARNABY             RUDGE.
I sat down opposite to it, and hearing its regular and
never-changing voice, that one deep constant note, uppermost amongst all the noise and clatter in the streets below,marking that, let the tumult rise or fall, go on or stop-let it
be night or noon, to-morrow or to-day, this year or next,it still performed its functions with the same dull constancy,
and regulated the progress of the life around, the fancy came
upon me that this was London's Heart, and that when it
should cease to beat, the City would be no more.
It is night. Calm and unmoved amidst the scenes that
darkness favors, the great heart of London throbs in its
Giant breast. Wealth and beggary, vice and virtue, guilt
and innocence, repletion and the direst hunger, all treading
on each other and crowding together, are gathered round it.
Draw but a little circle above the clustering house-tops, and
you shall have within its space everything, with its opposite
extreme and contradiction, close beside.  Where yonder
feeble light is shining, a man is but this moment dead. The
taper at a few yards' distance, is seen by eyes that have this
instant opened on the world. There are two houses separated by but an inch or two of wall. In one there are quiet
minds at rest; in the other, a waking conscience that one
might think would trouble the very air. In that close corner
where the roofs shrink down and cower together as if to hide
their secrets from the handsome street hard by, there are
such dark crimes, such miseries and horrors, as could be
hardly told in whispers. In the handsome street, there are
folks asleep who have dwelt there all their lives, and have no
more knowledge of these things than if they had never been,
or were transacted at the remotest limits of the world,-who,
if they were hinted at, would shake their heads, look wise,
and frown, and say they were impossible, and out of Natureas if all great towns were not. Does not this Heart of London, that nothing moves, nor stops, nor quickens-that goes
on the same let what will be done-does it not express the
cilly' character well!



INTRODUCING BARNABY RUDGE. 427
The day begins to break, and soon there is the hum and
noise of life. Those who have spent the night on door-steps
and cold stones, crawl off to beg; they who have slept in
beds, come forth to their occupation, too, and business is
astir. The fog of sleep rolls slowly off, and London shines
awake.  The streets are filled with carriages, and people
gayly clad. The jails are full, too, to the throat, nor have
the workhouses or hospitals much room to spare. The
courts of law are crowded. Taverns have their regular frequenters by this time, and every mart of traffic has its
throng. Each of these places is a world and has its own
inhabitants; each is distinct from, and almost unconscious
of the existence of any other. There are some few people
well to do, who remember to have heard it said, that numbers of men and women-thousands, they think it was-get
up in London every day, unknowing where to lay their
heads at night; and that there are quarters of the town where
misery and famine always are. They don't believe it quite
-there may be some truth in it, but it is exaggerated of
course. So, each of these thousand worlds goes on, intent
upon itself; until night comes again-first with its lights
and pleasures, and its cheerful streets; then with its guilt
and darkness.
Heart of London, there is a moral in thy every stroke I
as I look on at thy indomitable working, which neither
death, nor press of life, nor grief, nor gladness out of doors
will influence one jot, I seem to hear a voice within thee
which sinks into my heart, bidding me, as I elbow my way
among the crowd, have some thought for the meanest
wretch that passes, and, being a man, to turn away with
scorn and pride from none that bear the human shape.
I am by no means sure that I might not have been
tempted to enlarge upon the subject, had not the papers that
lay before me on the table, been a silent reproach for even
this digression. I took them up again when I had got thus
far, and seriously prepared to read.



MIDNIGHT REVERIES.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IT is again midnight. My fire burns cheerfully; the room
is filled with my old friend's sober voice; and I am left to
muse upon the story we have just now finished.
It makes me smile, at such a time at this, to think if there
were any one to see me sitting in my easy chair, my gray
head hanging down, my eyes bent thoughtfully upon the
glowing embers, and my crutch-emblem of my helplessness
-lying upon the hearth at my feet, how solitary I should
seem. Yet though I am the sole tenant of this chimneycorner, though I am childless and old, I have no sense of
loneliness at this hour; but am the centre of a silent group
whose company I love.
Thus, even age and weakness have their consolations.
If I were a younger man; if I were more active; more
strongly bound and tied to life; these visionary friends
would shun me, or I should desire to fly from them. Being
what I am, I can court their society, and delight in it; and
pass whole hours in picturing to myself the shadows that
perchance flock every night into this chamber, and in imagining with pleasure what kind of interest they have in the'
frail, feeble mortal, who is its sole inhabitant.
All the fiiends I have ever lost I find again among these
visitors. I love to fancy their spirits hovering about me,
feeling still some earthly kindness for their old companion,
and watching his decay. " He is weaker, he declines apace,
he draws nearer and nearer to us, and will soon be conscious of our existence." What is there to alarm me in
this? It is encouragement and hope.
These thoughts have never crowded on me half so fast as
(430)



MIDNIGHT      REVERIES.              431
they have done to-night. Faces I had long forgotten have
become familiar to me once again; traits I had endeavored
to recall for years, have come before me in an instant;
nothing is changed but me: and even I can be my former
self at will.
Raising my eyes but now to the face of my old clock, I
remember, quite involuntarily, the veneration, not unmixed
with a sort of childish awe, with which I used to sit and
watch it as it ticked unheeded in a dark staircase corner.
I recollect looking more grave and steady when I met its
dusty face, as if, having that strange kind of life within it,
and being free from all excess of vulgar appetite, and warning all the house by night and day, it were a sage. How
often have I listened to it as it told the beads of time, and
wondered at its constancy  How often watched it slowly
pointing round the dial, and, while I panted for the eagerly
expected hour to come, admired, despite myself, its steadiness of purpose and lofty freedom from all human strife,
impatience, and desire I
I thought it cruel once. It was very hard of heart, to my
mind, I remember. It was an old servant, even then; and
I felt as though it ought to show some sorrow; as though
it wanted sympathy with us in our distress, and were a dull,
heartless, mercenary creature. Ah! how soon I learnt to
know that in its ceaseless going on, and in its being checked
or stayed by nothing, lay its greatest kindness, and the
only balm for grief and wounded peace of mind I
To-night, to-night, when this tranquillity and calm are on
my spirits, and memory presents so many shifting scenes
before me, I take my quiet stand at will by many a fire that
has been long extinguished, and mingle with the cheerful
group that cluster round it. If I could be sorrowful in
such a mood, I should grow sad to think what a poor blot
I was upon their youth and beauty once, and now how few
remain to put me to the blush; I should grow sad to think
thllt such among them as I sometimes meet with in my



432         MIDNIGHT REVERIES.
daily walks. are scarcely less infirm than I; that time has
brought us to a level; and that all distinctions fade and
vanish as we take our trembling steps towards the grave.
But memory was given us for better purposes than this,
and mine is not a torment, but a source of pleasure. To
muse upon the gayety and youth I have known, suggests to
me glad scenes of harmless mirth that may be passing
now. From contemplating them apart, I soon become an
actor in these little dramas; and humoring my fancy, lose
myself among the beings it invokes.
When my fire is bright and high, and a warm blush
mantles in the walls and ceiling of this ancient room; when
my clock makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping
insects who delight in the warm hearth, and are sometimes,
by a good superstition, looked upon as the harbingers of
fortune and plenty to that household in whose mercies they
put their humble trust; when everything is in a ruddy,
genial glow, and there are voices in the crackling flame, and
smiles in its flashing light; other smiles and other voices
congregate around me, invading, with their pleasant harmony, the silence of the time.
For then a knot of youthful creatures gather round my
fireside, and the room reechoes to their merry voices. My
solitary chair no longer holds its ample place before the
fire, but is wheeled into a smaller corner, to leave more
room for the broad circle formed about the cheerful hearth.
I have sons, and daughters, and grandchildren; and we are
assembled on some occasion of rejoicing common to us all.
It is a birthday, perhaps, or perhaps it may be Christmas
time; but be it what it may, there is rare holiday among
us; we are full of glee.
In the chimney-corner, opposite myself, sits one who has
grown old beside me. She is changed, of course; much
changed; and yet I recognize the girl even in that gray hair
and wrinkled brow. Glancing from the laughing child who
half hides in her ample skirts, and half peeps out, -and from



436    MASTER HUMPHREY'S DEATH.
A bell-rope hung within his reach, but he had not moved
towards it, nor had he stirred, we all agreed, except, as I have
said, to push away his table, which he could have done, and
no doubt did, with a very slight motion of his hand. He had
relapsed for a moment into his late train of meditation, and,
with a thoughtful smile upon his face, had died.
I had long known it to be his wish that whenever this event
should come to pass we might be all assembled in the house.
I therefore lost no time in sending for Mr. Pickwick and for
Mr. Miles, both of whom arrived before the messenger's return.
It is not my purpose to dilate upon the sorrow and affectionate emotions of which I was at once the witness and the
sharer. But I may say, of the humbler mourners, that his faithful housekeeper was fairly heart-broken; that the poor barber
would not be comforted; and that I shall respect the homely
truth and warmth of heart of Mr. Weller and his son to the
last moment of my life.
" And the sweet old creetur, sir," said the elder Mr. Weller to me in the afternoon, " has bolted. Him as had no wice,
and was so free from temper that a infant might ha' drove him,
has been took at last with that'ere unawoidable fit o' staggers
as we all must come to, and gone off his feed forever I I see
him," said the old gentleman, with a moisture in his eye,
which could not be mistaken,-" I see him gettin', every journey, more and more groggy; I says to Samivel,'My boy!
the Grey's a goin' at the knees;' and now my predilictions is
fatally werified, and him as I could never do enough to serve or
show my likin' for, is up the great uniwersal spout o' natur'."
I was not the less sensible of the old man's attachment because he expressed it in his peculiar manner. Indeed, I can
truly assert of both him and his son, that notwithstanding the
extraordinary dialogues they held together, and the strange
commentaries and corrections with which each of them illustrated the other's speech, I do not think it possible to exceed
the sincerity of their regret; and that I am sure their thought



MASTER     HUMPHREY'S        DEATH.        437
fllness and anxiety in anticipating the discharge of many little
offices of sympathy, would have done honor to the most delicate-minded persons.
Our friend had frequently told us that his will would be
found in a box in the Clock-case,,the key of which was in his
writing-desk. As he had told us also that he desired it to be
opened immediately after his death, whenever that should
happen, we met together that night for the fulfillment of his
request.
We found it where he had told us, wrapped in a sealed
paper, and with it a codicil of recent date, in which he named
Mr. Miles and Mr. Pickwick his executors-as having no
need of any greater benefit from his estate, than a generous
token (which he bequethed to them) of his friendship and
remembrance.
After pointing out the spot in which he wished his ashes to
repose, he gave to "his dear old friend," Jack Redburn and
myself, his house, his books, his furniture-in short, all that
his house contained; and with this legacy more ample means
of maintaining it in his present state than we, with our habits
and at our terms of life, can ever exhaust. Besides these gifts,
he left to us, in trust, an annual sum of no insignificant amount,
to be distributed in charity among his accustomed pensionersthey are a long list-and such other claimants on his bounty
as might, from time to time, present themselves. And as
true charity not only covers a multitude of sins, but includes
a multitude of virtues, such as forgiveness, liberal construction, gentleness and mercy to the faults of others, and the
remembrance of our own imperfections and advantages, he
bade us not inquire too closely into the venial errors of the
poor, but finding that they were poor, first to relieve and then
endeavor-at an advantage-to reclaim them.
To the housekeeper he left an annuity, sufficient for her comfortable maintenance and support through life. For the barber, who had attended him many years, he made a similar
provision. And I may make two remarks in this place: first,



440    MASTER HUMPHREY'S             DEATH.
Thus, since the death of our venerable friend, Jack Redburn
and I have been the sole tenants of the old house; and, day
by day, have lounged together in his favorite walks. Mindful
of his injunctions, we have long been able to speak of him
with ease and cheerfulness, and to remember him as he would
be remembered. From certain allusions which Jack has
dropped, to his having been deserted and cast off in early life,
I am inclined to believe that some passages of his youth may
possibly be shadowed out in the history of Mr. Chester and
his son, but seeing that he avoids the subject, I have not pursued it.
My task is done. The chamber in which we have whiled
away so many hours, not, I hope, without some pleasure and
some profit, is deserted; our happy hour of meeting strikes
no more; the chimney-corner has grown cold; and MASTER
HUMPHREY'S CLOCK has stopped forever.
THE   END.