The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, v. 1 (of 2)
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Title: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, v. 1 (of 2)
Author: Charles Dickens
Illustrator: Cecil Aldin
Release date: December 4, 2014 [eBook #47534]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB, V. 1 (OF 2) ***
THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF
THE PICKWICK CLUB
[Illustration: _The Pickwick Club_]
THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS
OF THE
PICKWICK CLUB
BY
CHARLES DICKENS
ILLUSTRATED BY
CECIL ALDIN
VOLUME THE FIRST
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
31 West Twenty-Third Street
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
+The Pickwickians+ 1
CHAPTER II
+The First Day's Journey, and the First Evening's
Adventures; with their Consequences+ 7
CHAPTER III
+A New Acquaintance. The Stroller's Tale. A Disagreeable
Interruption, and an Unpleasant Encounter+ 39
CHAPTER IV
+A Field-Day and Bivouac. More New Friends. An Invitation
to the Country+ 52
CHAPTER V
+A Short One. Showing, among other Matters, how Mr.
Pickwick undertook to Drive, and Mr. Winkle to Ride;
and how they both did it+ 66
CHAPTER VI
+An Old-fashioned Card-party. The Clergyman's Verses. The
Story of the Convict's Return+ 78
CHAPTER VII
+How Mr. Winkle, instead of Shooting at the Pigeon and
Killing the Crow, Shot at the Crow and Wounded the
Pigeon; how the Dingley Dell Cricket Club played
All-Muggleton, and how All-Muggleton Dined at the
Dingley Dell Expense: with other Interesting and
Instructive Matters+ 95
CHAPTER VIII
+Strongly Illustrative of the Position, that the Course
of True Love is not a Railway+ 111
CHAPTER IX
+A Discovery and a Chase+ 126
CHAPTER X
+Clearing up all Doubts (if any Existed) of the
Disinterestedness of Mr. Jingle's Character+ 136
CHAPTER XI
+Involving another Journey, and an Antiquarian Discovery.
Recording Mr. Pickwick's Determination to be Present
at an Election; and containing a Manuscript of the Old
Clergyman's+ 152
CHAPTER XII
+Descriptive of a very important Proceeding on the part
of Mr. Pickwick; no less an Epoch in his Life, than in
this History+ 173
CHAPTER XIII
+Some Account of Eatanswill; of the State of Parties
therein; and of the Election of a Member to Serve in
Parliament for that Ancient, Loyal, and Patriotic
Borough+ 181
CHAPTER XIV
+Comprising a Brief Description of the Company at the
Peacock assembled; and a Tale told by a Bagman+ 202
CHAPTER XV
+In which is given a Faithful Portraiture of two
Distinguished Persons; and an Accurate Description of
a Public Breakfast in their House and Grounds: which
Public Breakfast leads to the Recognition of an Old
Acquaintance, and the Commencement of another Chapter+ 222
CHAPTER XVI
+Too full of Adventure to be Briefly Described+ 238
CHAPTER XVII
+Showing that an Attack of Rheumatism in some cases, acts
as a Quickener to Inventive Genius+ 261
CHAPTER XVIII
+Briefly illustrative of Two Points;--First, the Power of
Hysterics, and, Secondly, the Force of Circumstances+
271
CHAPTER XIX
+A Pleasant Day, with an Unpleasant Termination+ 283
CHAPTER XX
+Showing how Dodson and Fogg were Men of Business, and
their Clerks Men of Pleasure; and how an affecting
Interview took place between Mr. Weller and his
Long-lost Parent; showing also what Choice Spirits
assembled at the Magpie and Stump, and what a Capital
Chapter the Next One will be+ 300
CHAPTER XXI
+In which the Old Man launches forth into his Favourite
Theme, and relates a Story about a Queer Client+ 319
CHAPTER XXII
+Mr. Pickwick Journeys to Ipswich, and meets with a
Romantic Adventure with a Middle-aged Lady in Yellow
Curl-papers+ 338
CHAPTER XXIII
+In which Mr. Samuel Weller begins to devote his Energies
to the Return Match between himself and Mr. Trotter+ 357
CHAPTER XXIV
+Wherein Mr. Peter Magnus grows jealous, and the
Middle-aged Lady apprehensive, which brings the
Pickwickians within the Grasp of the Law+ 367
CHAPTER XXV
+Showing, among a variety of Pleasant Matters, how
Majestic and Impartial Mr. Nupkins was, and how Mr.
Weller returned Mr. Job Trotter's Shuttlecock as
heavily as it came. With another Matter, which will be
found in its Place+ 385
CHAPTER XXVI
+Which contains a Brief Account of the Progress of the
Action of Bardell against Pickwick+ 407
CHAPTER XXVII
+Samuel Weller makes a Pilgrimage to Dorking, and beholds
his Mother-in-law+ 415
CHAPTER XXVIII
+A Good-humoured Christmas Chapter, containing an Account
of a Wedding, and some other Sports beside: which
although in their Way even as Good Customs as Marriage
itself, are not quite so religiously kept up, in these
Degenerate Times+ 426
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
_The Pickwick Club_ _Frontispiece_
_"Wo--o!" cried Mr. Pickwick. "Wo--o!" echoed Mr. Tupman
and Mr. Snodgrass from the bin_ _Facing page_ 70
_Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance_ " 72
_"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Winkle, "I declare I forgot
the cap"_ " 98
_"Love to Tuppy--won't you get up behind?--drive on,
boys," replied Jingle_ " 134
_Sam at the White Hart_ " 142
_At the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who
had taken his leave of this world as possible_ " 156
_"She looked up in Tom's face and smiled through her
tears"_ " 220
_"I won't suffer this barrow to be moved another step
unless Winkle carries that gun of his in a different
manner"_ " 286
_"Take example of your father, my boy, and be very
careful o' widders all your life"_ " 310
_"I trust, ma'am," resumed Mr. Pickwick, "that my
unblemished character and the devoted respect I
entertain for your sex----"_ " 354
_"Mother-in-law," said Sam, "how are you?"_ " 418
_A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr.
Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it_ " 430
IN TEXT
PAGE
_Heading to Chapter I_ 1
_Heading to Chapter II_ 7
_"Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment--and out came
the note-book again_ 9
_"What's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man_ 11
_"My name is Winkle, sir"_ 28
_Heading to Chapter III_ 39
_Heading to Chapter IV_ 52
_"Damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again"_ 59
_Heading to Chapter V_ 66
_"T'other side, sir, if you please"_ 71
_Heading to Chapter VI_ 78
_Heading to Chapter VII_ 95
_Heading to Chapter VIII_ 111
_"He must have been fast asleep," whispered Mr. Tupman_ 115
_Heading to Chapter IX_ 126
_"Here I am; but I han't a willin"_ 127
_Heading to Chapter X_ 136
_Sam Weller at the keyhole_ 146
_Heading to Chapter XI_ 152
_"There is an inscription here," said Mr. Pickwick_ 158
_Heading to Chapter XII_ 173
_"Oh, you kind, good, playful dear"_ 176
_Heading to Chapter XIII_ 181
_"He has patted the babies on the head"_ 196
_Heading to Chapter XIV_ 202
_"No other than Tom Smart"_ 207
_Heading to Chapter XV_ 222
_Mr. Pickwick, with the Brigand on one arm, and the
Troubadour on the other_ 230
_Heading to Chapter XVI_ 238
_"Looks as convivial as a live trout in a lime-basket"_ 244
_"Who's there?" screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices_ 254
_Heading to Chapter XVII_ 261
_"Open it flew, disclosing Nathaniel Pipkin"_ 268
_Heading to Chapter XVIII_ 271
_Heading to Chapter XIX_ 283
_"Who are you, you rascal?"_ 296
_Heading to Chapter XX_ 300
_Heading to Chapter XXI_ 319
_Heading to Chapter XXII_ 338
_"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "Where's my bedroom?"_ 355
_Heading to Chapter XXIII_ 357
_Heading to Chapter XXIV_ 367
_Heading to Chapter XXV_ 385
_"You don't mean to say you did that on purpose?"_ 405
_Heading to Chapter XXVI_ 407
_Mrs. Bardell and her two friends were getting on very well_ 410
_Heading to Chapter XXVII_ 415
_Heading to Chapter XXVIII_ 426
_"Aha!" said the fat boy_ 432
[Illustration: POSTHUMOUS PAPERS
OF
THE PICKWICK CLUB]
CHAPTER I
THE PICKWICKIANS
The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a
dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the
public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is
derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of
the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest
pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful
attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which
his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been
conducted.
"May 12, 1827. Joseph Smiggers, Esq., P.V.P.M.P.C.,[1] presiding. The
following resolutions unanimously agreed to:--
[1] Perpetual Vice-President--Member Pickwick Club.
"That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled
satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by
Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C.,[2] entitled 'Speculations on the
Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of
Tittlebats'; and that this Association does hereby return its warmest
thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., for the same.
[2] General Chairman--Member Pickwick Club.
"That while this Association is deeply sensible of the advantages
which must accrue to the cause of science from the production to which
they have just adverted,--no less than from the unwearied researches
of Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., in Hornsey, Highgate, Brixton,
and Camberwell,--they cannot but entertain a lively sense of the
inestimable benefits which must inevitably result from carrying the
speculations of that learned man into a wider field, from extending his
travels, and consequently enlarging his sphere of observation, to the
advancement of knowledge, and the diffusion of learning.
"That, with the view just mentioned, this Association has taken into
its serious consideration a proposal, emanating from the aforesaid
Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., and three other Pickwickians
hereinafter named, for forming a new branch of United Pickwickians,
under the title of The Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club.
"That the said proposal has received the sanction and approval of this
Association.
"That the Corresponding Society of the Pickwick Club is therefore
hereby constituted; and that Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., Tracy
Tupman, Esq., M.P.C., Augustus Snodgrass, Esq., M.P.C., and Nathaniel
Winkle, Esq., M.P.C., are hereby nominated and appointed members of
the same; and that they be requested to forward, from time to time,
authenticated accounts of their journeys and investigations, of their
observations of character and manners, and of the whole of their
adventures, together with all tales and papers to which local scenery
or associations may give rise, to the Pickwick Club, stationed in
London.
"That this Association cordially recognises the principle of every
member of the Corresponding Society defraying his own travelling
expenses; and that it sees no objection whatever to the members of
the said society pursuing their inquiries for any length of time they
please, upon the same terms.
"That the members of the aforesaid Corresponding Society be, and are,
hereby informed, that their proposal to pay the postage of their
letters, and the carriage of their parcels, has been deliberated upon
by this Association: that this Association considers such proposal
worthy of the great minds from which it emanated, and that it hereby
signifies its perfect acquiescence therein."
A casual observer, adds the Secretary, to whose notes we are indebted
for the following account--a casual observer might possibly have
remarked nothing extraordinary in the bald head, and circular
spectacles, which were intently turned towards his (the Secretary's)
face, during the reading of the above resolutions: to those who knew
that the gigantic brain of Pickwick was working beneath that forehead,
and that the beaming eyes of Pickwick were twinkling behind those
glasses, the sight was indeed an interesting one. There sat the man who
had traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated
the scientific world with his Theory of Tittlebats, as calm and unmoved
as the deep waters of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary
specimen of the other in the inmost recesses of an earthen jar. And
how much more interesting did the spectacle become, when, starting
into full life and animation, as a simultaneous call for "Pickwick"
burst from his followers, that illustrious man slowly mounted into the
Windsor chair, on which he had been previously seated, and addressed
the club himself had founded. What a study for an artist did that
exciting scene present! The eloquent Pickwick, with one hand gracefully
concealed behind his coat tails, and the other waving in air, to assist
his glowing declamation; his elevated position revealing those tights
and gaiters, which, had they clothed an ordinary man, might have passed
without observation, but which, when Pickwick clothed them--if we may
use the expression--inspired involuntary awe and respect; surrounded
by the men who had volunteered to share the perils of his travels, and
who were destined to participate in the glories of his discoveries. On
his right hand sat Mr. Tracy Tupman--the too susceptible Tupman, who to
the wisdom and experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm
and ardour of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human
weaknesses--love. Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic
form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch
by inch had the gold watch-chain beneath it disappeared from within
the range of Tupman's vision; and gradually had the capacious chin
encroached upon the borders of the white cravat: but the soul of Tupman
had known no change--admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling
passion. On the left of his great leader sat the poetic Snodgrass, and
near him again the sporting Winkle, the former poetically enveloped
in a mysterious blue cloak with a canine-skin collar, and the latter
communicating additional lustre to a new green shooting coat, plaid
neckerchief, and closely-fitted drabs.
Mr. Pickwick's oration upon this occasion, together with the debate
thereon, is entered on the Transactions of the Club. Both bear a strong
affinity to the discussions of other celebrated bodies; and, as it is
always interesting to trace a resemblance between the proceedings of
great men, we transfer the entry to these pages.
"Mr. Pickwick observed (says the Secretary) that fame was dear to the
heart of every man. Poetic fame was dear to the heart of his friend
Snodgrass; the fame of conquest was equally dear to his friend Tupman;
and the desire of earning fame in the sports of the field, the air,
and the water, was uppermost in the breast of his friend Winkle. He
(Mr. Pickwick) would not deny that he was influenced by human passions,
and human feelings (cheers)--possibly by human weaknesses--(loud
cries of 'No'); but this he would say, that if ever the fire of
self-importance broke out in his bosom, the desire to benefit the human
race in preference effectually quenched it. The praise of mankind
was his Swing; philanthropy was his insurance office. (Vehement
cheering.) He had felt some pride--he acknowledged it freely, and
let his enemies make the most of it--he had felt some pride when he
presented his Tittlebatian Theory to the world; it might be celebrated
or it might not. (A cry of 'It is,' and great cheering.) He would
take the assertion of that honourable Pickwickian whose voice he had
just heard--it was celebrated; but if the fame of that treatise were
to extend to the furthest confines of the known world, the pride with
which he should reflect on the authorship of that production would be
as nothing compared with the pride with which he looked around him,
on this, the proudest moment of his existence. (Cheers.) He was a
humble individual. ('No, no.') Still he could not but feel that they
had selected him for a service of great honour, and of some danger.
Travelling was in a troubled state, and the minds of coachmen were
unsettled. Let them look abroad, and contemplate the scenes which were
enacting around them. Stage coaches were upsetting in all directions,
horses were bolting, boats were overturning, and boilers were bursting.
(Cheers--a voice 'No.') No! (Cheers.) Let that honourable Pickwickian
who cried 'No' so loudly come forward and deny it, if he could.
(Cheers.) Who was it that cried 'No'? (Enthusiastic cheering.) Was it
some vain and disappointed man--he would not say haberdasher--(loud
cheers)--who, jealous of the praise which had been--perhaps
undeservedly--bestowed on his (Mr. Pickwick's) researches, and smarting
under the censure which had been heaped upon his own feeble attempts at
rivalry, now took this vile and calumnious mode of----
"Mr. +Blotton+ (of Aldgate) rose to order. Did the honourable
Pickwickian allude to him? (Cries of 'Order,' 'Chair,' 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Go
on,' 'Leave off,' &c.)
"Mr. +Pickwick+ would not put up to be put down by clamour. He _had_
alluded to the honourable gentleman. (Great excitement.)
"Mr. +Blotton+ would only say then, that he repelled the hon. gent.'s
false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt. (Great
cheering.) The hon. gent. was a humbug. (Immense confusion, and loud
cries of 'Chair' and 'Order.')
"Mr. +A. Snodgrass+ rose to order. He threw himself upon the chair.
(Hear.) He wished to know whether this disgraceful contest between two
members of that club should be allowed to continue. (Hear, hear.)
"The +Chairman+ was quite sure the hon. Pickwickian would withdraw the
expression he had just made use of.
"Mr. +Blotton+, with all possible respect for the chair, was quite sure
he would not.
"The +Chairman+ felt it his imperative duty to demand of the honourable
gentleman, whether he had used the expression which had just escaped
him in a common sense.
"Mr. +Blotton+ had no hesitation in saying that he had not--he had
used the word in its Pickwickian sense. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to
acknowledge that, personally, he entertained the highest regard and
esteem for the honourable gentleman; he had merely considered him a
humbug in a Pickwickian point of view. (Hear, hear.)
"Mr. +Pickwick+ felt much gratified by the fair, candid, and full
explanation of his honourable friend. He begged it to be at once
understood, that his own observations had been merely intended to bear
a Pickwickian construction. (Cheers.)"
Here the entry terminates, as we have no doubt the debate did also,
after arriving at such a highly satisfactory and intelligible point.
We have no official statement of the facts which the reader will find
recorded in the next chapter, but they have been carefully collated
from letters and other MS. authorities, so unquestionably genuine as to
justify their narration in a connected form.
CHAPTER II
[Illustration]
_The First Day's Journey, and the First Evening's Adventures;
with their Consequences_
That punctual servant of all work, the sun, had just risen, and begun
to strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of May, one thousand
eight hundred and twenty-seven, when Mr. Samuel Pickwick burst like
another sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and
looked out upon the world beneath. Goswell Street was at his feet,
Goswell Street was on his right hand--as far as the eye could reach,
Goswell Street extended on his left; and the opposite side of Goswell
Street was over the way. "Such," thought Mr. Pickwick, "are the narrow
views of those philosophers who, content with examining the things
that lie before them, look not to the truths which are hidden beyond.
As well might I be content to gaze on Goswell Street for ever, without
one effort to penetrate to the hidden countries which on every side
surround it." And having given vent to this beautiful reflection, Mr.
Pickwick proceeded to put himself into his clothes, and his clothes
into his portmanteau. Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the
arrangement of their attire; the operation of shaving, dressing, and
coffee-imbibing was soon performed: and in another hour, Mr. Pickwick,
with his portmanteau in his hand, his telescope in his great-coat
pocket, and his note-book in his waistcoat, ready for the reception
of any discoveries worthy of being noted down, had arrived at the
coach-stand in St. Martin's-le-Grand.
"Cab!" said Mr. Pickwick.
"Here you are, sir," shouted a strange specimen of the human race,
in a sackcloth coat, and apron of the same, who with a brass label
and number round his neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some
collection of rarities. This was the waterman. "Here you are, sir.
Now, then, fust cab!" And the first cab having been fetched from the
public-house, where he had been smoking his first pipe, Mr. Pickwick
and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle.
"Golden Cross," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Only a bob's vorth, Tommy," cried the driver, sulkily, for the
information of his friend the waterman, as the cab drove off.
"How old is that horse, my friend?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his
nose with the shilling he had reserved for the fare.
"Forty-two," replied the driver, eyeing him askant.
"What!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand upon his note-book.
The driver reiterated his former statement. Mr. Pickwick looked very
hard at the man's face, but his features were immovable, so he noted
down the fact forthwith.
"And how long do you keep him out at a time?" inquired Mr. Pickwick,
searching for further information.
"Two or three veeks," replied the man.
"Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment--and out came the note-book
again.
"He lives at Pentonwil when he's at home," observed the driver coolly,
"but we seldom takes him home, on account of his veakness."
"On account of his weakness!" reiterated the perplexed Mr. Pickwick.
"He always falls down when he's took out o' the cab," continued the
driver, "but when he's in it, we bears him up wery tight, and takes him
in wery short, so as he can't wery well fall down; and we've got a pair
o' precious large wheels on, so ven he _does_ move, they run after
him, and he must go on--he can't help it."
Mr. Pickwick entered every word of this statement in his note-book,
with the view of communicating it to the club, as a singular instance
of the tenacity of life in horses, under trying circumstances. The
entry was scarcely completed when they reached the Golden Cross. Down
jumped the driver, and out got Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass,
and Mr. Winkle, who had been anxiously waiting the arrival of their
illustrious leader, crowded to welcome him.
[Illustration: _"Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick in astonishment--and out
came the note-book again_]
"Here's your fare," said Mr. Pickwick, holding out the shilling to the
driver.
What was the learned man's astonishment, when that unaccountable person
flung the money on the pavement, and requested in figurative terms to
be allowed the pleasure of fighting him (Mr. Pickwick) for the amount!
"You are mad," said Mr. Snodgrass.
"Or drunk," said Mr. Winkle.
"Or both," said Mr. Tupman.
"Come on!" said the cab-driver, sparring away like clock-work. "Come
on--all four on you."
"Here's a lark!" shouted half-a-dozen hackney coachmen. "Go to vork,
Sam,"--and they crowded with great glee round the party.
"What's the row, Sam?" inquired one gentleman in black calico sleeves.
"Row!" replied the cabman, "what did he want my number for?"
"I didn't want your number," said the astonished Mr. Pickwick.
"What did you take it for, then?" inquired the cabman.
"I didn't take it," said Mr. Pickwick, indignantly.
"Would anybody believe," continued the cab-driver, appealing to the
crowd, "would anybody believe as an informer 'ud go about in a man's
cab, not only takin' down his number, but ev'ry word he says into the
bargain" (a light flashed upon Mr. Pickwick--it was the note-book).
"Did he though?" inquired another cabman.
"Yes, did he," replied the first; "and then arter aggerawatin' me to
assault him, gets three witnesses here to prove it. But I'll give it
him, if I've six months for it. Come on!" and the cabman dashed his hat
upon the ground, with a reckless disregard of his own private property,
and knocked Mr. Pickwick's spectacles off, and followed up the attack
with a blow on Mr. Pickwick's nose, and another on Mr. Pickwick's
chest, and a third in Mr. Snodgrass's eye, and a fourth, by way of
variety, in Mr. Tupman's waistcoat, and then danced into the road, and
then back again to the pavement, and finally dashed the whole temporary
supply of breath out of Mr. Winkle's body; and all in half-a-dozen
seconds.
"Where's an officer?" said Mr. Snodgrass.
"Put 'em under the pump," suggested a hot-pieman.
"You shall smart for this," gasped Mr. Pickwick.
"Informers!" shouted the crowd.
"Come on," cried the cabman, who had been sparring without cessation
the whole time.
The mob had hitherto been passive spectators of the scene, but as
the intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was spread among
them, they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety
of enforcing the heated pastry-vendor's proposition; and there is no
saying what acts of personal aggression they might have committed had
not the affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a
new comer.
[Illustration: _"What's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man_]
"What's the fun?" said a rather tall thin young man, in a green coat,
emerging suddenly from the coach-yard.
"Informers!" shouted the crowd again.
"We are not," roared Mr. Pickwick, in a tone which, to any
dispassionate listener, carried conviction with it.
"Ain't you, though,--ain't you?" said the young man, appealing to
Mr. Pickwick, and making his way through the crowd by the infallible
process of elbowing the countenances of its component members.
That learned man in a few hurried words explained the real state of the
case.
"Come along, then," said he of the green coat, lugging Mr. Pickwick
after him by main force, and talking the whole way. "Here, No. 924,
take your fare, and take yourself off--respectable gentleman--know him
well--none of your nonsense--this way, sir,--where's your friends?--all
a mistake, I see--never mind--accidents will happen--best regulated
families--never say die--down upon your luck--pull him up--put that
in his pipe--like the flavour--damned rascals." And with a lengthened
string of similar broken sentences, delivered with extraordinary
volubility, the stranger led the way to the travellers' waiting-room,
whither he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and his disciples.
"Here, waiter!" shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous
violence, "glasses round,--brandy and water, hot and strong, and
sweet, and plenty,--eye damaged, sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the
gentleman's eye,--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir;
cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd
standing in the open street half-an-hour, with your eye against a
lamp-post--eh,--very good,--ha! ha!" And the stranger, without stopping
to take breath, swallowed at a draught full half-a-pint of the reeking
brandy and water, and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as
if nothing uncommon had occurred.
While his three companions were busily engaged in proffering their
thanks to their new acquaintance, Mr. Pickwick had leisure to examine
his costume and appearance.
He was about the middle height, but the thinness of his body, and the
length of his legs, gave him the appearance of being much taller.
The green coat had been a smart dress garment in the days of
swallow-tails, but had evidently in those times adorned a much shorter
man than the stranger, for the soiled and faded sleeves scarcely
reached to his wrists. It was buttoned closely up to his chin, at
the imminent hazard of splitting the back; and an old stock, without
a vestige of shirt collar, ornamented his neck. His scanty black
trousers displayed here and there those shiny patches which bespeak
long service, and were strapped very tightly over a pair of patched
and mended shoes, as if to conceal the dirty white stockings, which
were nevertheless distinctly visible. His long black hair escaped in
negligent waves from beneath each side of his old pinched-up hat;
and glimpses of his bare wrists might be observed between the tops
of his gloves and the cuffs of his coat sleeves. His face was thin
and haggard; but an indescribable air of jaunty impudence and perfect
self-possession pervaded the whole man.
Such was the individual on whom Mr. Pickwick gazed through his
spectacles (which he had fortunately recovered), and to whom he
proceeded, when his friends had exhausted themselves, to return in
chosen terms his warmest thanks for his recent assistance.
"Never mind," said the stranger, cutting the address very short, "said
enough,--no more; smart chap that cabman--handled his fives well;
but if I'd been your friend in the green jemmy--damn me--punch his
head,--'cod I would,--pig's whisper--pieman too,--no gammon."
This coherent speech was interrupted by the entrance of the Rochester
coachman, to announce that "The Commodore" was on the point of starting.
"Commodore!" said the stranger, starting up, "my coach,--place
booked,--one outside--leave you to pay for the brandy and water,--want
change for a five,--bad silver--Brummagem buttons--won't do--no
go--eh?" and he shook his head most knowingly.
Now it so happened that Mr. Pickwick and his three companions had
resolved to make Rochester their first halting-place too; and having
intimated to their new-found acquaintance that they were journeying to
the same city, they agreed to occupy the seat at the back of the coach,
where they could all sit together.
"Up with you," said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof
with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman's
deportment very materially.
"Any luggage, sir?" inquired the coachman.
"Who--I? Brown paper parcel here, that's all,--other luggage gone by
water,--packing cases, nailed up--big as houses--heavy, heavy, damned
heavy," replied the stranger, as he forced into his pocket as much as
he could of the brown paper parcel, which presented most suspicious
indications of containing one shirt and a handkerchief.
"Heads, heads--take care of your heads!" cried the loquacious stranger,
as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the
entrance to the coach-yard. "Terrible place--dangerous work--other
day--five children--mother--tall lady eating sandwiches--forgot the
arch--crash--knock--children look round--mother's head off--sandwich
in her hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off,
shocking, shocking! Looking at Whitehall, sir?--fine place--little
window--somebody else's head off there, eh, sir?--he didn't keep a
sharp look-out enough either--eh, sir, eh?"
"I am ruminating," said Mr. Pickwick, "on the strange mutability of
human affairs."
"Ah! I see--in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next.
Philosopher, sir?"
"An observer of human nature, sir," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Ah, so am I. Most people are when they've little to do and less to
get. Poet, sir?"
"My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a strong poetic turn," said Mr. Pickwick.
"So have I," said the stranger. "Epic poem,--ten thousand
lines--revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo
by night,--bang the field-piece, twang the lyre."
"You were present at that glorious scene, sir?" said Mr. Snodgrass.
"Present! think I was;[3] fired a musket,--fired with an idea,--rushed
into wine shop--wrote it down--back again--whiz, bang--another
idea--wine shop again--pen and ink--back again--cut and slash--noble
time, sir. Sportsman, sir?" abruptly turning to Mr. Winkle.
[3] A remarkable instance of the prophetic force of Mr.
Jingle's imagination, this dialogue occurring in the year
1827, and the Revolution in 1830.
"A little, sir," replied that gentleman.
"Fine pursuit, sir,--fine pursuit.--Dogs, sir?"
"Not just now," said Mr. Winkle.
"Ah! you should keep dogs--fine animals--sagacious creatures--dog of my
own once--Pointer--surprising instinct--out shooting one day--entering
enclosure--whistled--dog stopped--whistled again--Ponto--no go; stock
still--called him--Ponto, Ponto--wouldn't move--dog transfixed--staring
at a board--looked up, saw an inscription--'Gamekeeper has orders to
shoot all dogs found in this enclosure'--wouldn't pass it--wonderful
dog--valuable dog that--very."
"Singular circumstance that," said Mr. Pickwick. "Will you allow me to
make a note of it?"
"Certainly, sir, certainly--hundred more anecdotes of the same
animal.--Fine girl, sir" (to Mr. Tracy Tupman, who had been bestowing
sundry anti-Pickwickian glances on a young lady by the roadside).
"Very!" said Mr. Tupman.
"English girls not so fine as Spanish--noble creatures--jet hair--black
eyes--lovely forms--sweet creatures--beautiful."
"You have been in Spain, sir?" said Mr. Tracy Tupman.
"Lived there--ages."
"Many conquests, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman.
"Conquests! Thousands. Don Bolaro Fizzgig--Grandee--only
daughter--Donna Christina--splendid creature--loved me to
distraction--jealous father--high-souled daughter--handsome
Englishman--Donna Christina in despair--prussic acid--stomach pump in
my portmanteau--operation performed--old Bolaro in ecstasies--consent
to our union--join hands and floods of tears--romantic story--very."
"Is the lady in England now, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman, on whom the
description of her charms had produced a powerful impression.
"Dead, sir--dead," said the stranger, applying to his right eye the
brief remnant of a very old cambric handkerchief. "Never recovered the
stomach pump--undermined constitution--fell a victim."
"And her father?" inquired the poetic Snodgrass.
"Remorse and misery," replied the stranger. "Sudden disappearance--talk
of the whole city--search made everywhere--without success--public
fountain in the great square suddenly ceased playing--weeks
elapsed--still a stoppage--workman employed to clean it--water drawn
off--father-in-law discovered sticking head first in the main pipe,
with a full confession in his right boot--took him out, and the
fountain played away again, as well as ever."
"Will you allow me to note that little romance down, sir?" said Mr.
Snodgrass, deeply affected.
"Certainly, sir, certainly,--fifty more if you like to hear
'em--strange life mine--rather curious history--not extraordinary, but
singular."
In this strain, with an occasional glass of ale, by way of parenthesis,
when the coach changed horses, did the stranger proceed, until they
reached Rochester bridge, by which time the note-books, both of Mr.
Pickwick and Mr. Snodgrass, were completely filled with selections from
his adventures.
"Magnificent ruin!" said Mr. Augustus Snodgrass, with all the poetic
fervour that distinguished him, when they came in sight of the fine old
castle.
"What a study for an antiquarian!" were the very words which fell from
Mr. Pickwick's mouth, as he applied his telescope to his eye.
"Ah! fine place," said the stranger, "glorious pile--frowning
walls--tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases--Old
cathedral too--earthy smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old
steps--little Saxon doors--confessionals like money-takers' boxes at
theatres--queer customers those monks--Popes, and Lord Treasurers,
and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses,
turning up every day--buff jerkins too--matchlocks--Sarcophagus--fine
place--old legends too--strange stories: capital;" and the stranger
continued to soliloquise until they reached the Bull Inn, in the High
Street, where the coach stopped.
"Do you remain here, sir?" inquired Mr. Nathaniel Winkle.
"Here--not I--but you'd better--good house--nice beds--Wright's next
house, dear--very dear--half-a-crown in the bill if you look at the
waiter--charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they would if
you dined in the coffee-room--rum fellows--very."
Mr. Winkle turned to Mr. Pickwick, and murmured a few words; a whisper
passed from Mr. Pickwick to Mr. Snodgrass, from Mr. Snodgrass to Mr.
Tupman, and nods of assent were exchanged. Mr. Pickwick addressed the
stranger.
"You rendered us a very important service this morning, sir," said he,
"will you allow us to offer a slight mark of our gratitude by begging
the favour of your company at dinner?"
"Great pleasure--not presume to dictate, but broiled fowl and
mushrooms--capital thing! what time?"
"Let me see," replied Mr. Pickwick, referring to his watch, "it is now
nearly three. Shall we say five?"
"Suit me excellently," said the stranger, "five precisely--till
then--care of yourselves;" and lifting the pinched-up hat a few inches
from his head, and carelessly replacing it very much on one side, the
stranger, with half the brown paper parcel sticking out of his pocket,
walked briskly up the yard, and turned into the High Street.
"Evidently a traveller in many countries, and a close observer of men
and things," said Mr. Pickwick.
"I should like to see his poem," said Mr. Snodgrass.
"I should like to have seen that dog," said Mr. Winkle.
Mr. Tupman said nothing; but he thought of Donna Christina, the stomach
pump, and the fountain; and his eyes filled with tears.
A private sitting-room having been engaged, bed-rooms inspected, and
dinner ordered, the party walked out to view the city and adjoining
neighbourhood.
We do not find, from a careful perusal of Mr. Pickwick's notes on
the four towns, Stroud, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton, that his
impressions of their appearance differ in any material point from
those of other travellers who have gone over the same ground. His
general description is easily abridged.
"The principal productions of these towns," says Mr. Pickwick, "appear
to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard
men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are
marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. The streets
present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the
conviviality of the military. It is truly delightful to a philanthropic
mind, to see these gallant men staggering along under the influence of
an overflow, both of animal and ardent spirits; more especially when we
remember that the following them about, and jesting with them, affords
a cheap and innocent amusement for the boy population. Nothing (adds
Mr. Pickwick) can exceed their good humour. It was but the day before
my arrival that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house
of a publican. The bar-maid had positively refused to draw him any more
liquor; in return for which he had (merely in playfulness) drawn his
bayonet, and wounded the girl in the shoulder. And yet this fine fellow
was the very first to go down to the house next morning, and express
his readiness to overlook the matter, and forget what had occurred.
"The consumption of tobacco in these towns (continues Mr. Pickwick)
must be very great: and the smell which pervades the streets must be
exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. A
superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading
characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traffic
and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying."
Punctual to five o'clock came the stranger, and shortly afterwards the
dinner. He had divested himself of his brown paper parcel, but had made
no alteration in his attire, and was, if possible, more loquacious than
ever.
"What's that?" he inquired, as the waiter removed one of the covers.
"Soles, sir."
"Soles--ah!--capital fish--all come from London--stage-coach
proprietors get up political dinners--carriage of soles--dozens of
baskets--cunning fellows. Glass of wine, sir?"
"With pleasure," said Mr. Pickwick, and the stranger took wine, first
with him, and then with Mr. Snodgrass, and then with Mr. Tupman, and
then with Mr. Winkle, and then with the whole party together, almost as
rapidly as he talked.
"Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter," said the stranger. "Forms
going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, glasses, harps. What's going
forward?"
"Ball, sir," said the waiter.
"Assembly, eh?"
"No, sir, not Assembly, sir. Ball for the benefit of a charity, sir."
"Many fine women in this town, do you know, sir?" inquired Mr. Tupman,
with great interest.
"Splendid--capital. Kent, sir--everybody knows Kent--apples, cherries,
hops, and women. Glass of wine, sir?"
"With great pleasure," replied Mr. Tupman. The stranger filled, and
emptied.
"I should very much like to go," said Mr. Tupman, resuming the subject
of the ball, "very much."
"Tickets at the bar, sir," interposed the waiter; "half a guinea each,
sir."
Mr. Tupman again expressed an earnest wish to be present at the
festivity, but meeting with no response in the darkened eye of Mr.
Snodgrass, or the abstracted gaze of Mr. Pickwick, he applied himself
with great interest to the port wine and dessert, which had just been
placed on the table. The waiter withdrew, and the party were left to
enjoy the cosy couple of hours succeeding dinner.
"Beg your pardon, sir," said the stranger, "bottle stands--pass it
round--way of the sun--through the button-hole--no heeltaps," and he
emptied his glass, which he had filled about two minutes before, and
poured out another, with the air of a man who was used to it.
The wine was passed, and a fresh supply ordered. The visitor talked,
the Pickwickians listened. Mr. Tupman felt every moment more disposed
for the ball. Mr. Pickwick's countenance glowed with an expression of
universal philanthropy, and Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass fell fast
asleep.
"They're beginning up-stairs," said the stranger--"hear the
company--fiddles tuning--now the harp--there they go." The various
sounds which found their way down-stairs announced the commencement of
the first quadrille.
"How I should like to go," said Mr. Tupman again.
"So should I," said the stranger,--"confounded luggage--heavy
smacks--nothing to go in--odd, an't it?"
Now general benevolence was one of the leading features of the
Pickwickian theory, and no one was more remarkable for the zealous
manner in which he observed so noble a principle than Mr. Tracy Tupman.
The number of instances recorded on the Transactions of the Society,
in which that excellent man referred objects of charity to the houses
of other members for left-off garments, or pecuniary relief, is almost
incredible.
"I should be very happy to lend you a change of apparel for the
purpose," said Mr. Tracy Tupman, "but you are rather slim, and I am----"
"Rather fat--grown up Bacchus--cut the leaves--dismounted from the tub,
and adopted kersey, eh?--not double distilled, but double milled--ha!
ha! pass the wine."
Whether Mr. Tupman was somewhat indignant at the peremptory tone in
which he was desired to pass the wine which the stranger passed so
quickly away, or whether he felt very properly scandalised at an
influential member of the Pickwick Club being ignominiously compared
to a dismounted Bacchus, is a fact not yet completely ascertained. He
passed the wine, coughed twice, and looked at the stranger for several
seconds with a stern intensity; as that individual, however, appeared
perfectly collected, and quite calm under his searching glance, he
gradually relaxed, and reverted to the subject of the ball.
"I was about to observe, sir," he said, "that though my apparel would
be too large, a suit of my friend Mr. Winkle's would perhaps fit you
better."
The stranger took Mr. Winkle's measure with his eye, and that feature
glistened with satisfaction as he said--"Just the thing."
Mr. Tupman looked round him. The wine, which had exerted its
somniferous influence over Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle, had stolen
upon the senses of Mr. Pickwick. That gentleman had gradually passed
through the various stages which precede the lethargy produced by
dinner, and its consequences. He had undergone the ordinary transitions
from the height of conviviality to the depth of misery, and from the
depth of misery to the height of conviviality. Like a gas lamp in the
street, with the wind in the pipe, he had exhibited for a moment an
unnatural brilliancy: then sunk so low as to be scarcely discernible:
after a short interval he had burst out again, to enlighten for a
moment, then flickered with an uncertain, staggering sort of light,
and then gone out altogether. His head was sunk upon his bosom, and
perpetual snoring, with a partial choke occasionally, were the only
audible indications of the great man's presence.
The temptation to be present at the ball, and to form his first
impressions of the beauty of the Kentish ladies, was strong upon Mr.
Tupman. The temptation to take the stranger with him was equally great.
He was wholly unacquainted with the place and its inhabitants, and the
stranger seemed to possess as great a knowledge of both as if he had
lived there from his infancy. Mr. Winkle was asleep, and Mr. Tupman
had had sufficient experience in such matters to know that the moment
he awoke he would, in the ordinary course of nature, roll heavily to
bed. He was undecided. "Fill your glass, and pass the wine," said the
indefatigable visitor.
Mr. Tupman did as he was requested, and the additional stimulus of the
last glass settled his determination.
"Winkle's bedroom is inside mine," said Mr. Tupman; "I couldn't make
him understand what I wanted if I woke him now, but I know he has a
dress suit in a carpet bag, and supposing you wore it to the ball, and
took it off when we returned, I could replace it without troubling him
at all about the matter."
"Capital," said the stranger, "famous plan--damned odd
situation--fourteen coats in the packing cases, and obliged to wear
another man's--very good notion, that--very."
"We must purchase our tickets," said Mr. Tupman.
"Not worth while splitting a guinea," said the stranger, "toss who shall
pay for both--I call; you spin--first time--woman--woman--bewitching
woman," and down came the sovereign, with the Dragon (called by courtesy
a woman) uppermost.
Mr. Tupman rang the bell, purchased the tickets, and ordered chamber
candlesticks. In another quarter of an hour the stranger was completely
arrayed in a full suit of Mr. Nathaniel Winkle's.
"It's a new coat," said Mr. Tupman, as the stranger surveyed himself
with great complacency in a cheval glass, "the first that's been made
with our club button," and he called his companion's attention to the
large gilt button which displayed a bust of Mr. Pickwick in the centre,
and the letters "P. C." on either side.
"P. C.," said the stranger--"queer set out--old fellow's likeness, and
'P. C.'--What does 'P. C.' stand for--Peculiar Coat, eh?"
Mr. Tupman, with rising indignation and great importance, explained the
mystic device.
"Rather short in the waist, an't it," said the stranger, screwing
himself round to catch a glimpse in the glass of the waist buttons,
which were half way up his back. "Like a general postman's coat--queer
coats those--made by contract--no measuring--mysterious dispensations
of Providence--all the short men get long coats--all the long men short
ones." Running on in this way, Mr. Tupman's new companion adjusted
his dress, or rather the dress of Mr. Winkle; and, accompanied by Mr.
Tupman, ascended the staircase leading to the ball-room.
"What names, sir?" said the man at the door. Mr. Tracy Tupman was
stepping forward to announce his own titles, when the stranger
prevented him.
"No names at all;" and then he whispered Mr. Tupman, "Names
won't do--not known--very good names in their way, but not
great ones--capital names for a small party, but won't make an
impression in public assemblies--_incog._ the thing--Gentlemen from
London--distinguished foreigners--anything." The door was thrown open;
and Mr. Tracy Tupman and the stranger entered the ball-room.
It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in
glass chandeliers. The musicians were securely confined in an elevated
den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or
three sets of dancers. Two card-tables were made up in the adjoining
card-room, and two pair of old ladies, and a corresponding number of
stout gentlemen, were executing whist therein.
The finale concluded, the dancers promenaded the room, and Mr. Tupman
and his companion stationed themselves in a corner to observe the
company.
"Charming women," said Mr. Tupman.
"Wait a minute," said the stranger, "fun presently--nobs not come
yet--queer place--Dock-yard people of upper rank don't know Dock-yard
people of lower rank--Dock-yard people of lower rank don't know small
gentry--small gentry don't know tradespeople--Commissioner don't know
anybody."
"Who's that little boy with the light hair and pink eyes, in a fancy
dress?" inquired Mr. Tupman.
"Hush, pray--pink eyes--fancy dress--little boy--nonsense--Ensign
97th--Honourable Wilmot Snipe--great family--Snipes--very."
"Sir Thomas Clubber, Lady Clubber, and the Miss Clubbers!" shouted the
man at the door in a stentorian voice. A great sensation was created
throughout the room by the entrance of a tall gentleman in a blue coat
and bright buttons, a large lady in blue satin, and two young ladies,
on a similar scale, in fashionably-made dresses of the same hue.
"Commissioner--head of the yard--great man--remarkably great man,"
whispered the stranger in Mr. Tupman's ear, as the charitable committee
ushered Sir Thomas Clubber and family to the top of the room. The
Honourable Wilmot Snipe and other distinguished gentlemen crowded to
render homage to the Miss Clubbers; and Sir Thomas Clubber stood bolt
upright, and looked majestically over his black neckerchief at the
assembled company.
"Mr. Smithie, Mrs. Smithie, and the Misses Smithie," was the next
announcement.
"What's Mr. Smithie?" inquired Mr. Tracy Tupman.
"Something in the yard," replied the stranger. Mr. Smithie bowed
deferentially to Sir Thomas Clubber, and Sir Thomas Clubber
acknowledged the salute with conscious condescension. Lady Clubber took
a telescopic view of Mrs. Smithie and family through her eye-glass,
and Mrs. Smithie stared in her turn at Mrs. Somebody else, whose
husband was not in the Dock-yard at all.
"Colonel Bulder, Mrs. Colonel Bulder, and Miss Bulder," were the next
arrivals.
"Head of the Garrison," said the stranger, in reply to Mr. Tupman's
inquiring look.
Miss Bulder was warmly welcomed by the Miss Clubbers; the greeting
between Mrs. Colonel Bulder and Lady Clubber was of the most
affectionate description; Colonel Bulder and Sir Thomas Clubber
exchanged snuff-boxes, and looked very much like a pair of Alexander
Selkirks--"Monarchs of all they surveyed."
While the aristocracy of the place--the Bulders, and Clubbers, and
Snipes--were thus preserving their dignity at the upper end of the
room, the other classes of society were imitating their example in
other parts of it. The less aristocratic officers of the 97th devoted
themselves to the families of the less important functionaries from
the Dock-yard. The solicitors' wives and the wine-merchant's wife
headed another grade (the brewer's wife visited the Bulders); and Mrs.
Tomlinson, the post-office keeper, seemed by mutual consent to have
been chosen the leader of the trade party.
One of the most popular personages in his own circle present was a
little fat man, with a ring of upright black hair round his head, and
an extensive bald plain on the top of it--Doctor Slammer, surgeon to
the 97th. The Doctor took snuff with everybody, chatted with everybody,
laughed, danced, made jokes, played whist, did everything, and was
everywhere. To these pursuits, multifarious as they were, the little
Doctor added a more important one than any--he was indefatigable in
paying the most unremitting and devoted attention to a little old
widow, whose rich dress and profusion of ornament bespoke her a most
desirable addition to a limited income.
Upon the Doctor, and the widow, the eyes of both Mr. Tupman and his
companion had been fixed for some time, when the stranger broke silence.
"Lots of money--old girl--pompous Doctor--not a bad idea--good fun,"
were the intelligible sentences which issued from his lips. Mr. Tupman
looked inquisitively in his face.
"I'll dance with the widow," said the stranger.
"Who is she?" inquired Mr. Tupman.
"Don't know--never saw her in all my life--cut out the Doctor--here
goes." And the stranger forthwith crossed the room; and, leaning
against a mantelpiece, commenced gazing with an air of respectful and
melancholy admiration on the fat countenance of the little old lady.
Mr. Tupman looked on, in mute astonishment. The stranger progressed
rapidly; the little Doctor danced with another lady; the widow dropped
her fan, the stranger picked it up, and presented it,--a smile--a
bow--a curtsey--a few words of conversation. The stranger walked
boldly up to, and returned with, the master of ceremonies; a little
introductory pantomime; and the stranger and Mrs. Budger took their
places in a quadrille.
The surprise of Mr. Tupman at this summary proceeding, great as it
was, was immeasurably exceeded by the astonishment of the Doctor.
The stranger was young, and the widow was flattered. The Doctor's
attentions were unheeded by the widow; and the Doctor's indignation was
wholly lost on his imperturbable rival. Doctor Slammer was paralysed.
He, Doctor Slammer, of the 97th, to be extinguished in a moment, by a
man whom nobody had ever seen before, and whom nobody knew even now!
Doctor Slammer--Doctor Slammer of the 97th rejected! Impossible! It
could not be! Yes, it was; there they were. What! introducing his
friend! Could he believe his eyes! He looked again, and was under
the painful necessity of admitting the veracity of his optics; Mrs.
Budger was dancing with Mr. Tracy Tupman, there was no mistaking the
fact. There was the widow before him, bouncing bodily, here and there,
with unwonted vigour; and Mr. Tracy Tupman hopping about, with a face
expressive of the most intense solemnity, dancing (as a good many
people do) as if a quadrille were not a thing to be laughed at, but a
severe trial to the feelings, which it requires inflexible resolution
to encounter.
Silently and patiently did the Doctor bear all this, and all the
handings of negus, and watching for glasses, and darting for biscuits,
and coquetting, that ensued; but, a few seconds after the stranger had
disappeared to lead Mrs. Budger to her carriage, he darted swiftly from
the room with every particle of his hitherto-bottled-up indignation
effervescing, from all parts of his countenance, in a perspiration of
passion.
The stranger was returning, and Mr. Tupman was beside him. He spoke in
a low tone and laughed. The little Doctor thirsted for his life. He was
exulting. He had triumphed.
"Sir!" said the Doctor, in an awful voice, producing a card, and
retiring into an angle of the passage, "my name is Slammer, Doctor
Slammer, sir--97th Regiment--Chatham Barracks--my card, sir, my card."
He would have added more, but his indignation choked him.
"Ah!" replied the stranger, coolly, "Slammer--much obliged--polite
attention--not ill now, Slammer--but when I am--knock you up."
"You--you're a shuffler! sir," gasped the furious Doctor, "a
poltroon--a coward--a liar--a--a--will nothing induce you to give me
your card, sir!"
"Oh! I see," said the stranger, half aside, "negus too strong
here--liberal landlord--very foolish--very--lemonade much better--hot
rooms--elderly gentlemen--suffer for it in the morning--cruel--cruel;"
and he moved on a step or two.
"You are stopping in this house, sir," said the indignant little man;
"you are intoxicated now, sir; you shall hear from me in the morning,
sir. I shall find you out, sir; I shall find you out."
"Rather you found me out than found me at home," replied the unmoved
stranger.
Doctor Slammer looked unutterable ferocity, as he fixed his hat on his
head with an indignant knock; and the stranger and Mr. Tupman ascended
to the bed-room of the latter to restore the borrowed plumage to the
unconscious Winkle.
That gentleman was fast asleep; the restoration was soon made. The
stranger was extremely jocose; and Mr. Tracy Tupman, being quite
bewildered with wine, negus, lights, and ladies, thought the whole
affair an exquisite joke. His new friend departed; and, after
experiencing some slight difficulty in finding the orifice in his
night-cap, originally intended for the reception of his head, and
finally overturning his candlestick in his struggles to put it on,
Mr. Tracy Tupman managed to get into bed by a series of complicated
evolutions, and shortly afterwards sank into repose.
Seven o'clock had hardly ceased striking on the following morning
when Mr. Pickwick's comprehensive mind was aroused from the state of
unconsciousness in which slumber had plunged it, by a loud knocking at
his chamber door.
"Who's there?" said Mr. Pickwick, starting up in bed.
"Boots, sir."
"What do you want?"
"Please, sir, can you tell me which gentleman of your party wears a
bright blue dress coat, with a gilt button with P. C. on it?"
"It's been given out to brush," thought Mr. Pickwick, "and the man has
forgotten whom it belongs to. Mr. Winkle," he called out, "next room
but two, on the right hand."
"Thank'ee, sir," said the Boots, and away he went.
"What's the matter?" cried Mr. Tupman, as a loud knocking at _his_ door
aroused _him_ from his oblivious repose.
"Can I speak to Mr. Winkle, sir?" replied the Boots from the outside.
"Winkle--Winkle!" shouted Mr. Tupman, calling into the inner room.
"Hallo!" replied a faint voice from within the bed-clothes.
"You're wanted--some one at the door--" and having exerted himself
to articulate thus much, Mr. Tracy Tupman turned round and fell fast
asleep again.
"Wanted!" said Mr. Winkle, hastily jumping out of bed, and putting on a
few articles of clothing; "wanted! at this distance from town--who on
earth can want me?"
"Gentleman in the coffee-room, sir," replied the Boots, as Mr. Winkle
opened the door and confronted him; "gentleman says he'll not detain
you a moment, sir, but he can take no denial."
"Very odd!" said Mr. Winkle; "I'll be down directly."
He hurriedly wrapped himself in a travelling-shawl and dressing-gown,
and proceeded down-stairs. An old woman and a couple of waiters were
cleaning the coffee-room, and an officer in undress uniform was looking
out of the window. He turned round as Mr. Winkle entered, and made
a stiff inclination of the head. Having ordered the attendants to
retire, and closed the door very carefully, he said, "Mr. Winkle, I
presume?"
"My name _is_ Winkle, sir."
[Illustration: "_My name is Winkle, sir_"]
"You will not be surprised, sir, when I inform you that I have
called here this morning on behalf of my friend, Dr. Slammer, of the
Ninety-seventh."
"Doctor Slammer!" said Mr. Winkle.
"Dr. Slammer. He begged me to express his opinion that your conduct of
last evening was of a description which no gentleman could endure: and
(he added) which no one gentleman would pursue towards another."
Mr. Winkle's astonishment was too real, and too evident, to escape
the observation of Dr. Slammer's friend; he therefore proceeded--"My
friend, Doctor Slammer, requested me to add, that he was firmly
persuaded you were intoxicated during a portion of the evening, and
possibly unconscious of the extent of the insult you were guilty of.
He commissioned me to say, that should this be pleaded as an excuse
for your behaviour, he will consent to accept a written apology, to be
penned by you, from my dictation."
"A written apology!" repeated Mr. Winkle, in the most emphatic tone of
amazement possible.
"Of course you know the alternative," replied the visitor coolly.
"Were you entrusted with this message to me by name?" inquired Mr.
Winkle, whose intellects were hopelessly confused by this extraordinary
conversation.
"I was not present myself," replied the visitor, "and in consequence of
your firm refusal to give your card to Doctor Slammer, I was desired by
that gentleman to identify the wearer of a very uncommon coat--a bright
blue dress coat, with a gilt button displaying a bust, and the letters
'P. C.'"
Mr. Winkle actually staggered with astonishment as he heard his
own costume thus minutely described. Doctor Slammer's friend
proceeded--"From the inquiries I made at the bar, just now, I was
convinced that the owner of the coat in question arrived here, with
three gentlemen, yesterday afternoon. I immediately sent up to the
gentleman who was described as appearing the head of the party, and he
at once referred me to you."
If the principal tower of Rochester Castle had suddenly walked from its
foundation, and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window, Mr.
Winkle's surprise would have been as nothing compared with the profound
astonishment with which he had heard this address. His first impression
was, that his coat had been stolen. "Will you allow me to detain you
one moment?" said he.
"Certainly," replied the unwelcome visitor.
Mr. Winkle ran hastily up-stairs, and with a trembling hand opened the
bag. There was the coat in its usual place, but exhibiting, on a close
inspection, evident tokens of having been worn on the preceding night.
"It must be so," said Mr. Winkle, letting the coat fall from his hands.
"I took too much wine after dinner, and have a very vague recollection
of walking about the streets and smoking a cigar afterwards. The fact
is, I was very drunk;--I must have changed my coat--gone somewhere--and
insulted somebody--I have no doubt of it; and this message is the
terrible consequence." Saying which, Mr. Winkle retraced his steps in
the direction of the coffee-room, with the gloomy and dreadful resolve
of accepting the challenge of the warlike Dr. Slammer, and abiding by
the worst consequences that might ensue.
To this determination Mr. Winkle was urged by a variety of
considerations, the first of which was, his reputation with the club.
He had always been looked up to as a high authority on all matters of
amusement and dexterity, whether offensive, defensive, or inoffensive;
and if, on this very first occasion of being put to the test, he
shrunk back from the trial, beneath his leader's eye, his name and
standing were lost for ever. Besides, he remembered to have heard it
frequently surmised by the uninitiated in such matters that by an
understood arrangement between the seconds, the pistols were seldom
loaded with ball; and, furthermore, he reflected that if he applied to
Mr. Snodgrass to act as his second, and depicted the danger in glowing
terms, that gentleman might possibly communicate the intelligence to
Mr. Pickwick, who would certainly lose no time in transmitting it to
the local authorities, and thus prevent the killing or maiming of his
follower.
Such were his thoughts when he returned to the coffee-room, and
intimated his intention of accepting the Doctor's challenge.
"Will you refer me to a friend, to arrange the time and place of
meeting?" said the officer.
"Quite unnecessary," replied Mr. Winkle; "name them to me, and I can
procure the attendance of a friend afterwards."
"Shall we say--sunset this evening?" inquired the officer, in a
careless tone.
"Very good," replied Mr. Winkle, thinking in his heart it was very bad.
"You know Fort Pitt?"
"Yes; I saw it yesterday."
"If you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the
trench, take the foot-path to the left when you arrive at an angle
of the fortification, and keep straight on, till you see me, I will
precede you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted
without fear of interruption."
"_Fear_ of interruption!" thought Mr. Winkle.
"Nothing more to arrange, I think," said the officer.
"I am not aware of anything more," replied Mr. Winkle.
"Good morning."
"Good morning:" and the officer whistled a lively air as he strode away.
That morning's breakfast passed heavily off. Mr. Tupman was not in
a condition to rise, after the unwonted dissipation of the previous
night; Mr. Snodgrass appeared to labour under a poetical depression of
spirits; and even Mr. Pickwick evinced an unusual attachment to silence
and soda-water. Mr. Winkle eagerly watched his opportunity; it was not
long wanting. Mr. Snodgrass proposed a visit to the castle, and as Mr.
Winkle was the only other member of the party disposed to walk, they
went out together.
"Snodgrass," said Mr. Winkle, when they had turned out of the public
street, "Snodgrass, my dear fellow, can I rely upon your secrecy?" As
he said this, he most devoutly and earnestly hoped he could not.
"You can," replied Mr. Snodgrass. "Hear me swear----"
"No, no," interrupted Winkle, terrified at the idea of his companion's
unconsciously pledging himself not to give information; "don't swear,
don't swear; it's quite unnecessary."
Mr. Snodgrass dropped the hand which he had, in the spirit of poesy,
raised towards the clouds as he made the above appeal, and assumed an
attitude of attention.
"I want your assistance, my dear fellow, in an affair of honour," said
Mr. Winkle.
"You shall have it," replied Mr. Snodgrass, clasping his friend's hand.
"With a Doctor--Doctor Slammer, of the Ninety-seventh," said Mr.
Winkle, wishing to make the matter appear as solemn as possible; "an
affair with an officer, seconded by another officer, at sunset this
evening, in a lonely field beyond Fort Pitt."
"I will attend you," said Mr. Snodgrass.
He was astonished, but by no means dismayed. It is extraordinary how
cool any party but the principal can be in such cases. Mr. Winkle had
forgotten this. He had judged of his friend's feelings by his own.
"The consequences may be dreadful," said Mr. Winkle.
"I hope not," said Mr. Snodgrass.
"The Doctor, I believe, is a very good shot," said Mr. Winkle.
"Most of these military men are," observed Mr. Snodgrass, calmly; "but
so are you, an't you?"
Mr. Winkle replied in the affirmative; and perceiving that he had not
alarmed his companion sufficiently, changed his ground.
"Snodgrass," he said, in a voice tremulous with emotion, "if I fall,
you will find in a packet which I shall place in your hands a note for
my--for my father."
This attack was a failure also. Mr. Snodgrass was affected, but he
undertook the delivery of the note as readily as if he had been a
Twopenny Postman.
"If I fall," said Mr. Winkle, "or if the Doctor falls, you, my dear
friend, will be tried as an accessory before the fact. Shall I involve
my friend in transportation--possibly for life!"
Mr. Snodgrass winced a little at this, but his heroism was invincible.
"In the cause of friendship," he fervently exclaimed, "I would brave
all dangers."
How Mr. Winkle cursed his companion's devoted friendship internally,
as they walked silently along, side by side, for some minutes, each
immersed in his own meditations! The morning was wearing away; he grew
desperate.
"Snodgrass," he said, stopping suddenly, "do _not_ let me be baulked
in this matter--do _not_ give information to the local authorities--do
_not_ obtain the assistance of several peace officers, to take either
me or Doctor Slammer, of the Ninety-seventh Regiment, at present
quartered in Chatham Barracks, into custody, and thus prevent this
duel;--I say, do _not_."
Mr. Snodgrass seized his friend's hand warmly, as he enthusiastically
replied, "Not for worlds!"
A thrill passed over Mr. Winkle's frame as the conviction that he had
nothing to hope from his friend's fears, and that he was destined to
become an animated target, rushed forcibly upon him.
The state of the case having been formally explained to Mr.
Snodgrass, and a case of satisfaction pistols, with the satisfactory
accompaniments of powder, ball, and caps, having been hired from a
manufacturer in Rochester, the two friends returned to their inn; Mr.
Winkle to ruminate on the approaching struggle, and Mr. Snodgrass
to arrange the weapons of war, and put them into proper order for
immediate use.
It was a dull and heavy evening when they again sallied forth on their
awkward errand. Mr. Winkle was muffled up in a huge cloak to escape
observation, and Mr. Snodgrass bore under his the instruments of
destruction.
"Have you got everything?" said Mr. Winkle, in an agitated tone.
"Everything," replied Mr. Snodgrass; "plenty of ammunition, in case the
shots don't take effect. There's a quarter of a pound of powder in the
case, and I have got two newspapers in my pocket for the loadings."
These were instances of friendship for which any man might reasonably
feel most grateful. The presumption is, that the gratitude of Mr.
Winkle was too powerful for utterance, as he said nothing, but
continued to walk on--rather slowly.
"We are in excellent time," said Mr. Snodgrass, as they climbed the
fence of the first field; "the sun is just going down." Mr. Winkle
looked up at the declining orb and painfully thought of the probability
of his "going down" himself, before long.
"There's the officer," exclaimed Mr. Winkle, after a few minutes'
walking.
"Where?" said Mr. Snodgrass.
"There;--the gentleman in the blue cloak." Mr. Snodgrass looked in
the direction indicated by the forefinger of his friend, and observed
a figure, muffled up, as he had described. The officer evinced his
consciousness of their presence by slightly beckoning with his hand;
and the two friends followed him at a little distance, as he walked
away.
The evening grew more dull every moment, and a melancholy wind sounded
through the deserted fields, like a distant giant whistling for his
house-dog. The sadness of the scene imparted a sombre tinge to the
feelings of Mr. Winkle. He started as they passed the angle of the
trench--it looked like a colossal grave.
The officer turned suddenly from the path, and after climbing a
paling, and scaling a hedge, entered a secluded field. Two gentlemen
were waiting in it; one was a little fat man, with black hair; and
the other--a portly personage in a braided surtout--was sitting with
perfect equanimity on a camp-stool.
"The other party, and a surgeon, I suppose," said Mr. Snodgrass; "take
a drop of brandy." Mr. Winkle seized the wicker bottle which his friend
proffered, and took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid.
"My friend, sir, Mr. Snodgrass," said Mr. Winkle, as the officer
approached. Doctor Slammer's friend bowed, and produced a case similar
to that which Mr. Snodgrass carried.
"We have nothing farther to say, sir, I think," he coldly remarked, as
he opened the case; "an apology has been resolutely declined."
"Nothing, sir," said Mr. Snodgrass, who began to feel rather
uncomfortable himself.
"Will you step forward?" said the officer.
"Certainly," replied Mr. Snodgrass. The ground was measured, and
preliminaries arranged.
"You will find these better than your own," said the opposite second,
producing his pistols. "You saw me load them. Do you object to use
them?"
"Certainly not," replied Mr. Snodgrass. The offer relieved him from
considerable embarrassment, for his previous notions of loading a
pistol were rather vague and undefined.
"We may place our men, then, I think," observed the officer, with as
much indifference as if the principals were chess-men, and the seconds
players.
"I think we may," replied Mr. Snodgrass; who would have assented to
any proposition, because he knew nothing about the matter. The officer
crossed to Doctor Slammer, and Mr. Snodgrass went up to Mr. Winkle.
"It's all ready," he said, offering the pistol. "Give me your cloak."
"You have got the packet, my dear fellow," said poor Winkle.
"All right," said Mr. Snodgrass. "Be steady, and wing him."
It occurred to Mr. Winkle that this advice was very like that which
bystanders invariably give to the smallest boy in a street fight,
namely, "Go in, and win:"--an admirable thing to recommend, if you
only know how to do it. He took off his cloak, however, in silence--it
always took a long time to undo that cloak--and accepted the pistol.
The seconds retired, the gentleman on the camp-stool did the same, and
the belligerents approached each other.
Mr. Winkle was always remarkable for extreme humanity. It is
conjectured that his unwillingness to hurt a fellow-creature
intentionally was the cause of his shutting his eyes when he arrived
at the fatal spot; and that the circumstance of his eyes being closed,
prevented his observing the very extraordinary and unaccountable
demeanour of Doctor Slammer. That gentleman started, stared, retreated,
rubbed his eyes, stared again; and finally shouted "Stop, stop!"
"What's all this?" said Doctor Slammer, as his friend and Mr. Snodgrass
came running up. "That's not the man."
"Not the man!" said Dr. Slammer's second.
"Not the man!" said Mr. Snodgrass.
"Not the man!" said the gentleman with the camp-stool in his hand.
"Certainly not," replied the little Doctor. "That's not the person who
insulted me last night."
"Very extraordinary!" exclaimed the officer.
"Very," said the gentleman with the camp-stool. "The only question is,
whether the gentleman, being on the ground, must not be considered,
as a matter of form, to be the individual who insulted our friend,
Dr. Slammer, yesterday evening, whether he is really that individual
or not:" and having delivered this suggestion, with a very sage and
mysterious air, the man with the camp-stool took a large pinch of
snuff, and looked profoundly round, with the air of an authority in
such matters.
Now Mr. Winkle had opened his eyes, and his ears too, when he heard his
adversary call out for a cessation of hostilities; and perceiving by
what he had afterwards said, that there was, beyond all question, some
mistake in the matter, he at once foresaw the increase of reputation he
should inevitably acquire by concealing the real motive of his coming
out: he therefore stepped boldly forward, and said--
"I am not the person. I know it."
"Then, that," said the man with the camp-stool, "is an affront to Dr.
Slammer, and a sufficient reason for proceeding immediately."
"Pray be quiet, Payne," said the Doctor's second. "Why did you not
communicate this fact to me this morning, sir?"
"To be sure--to be sure," said the man with the camp-stool, indignantly.
"I entreat you to be quiet, Payne," said the other. "May I repeat my
question, sir?"
"Because, sir," replied Mr. Winkle, who had had time to deliberate
upon his answer, "because, sir, you described an intoxicated and
ungentlemanly person as wearing a coat which I have the honour, not
only to wear, but to have invented--the proposed uniform, sir, of the
Pickwick Club in London. The honour of that uniform I feel bound to
maintain, and I therefore, without inquiry, accepted the challenge
which you offered me."
"My dear sir," said the good-humoured little Doctor, advancing with
extended hand, "I honour your gallantry. Permit me to say, sir, that I
highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the
inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose."
"I beg you won't mention it, sir," said Mr. Winkle.
"I shall feel proud of your acquaintance, sir," said the little Doctor.
"It will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, sir," replied Mr.
Winkle. Thereupon the Doctor and Mr. Winkle shook hands, and then Mr.
Winkle and Lieutenant Tappleton (the Doctor's second), and then Mr.
Winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and finally, Mr. Winkle and
Mr. Snodgrass--the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at
the noble conduct of his heroic friend.
"I think we may adjourn," said Lieutenant Tappleton.
"Certainly," added the Doctor.
"Unless," interposed the man with the camp-stool, "unless Mr. Winkle
feels himself aggrieved by the challenge; in which case, I submit, he
has a right to satisfaction."
Mr. Winkle, with great self-denial, expressed himself quite satisfied
already.
"Or possibly," said the man with the camp-stool, "the gentleman's
second may feel himself affronted with some observations which fell
from me at an early period of this meeting: if so, I shall be happy to
give _him_ satisfaction immediately."
Mr. Snodgrass hastily professed himself very much obliged with the
handsome offer of the gentleman who had spoken last, which he was
only induced to decline by his entire contentment with the whole
proceedings. The two seconds adjusted the cases, and the whole party
left the ground in a much more lively manner than they had proceeded to
it.
"Do you remain long here?" inquired Dr. Slammer of Mr. Winkle, as they
walked on most amicably together.
"I think we shall leave here the day after to-morrow," was the reply.
"I trust I shall have the pleasure of seeing you and your friend at my
rooms, and of spending a pleasant evening with you after this awkward
mistake," said the little Doctor; "are you disengaged this evening?"
"We have some friends here," replied Mr. Winkle, "and I should not like
to leave them to-night. Perhaps you and your friend will join us at the
Bull?"
"With great pleasure," said the little Doctor; "will ten o'clock be too
late to look in for half an hour?"
"Oh dear no," said Mr. Winkle. "I shall be most happy to introduce you
to my friends, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman."
"It will give me great pleasure, I am sure," replied Dr. Slammer,
little suspecting who Mr. Tupman was.
"You will be sure to come?" said Mr. Snodgrass.
"Oh, certainly."
By this time they had reached the road. Cordial farewells were
exchanged, and the party separated. Doctor Slammer and his friends
repaired to the barracks, and Mr. Winkle, accompanied by Mr. Snodgrass,
returned to their inn.
CHAPTER III
[Illustration]
_A New Acquaintance. The Stroller's Tale. A Disagreeable
Interruption, and an Unpleasant Encounter_
Mr. Pickwick had felt some apprehensions in consequence of the unusual
absence of his two friends, which their mysterious behaviour during the
whole morning had by no means tended to diminish. It was, therefore,
with more than ordinary pleasure that he rose to greet them when they
again entered; and with more than ordinary interest that he inquired
what had occurred to detain them from his society. In reply to his
questions on this point, Mr. Snodgrass was about to offer an historical
account of the circumstances just now detailed, when he was suddenly
checked by observing that there were present, not only Mr. Tupman
and their stage-coach companion of the preceding day, but another
stranger of equally singular appearance. It was a care-worn looking
man, whose sallow face, and deeply sunken eyes, were rendered still
more striking than nature had made them, by the straight black hair
which hung in matted disorder half way down his face. His eyes were
almost unnaturally bright and piercing; his cheek-bones were high and
prominent; and his jaws were so long and lank, that an observer would
have supposed that he was drawing the flesh of his face in, for a
moment, by some contraction of the muscles, if his half-opened mouth
and immovable expression had not announced that it was his ordinary
appearance. Round his neck he wore a green shawl, with the large ends
straggling over his chest, and making their appearance occasionally
beneath the worn buttonholes of his old waistcoat. His upper garment
was a long black surtout; and below it he wore wide drab trousers, and
large boots, running rapidly to seed.
It was on this uncouth-looking person that Mr. Winkle's eye rested, and
it was towards him that Mr. Pickwick extended his hand, when he said,
"A friend of our friend's here. We discovered this morning that our
friend was connected with the theatre in this place, though he is not
desirous to have it generally known, and this gentleman is a member of
the same profession. He was about to favour us with a little anecdote
connected with it when you entered."
"Lots of anecdote," said the green-coated stranger of the day before,
advancing to Mr. Winkle and speaking in a low and confidential tone.
"Rum fellow--does the heavy business--no actor--strange man--all sorts
of miseries--Dismal Jemmy we call him on the circuit." Mr. Winkle and
Mr. Snodgrass politely welcomed the gentleman, elegantly designated as
"Dismal Jemmy!" and calling for brandy and water, in imitation of the
remainder of the company, seated themselves at the table.
"Now, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "will you oblige us by proceeding with
what you were going to relate?"
The dismal individual took a dirty roll of paper from his pocket, and
turning to Mr. Snodgrass, who had just taken out his note-book, said in
a hollow voice, perfectly in keeping with his outward man--"Are you the
poet?"
"I--I do a little in that way," replied Mr. Snodgrass, rather taken
aback by the abruptness of the question.
"Ah! poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage--strip the
one of its false embellishments, and the other of its illusions, and
what is there real in either to live or care for?"
"Very true, sir," replied Mr. Snodgrass.
"To be before the footlights," continued the dismal man, "is like
sitting at a grand court show, and admiring the silken dresses of the
gaudy throng--to be behind them is to be the people who make that
finery, uncared for and unknown, and left to sink or swim, to starve or
live, as fortune wills it."
"Certainly," said Mr. Snodgrass: for the sunken eye of the dismal man
rested on him, and he felt it necessary to say something.
"Go on, Jemmy," said the Spanish traveller, "like black-eyed Susan--all
in the Downs--no croaking--speak out--look lively."
"Will you make another glass before you begin, sir?" said Mr. Pickwick.
The dismal man took the hint, and having mixed a glass of brandy and
water, and slowly swallowed half of it, opened the roll of paper,
and proceeded, partly to read, and partly to relate, the following
incident, which we find recorded on the Transactions of the club as
"The Stroller's Tale."
THE STROLLER'S TALE
"There is nothing of the marvellous in what I am going to relate,"
said the dismal man; "there is nothing even uncommon in it. Want and
sickness are too common in many stations of life, to deserve more
notice than is usually bestowed on the most ordinary vicissitudes of
human nature. I have thrown these few notes together, because the
subject of them was well known to me for many years. I traced his
progress downwards, step by step, until at last he reached that excess
of destitution from which he never rose again.
"The man of whom I speak was a low pantomime actor; and like many
people of his class, an habitual drunkard. In his better days, before
he had become enfeebled by dissipation and emaciated by disease, he had
been in the receipt of a good salary, which, if he had been careful
and prudent, he might have continued to receive for some years--not
many; because these men either die early, or, by unnaturally taxing
their bodily energies, lose, prematurely, those physical powers on
which alone they can depend for subsistence. His besetting sin gained
so fast upon him, however, that it was found impossible to employ him
in the situations in which he really was useful to the theatre. The
public-house had a fascination for him which he could not resist.
Neglected disease and hopeless poverty were as certain to be his
portion as death itself, if he persevered in the same course; yet he
_did_ persevere, and the result may be guessed. He could obtain no
engagement, and he wanted bread.
"Everybody who is at all acquainted with theatrical matters knows
what a host of shabby, poverty-stricken men hang about the stage of a
large establishment--not regularly engaged actors, but ballet people,
procession men, tumblers, and so forth, who are taken on during the run
of a pantomime, or an Easter piece, and are then discharged, until the
production of some heavy spectacle occasions a new demand for their
services. To this mode of life the man was compelled to resort; and
taking the chair every night at some low theatrical house, at once
put him in possession of a few more shillings weekly, and enabled him
to gratify his old propensity. Even this resource shortly failed him;
his irregularities were too great to admit of his earning the wretched
pittance he might thus have procured, and he was actually reduced to a
state bordering on starvation, only procuring a trifle occasionally by
borrowing it of some old companion, or by obtaining an appearance at
one or other of the commonest of the minor theatres; and when he did
earn anything it was spent in the old way.
"About this time, and when he had been existing for upwards of a year
no one knew how, I had a short engagement at one of the theatres on
the Surrey side of the water, and here I saw this man whom I had lost
sight of for some time; for I had been travelling in the provinces, and
he had been skulking in the lanes and alleys of London. I was dressed
to leave the house, and was crossing the stage on my way out, when he
tapped me on the shoulder. Never shall I forget the repulsive sight
that met my eye when I turned round. He was dressed for the pantomime,
in all the absurdity of a clown's costume. The spectral figures in the
Dance of Death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever
portrayed on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. His
bloated body and shrunken legs--their deformity enhanced a hundred fold
by the fantastic dress--the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the
thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the grotesquely
ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long skinny
hands, rubbed with white chalk--all gave him a hideous and unnatural
appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate idea,
and which, to this day, I shudder to think of. His voice was hollow
and tremulous, as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted a
long catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with
an urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. I put a
few shillings in his hand, and as I turned away I heard the roar of
laughter which followed his first tumble on the stage.
"A few nights afterwards, a boy put a dirty scrap of paper in my hand,
on which were scrawled a few words in pencil, intimating that the man
was dangerously ill, and begging me, after the performance, to see him
at his lodging in some street--I forget the name of it now--at no great
distance from the theatre. I promised to comply, as soon as I could
get away; and, after the curtain fell, sallied forth on my melancholy
errand.
"It was late, for I had been playing in the last piece; and as it was
a benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual
length. It was a dark cold night, with a chill damp wind, which blew
the rain heavily against the windows and house fronts. Pools of water
had collected in the narrow and little-frequented streets, and as many
of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence
of the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain
one. I had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded,
after a little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been
directed--a coal-shed, with one storey above it, in the back room of
which lay the object of my search.
"A wretched-looking woman, the man's wife, met me on the stairs, and,
telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly
in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. The sick man was lying
with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my
presence, I had leisure to observe the place in which I found myself.
"He was lying on an old bedstead, which turned up during the day. The
tattered remains of a checked curtain were drawn round the bed's head,
to exclude the wind, which however made its way into the comfortless
room through the numerous chinks in the door, and blew it to and fro
every instant. There was a low cinder fire in a rusty unfixed grate;
and an old three-cornered stained table, with some medicine bottles, a
broken glass, and a few other domestic articles, was drawn out before
it. A little child was sleeping on a temporary bed which had been made
for it on the floor, and the woman sat on a chair by its side. There
were a couple of shelves, with a few plates and cups and saucers: and
a pair of stage shoes and a couple of foils hung beneath them. With the
exception of little heaps of rags and bundles which had been carelessly
thrown into the corners of the room, these were the only things in the
apartment.
"I had had time to note these little particulars, and to mark the
heavy breathing and feverish startings of the sick man, before he was
aware of my presence. In the restless attempts to procure some easy
resting-place for his head, he tossed his hand out of the bed, and it
fell on mine. He started up, and stared eagerly in my face.
"'Mr. Hutley, John,' said his wife; 'Mr. Hutley, that you sent for
to-night, you know.'
"'Ah!' said the invalid, passing his hand across his forehead;
'Hutley--Hutley--let me see.' He seemed endeavouring to collect his
thoughts for a few seconds, and then grasping me tightly by the wrist
said, 'Don't leave me--don't leave me, old fellow. She'll murder me; I
know she will.'
"'Has he been long so?' said I, addressing his weeping wife.
"'Since yesterday night,' she replied. 'John, John, don't you know me?'
"'Don't let her come near me,' said the man, with a shudder, as she
stooped over him. 'Drive her away; I can't bear her near me.' He stared
wildly at her with a look of deadly apprehension, and then whispered in
my ear, 'I beat her, Jem; I beat her yesterday, and many times before.
I have starved her and the boy too; and now I am weak and helpless,
Jem, she'll murder me for it; I know she will. If you'd seen her cry,
as I have, you'd know it too. Keep her off.' He relaxed his grasp, and
sank back exhausted on the pillow.
"I knew but too well what all this meant. If I could have entertained
any doubt of it, for an instant, one glance at the woman's pale face
and wasted form would have sufficiently explained the real state of the
case. 'You had better stand aside,' said I to the poor creature. 'You
can do him no good. Perhaps he will be calmer, if he does not see you.'
She retired out of the man's sight. He opened his eyes after a few
seconds, and looked anxiously round.
"'Is she gone?' he eagerly inquired.
"'Yes--yes,' said I; 'she shall not hurt you.'
"'I'll tell you what, Jem,' said the man, in a low voice, 'she _does_
hurt me. There's something in her eyes wakes such a dreadful fear in
my heart that it drives me mad. All last night her large staring eyes
and pale face were close to mine; wherever I turned, they turned: and
whenever I started up from my sleep, she was at the bedside looking
at me.' He drew me closer to him, as he said in a deep, alarmed
whisper--'Jem, she must be an evil spirit--a devil! Hush! I know she
is. If she had been a woman she would have died long ago. No woman
could have borne what she has.'
"I sickened at the thought of the long course of cruelty and neglect
which must have occurred to produce such an impression on such a man. I
could say nothing in reply; for who could offer hope, or consolation,
to the abject being before me?
"I sat there for upwards of two hours, during which he tossed about,
murmuring exclamations of pain or impatience, restlessly throwing his
arms here and there, and turning constantly from side to side. At
length he fell into that state of partial unconsciousness, in which the
mind wanders uneasily from scene to scene, and from place to place,
without the control of reason, but still without being able to divest
itself of an indescribable sense of present suffering. Finding from his
incoherent wanderings that this was the case, and knowing that in all
probability the fever would not grow immediately worse, I left him,
promising his miserable wife that I would repeat my visit next evening,
and, if necessary, sit up with the patient during the night.
"I kept my promise. The last four-and-twenty hours had produced a
frightful alteration. The eyes, though deeply sunk and heavy, shone
with a lustre frightful to behold. The lips were parched, and cracked
in many places: the hard dry skin glowed with a burning heat, and
there was an almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man's face,
indicating even more strongly the ravages of the disease. The fever was
at its height.
"I took the seat I had occupied the night before, and there I sat for
hours, listening to sounds which must strike deep to the heart of the
most callous among human beings--the awful ravings of a dying man.
From what I had heard of the medical attendant's opinion, I knew there
was no hope for him: I was sitting by his death-bed. I saw the wasted
limbs, which a few hours before had been distorted for the amusement of
a boisterous gallery, writhing under the tortures of a burning fever--I
heard the clown's shrill laugh, blending with the low murmurings of the
dying man.
"It is a touching thing to hear the mind reverting to the ordinary
occupations and pursuits of health, when the body lies before you
weak and helpless; but when those occupations are of a character the
most strongly opposed to anything we associate with grave and solemn
ideas, the impression produced is infinitely more powerful. The theatre
and the public-house were the chief themes of the wretched man's
wanderings. It was evening, he fancied; he had a part to play that
night; it was late, and he must leave home instantly. Why did they hold
him, and prevent his going?--he should lose the money--he must go.
No! they would not let him. He hid his face in his burning hands, and
feebly bemoaned his own weakness, and the cruelty of his persecutors. A
short pause, and he shouted out a few doggrel rhymes--the last he had
ever learnt. He rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled
about in uncouth positions; he was acting--he was at the theatre. A
minute's silence, and he murmured the burden of some roaring song. He
had reached the old house at last: how hot the room was. He had been
ill, very ill, but he was well now, and happy. Fill up his glass. Who
was that, that dashed it from his lips? It was the same persecutor that
had followed him before. He fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud.
A short period of oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious
maze of low-arched rooms--so low sometimes, that he must creep upon
his hands and knees to make his way along; it was so close and dark,
and every way he turned, some obstacle impeded his progress. There
were insects too, hideous crawling things with eyes that stared upon
him, and filled the very air around; glistening horribly amidst the
thick darkness of the place. The walls and ceiling were alive with
reptiles--the vault expanded to an enormous size--frightful figures
flitted to and fro--and the faces of men he knew, rendered hideous by
gibing and mouthing, peered out from among them; they were searing
him with heated irons, and binding his head with cords till the blood
started; and he struggled madly for life.
"At the close of one of these paroxysms, when I had with great
difficulty held him down in his bed, he sank into what appeared to be
a slumber. Overpowered with watching and exertion, I had closed my
eyes for a few minutes, when I felt a violent clutch on my shoulder.
I awoke instantly. He had raised himself up, so as to seat himself in
bed--a dreadful change had come over his face, but consciousness had
returned, for he evidently knew me. The child who had been long since
disturbed by his ravings, rose from its little bed, and ran towards
its father, screaming with fright--the mother hastily caught it in her
arms, lest he should injure it in the violence of his insanity; but
terrified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the
bedside. He grasped my shoulder convulsively, and striking his breast
with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was
unavailing--he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent
effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat--a glare of the eye--a
short stifled groan--and he fell back--dead!"
* * * * *
It would afford us the highest gratification to be enabled to record
Mr. Pickwick's opinion of the foregoing anecdote. We have little doubt
that we should have been enabled to present it to our readers, but for
a most unfortunate occurrence.
Mr. Pickwick had replaced on the table the glass which, during the
last few sentences of the tale, he had retained in his hand; and had
just made up his mind to speak--indeed, we have the authority of Mr.
Snodgrass's note-book for stating, that he had actually opened his
mouth--when the waiter entered the room, and said--
"Some gentlemen, sir."
It has been conjectured that Mr. Pickwick was on the point of
delivering some remarks which would have enlightened the world, if not
the Thames, when he was thus interrupted; for he gazed sternly on the
waiter's countenance, and then looked round on the company generally,
as if seeking for information relative to the new comers.
"Oh!" said Mr. Winkle, rising, "some friends of mine--show them
in. Very pleasant fellows," added Mr. Winkle, after the waiter had
retired--"Officers of the 97th, whose acquaintance I made rather oddly
this morning. You will like them very much."
Mr. Pickwick's equanimity was at once restored. The waiter returned,
and ushered three gentlemen into the room.
"Lieutenant Tappleton," said Mr. Winkle, "Lieutenant Tappleton,
Mr. Pickwick--Doctor Payne, Mr. Pickwick--Mr. Snodgrass, you have
seen before; my friend Mr. Tupman, Doctor Payne--Dr. Slammer, Mr.
Pickwick--Mr. Tupman, Doctor Slam--"
Here Mr. Winkle suddenly paused; for strong emotion was visible on the
countenance of Mr. Tupman and the Doctor.
"I have met _this_ gentleman before," said the Doctor, with marked
emphasis.
"Indeed!" said Mr. Winkle.
"And--and that person too, if I am not mistaken," said the Doctor,
bestowing a scrutinising glance on the green-coated stranger. "I
think I gave that person a very pressing invitation last night,
which he thought proper to decline." Saying which the Doctor scowled
magnanimously on the stranger, and whispered his friend Lieutenant
Tappleton.
"You don't say so," said that gentleman, at the conclusion of the
whisper.
"I do, indeed," replied Dr. Slammer.
"You are bound to kick him on the spot," murmured the owner of the
camp-stool with great importance.
"_Do_ be quiet, Payne," interposed the Lieutenant. "Will you allow
me to ask you, sir," he said, addressing Mr. Pickwick, who was
considerably mystified by this very unpolite by-play, "will you allow
me to ask you, sir, whether that person belongs to your party?"
"No, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, "he is a guest of ours."
"He is a member of your club, or I am mistaken?" said the Lieutenant,
inquiringly.
"Certainly not," responded Mr. Pickwick.
"And never wears your club-button?" said the Lieutenant.
"No--never!" replied the astonished Mr. Pickwick.
Lieutenant Tappleton turned round to his friend Dr. Slammer, with a
scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulder, as if implying some doubt
of the accuracy of his recollection. The little Doctor looked wrathful,
but confounded; and Mr. Payne gazed with a ferocious aspect on the
beaming countenance of the unconscious Pickwick.
"Sir," said the Doctor, suddenly addressing Mr. Tupman, in a tone which
made that gentleman start as perceptibly as if a pin had been cunningly
inserted in the calf of his leg, "you were at the ball here last night!"
Mr. Tupman gasped a faint affirmative, looking very hard at Mr.
Pickwick all the while.
"That person was your companion," said the Doctor, pointing to the
still unmoved stranger.
Mr. Tupman admitted the fact.
"Now, sir," said the Doctor to the stranger, "I ask you once again, in
the presence of these gentlemen, whether you choose to give me your
card, and to receive the treatment of a gentleman; or whether you
impose upon me the necessity of personally chastising you on the spot?"
"Stay, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "I really cannot allow this matter
to go any further without some explanation. Tupman, recount the
circumstances."
Mr. Tupman, thus solemnly adjured, stated the case in a few words;
touched slightly on the borrowing of the coat; expatiated largely on
its having been done "after dinner;" wound up with a little penitence
on his own account; and left the stranger to clear himself as best he
could.
He was apparently about to proceed to do so, when Lieutenant Tappleton,
who had been eyeing him with great curiosity, said with considerable
scorn--"Haven't I seen you at the theatre, sir?"
"Certainly," replied the unabashed stranger.
"He is a strolling actor!" said the Lieutenant, contemptuously; turning
to Dr. Slammer--"He acts in the piece that the Officers of the 52nd get
up at the Rochester Theatre to-morrow night. You cannot proceed in this
affair, Slammer--impossible!"
"Sorry to have placed you in this disagreeable situation," said
Lieutenant Tappleton, addressing Mr. Pickwick; "allow me to suggest,
that the best way of avoiding a recurrence of such scenes in future,
will be to be more select in the choice of your companions. Good
evening, sir!" and the Lieutenant bounced out of the room.
"And allow _me_ to say, sir," said the irascible Doctor Payne, "that
if I had been Tappleton, or if I had been Slammer, I would have pulled
your nose, sir, and the nose of every man in this company. I would,
sir, every man. Payne is my name, sir--Doctor Payne of the 43rd. Good
evening, sir." Having concluded this speech, and uttered the three last
words in a loud key, he stalked majestically after his friend, closely
followed by Doctor Slammer, who said nothing, but contented himself by
withering the company with a look.
Rising rage and extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of
Mr. Pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat, during the
delivery of the above defiance. He stood transfixed to the spot, gazing
on vacancy. The closing of the door recalled him to himself. He rushed
forward with fury in his looks, and fire in his eye. His hand was upon
the lock of the door; in another instant it would have been on the
throat of Doctor Payne of the 43rd, had not Mr. Snodgrass seized his
revered leader by the coat-tail, and dragged him backwards.
"Restrain him," cried Mr. Snodgrass. "Winkle, Tupman--he must not peril
his distinguished life in such a cause as this."
"Let me go," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Hold him tight," shouted Mr. Snodgrass; and by the united efforts of
the whole company, Mr. Pickwick was forced into an arm-chair.
"Leave him alone," said the green-coated stranger--"brandy and
water--jolly old gentleman--lots of pluck--swallow this--ah!--capital
stuff." Having previously tested the virtues of a bumper, which had
been mixed by the dismal man, the stranger applied the glass to Mr.
Pickwick's mouth; and the remainder of its contents rapidly disappeared.
There was a short pause; the brandy and water had done its work; the
amiable countenance of Mr. Pickwick was fast recovering its customary
expression.
"They are not worth your notice," said the dismal man.
"You are right, sir," replied Mr. Pickwick, "they are not. I am ashamed
to have been betrayed into this warmth of feeling. Draw your chair up
to the table, sir."
The dismal man readily complied: a circle was again formed round the
table, and harmony once more prevailed. Some lingering irritability
appeared to find a resting-place in Mr. Winkle's bosom, occasioned
possibly by the temporary abstraction of his coat--though it is
scarcely reasonable to suppose that so slight a circumstance can have
excited even a passing feeling of anger in a Pickwickian breast. With
this exception, their good humour was completely restored; and the
evening concluded with the conviviality with which it had begun.
CHAPTER IV
[Illustration]
_A Field-day and Bivouac. More New Friends. An Invitation to the
Country_
Many authors entertain not only a foolish, but a really dishonest
objection to acknowledge the sources from whence they derive much
valuable information. We have no such feeling. We are merely
endeavouring to discharge, in an upright manner, the responsible duties
of our editorial functions; and whatever ambition we might have felt
under other circumstances to lay claim to the authorship of these
adventures, a regard for truth forbids us to do more than claim the
merit of their judicious arrangement and impartial narration. The
Pickwick papers are our New River Head; and we may be compared to the
New River Company. The labours of others have raised for us an immense
reservoir of important facts. We merely lay them on, and communicate
them, in a clear and gentle stream, through the medium of these
numbers, to a world thirsting for Pickwickian knowledge.
Acting in this spirit, and resolutely proceeding on our determination
to avow our obligations to the authorities we have consulted,
we frankly say, that to the note-book of Mr. Snodgrass are we
indebted for the particulars recorded in this, and the succeeding
chapter--particulars which, now that we have disburdened our
conscience, we shall proceed to detail without further comment.
The whole population of Rochester and the adjoining towns rose from
their beds at an early hour of the following morning, in a state of the
utmost bustle and excitement. A grand review was to take place upon the
Lines. The manoeuvres of half a dozen regiments were to be inspected
by the eagle eye of the commander-in-chief; temporary fortifications
had been erected, the citadel was to be attacked and taken, and a mine
was to be sprung.
Mr. Pickwick was, as our readers may have gathered from the slight
extract we gave from his description of Chatham, an enthusiastic
admirer of the army. Nothing could have been more delightful to
him--nothing could have harmonised so well with the peculiar feeling
of each of his companions--as this sight. Accordingly they were soon
a-foot, and walking in the direction of the scene of action, towards
which crowds of people were already pouring from a variety of quarters.
The appearance of everything on the Lines denoted that the approaching
ceremony was one of the utmost grandeur and importance. There were
sentries posted to keep the ground for the troops, and servants on the
batteries keeping places for the ladies, and sergeants running to and
fro, with vellum-covered books under their arms, and Colonel Bulder, in
full military uniform, on horseback, galloping first to one place and
then to another, and backing his horse among the people, and prancing,
and curvetting, and shouting in a most alarming manner, and making
himself very hoarse in the voice, and very red in the face, without any
assignable cause or reason whatever. Officers were running backwards
and forwards, first communicating with Colonel Bulder, and then
ordering the sergeants, and then running away altogether; and even the
very privates themselves looked from behind their glazed stocks with
an air of mysterious solemnity, which sufficiently bespoke the special
nature of the occasion.
Mr. Pickwick and his three companions stationed themselves in the
front rank of the crowd, and patiently awaited the commencement of the
proceedings. The throng was increasing every moment; and the efforts
they were compelled to make, to retain the position they had gained,
sufficiently occupied their attention during the two hours that ensued.
At one time there was a sudden pressure from behind; and then Mr.
Pickwick was jerked forward for several yards, with a degree of speed
and elasticity highly inconsistent with the general gravity of his
demeanour; at another moment there was a request to "keep back" from
the front, and then the butt-end of a musket was either dropped upon
Mr. Pickwick's toe, to remind him of the demand, or thrust into his
chest, to ensure its being complied with. Then some facetious gentlemen
on the left, after pressing sideways in a body, and squeezing Mr.
Snodgrass into the very last extreme of human torture, would request
to know "vere he vos a shovin' to;" and when Mr. Winkle had done
expressing his excessive indignation at witnessing this unprovoked
assault, some person behind would knock his hat over his eyes, and beg
the favour of his putting his head in his pocket. These, and other
practical witticisms, coupled with the unaccountable absence of Mr.
Tupman (who had suddenly disappeared, and was nowhere to be found),
rendered their situation upon the whole rather more uncomfortable than
pleasing or desirable.
At length that low roar of many voices ran through the crowd, which
usually announces the arrival of whatever they have been waiting for.
All eyes were turned in the direction of the sally-port. A few moments
of eager expectation, and colours were seen fluttering gaily in the
air, arms glistened brightly in the sun, column after column poured on
to the plain. The troops halted and formed; the word of command rung
through the line, there was a general clash of muskets as arms were
presented; and the commander-in-chief, attended by Colonel Bulder and
numerous officers, cantered to the front. The military bands struck up
all together; the horses stood upon two legs each, cantered backwards,
and whisked their tails about in all directions; the dogs barked, the
mob screamed, the troops recovered, and nothing was to be seen on
either side, as far as the eye could reach, but a long perspective of
red coats and white trousers, fixed and motionless.
Mr. Pickwick had been so fully occupied in falling about, and
disentangling himself, miraculously, from between the legs of horses,
that he had not enjoyed sufficient leisure to observe the scene before
him, until it assumed the appearance we have just described. When he
was at last enabled to stand firmly on his legs, his gratification and
delight were unbounded.
"Can anything be finer or more delightful?" he inquired of Mr. Winkle.
"Nothing," replied that gentleman, who had had a short man standing on
each of his feet for the quarter of an hour immediately preceding.
"It is indeed a noble and a brilliant sight," said Mr. Snodgrass, in
whose bosom a blaze of poetry was rapidly bursting forth, "to see the
gallant defenders of their country drawn up in brilliant array before
its peaceful citizens; their faces beaming--not with warlike ferocity,
but with civilised gentleness; their eyes flashing--not with the rude
fire of rapine or revenge, but with the soft light of humanity and
intelligence."
Mr. Pickwick fully entered into the spirit of this eulogium, but he
could not exactly re-echo its terms; for the soft light of intelligence
burnt rather feebly in the eyes of the warriors, inasmuch as the
command "eyes front" had been given, and all the spectator saw before
him was several thousand pair of optics staring straight forward,
wholly divested of any expression whatever.
"We are in a capital situation now," said Mr. Pickwick, looking round
him. The crowd had gradually dispersed in their immediate vicinity, and
they were nearly alone.
"Capital!" echoed both Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle.
"What are they doing now?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, adjusting his
spectacles.
"I--I--rather think," said Mr. Winkle, changing colour--"I rather think
they're going to fire."
"Nonsense," said Mr. Pickwick hastily.
"I--I--really think they are," urged Mr. Snodgrass, somewhat alarmed.
"Impossible," replied Mr. Pickwick. He had hardly uttered the word,
when the whole half-dozen regiments levelled their muskets as if they
had but one common object, and that object the Pickwickians, and burst
forth with the most awful and tremendous discharge that ever shook the
earth to its centre, or an elderly gentleman off his.
It was in this trying situation, exposed to a galling fire of blank
cartridges, and harassed by the operations of the military, a fresh
body of whom had begun to fall in on the opposite side, that Mr.
Pickwick displayed that perfect coolness and self-possession, which
are the indispensable accompaniments of a great mind. He seized Mr.
Winkle by the arm, and placing himself between that gentleman and
Mr. Snodgrass, earnestly besought them to remember that beyond the
possibility of being rendered deaf by the noise, there was no immediate
danger to be apprehended from the firing.
"But--but--suppose some of the men should happen to have ball
cartridges by mistake," remonstrated Mr. Winkle, pallid at the
supposition he was himself conjuring up. "I heard something whistle
through the air just now--so sharp; close to my ear."
"We had better throw ourselves on our faces, hadn't we?" said Mr.
Snodgrass.
"No, no--it's over now," said Mr. Pickwick. His lip might quiver, and
his cheek might blanch, but no expression of fear or concern escaped
the lips of that immortal man.
Mr. Pickwick was right: the firing ceased; but he had scarcely time
to congratulate himself on the accuracy of his opinion, when a quick
movement was visible in the line: the hoarse shout of the word of
command ran along it, and before either of the party could form a guess
at the meaning of this new manoeuvre, the whole of the half-dozen
regiments, with fixed bayonets, charged at double quick time down upon
the very spot on which Mr. Pickwick and his friends were stationed.
Man is but mortal: and there is a point beyond which human courage
cannot extend. Mr. Pickwick gazed through his spectacles for an instant
on the advancing mass, and then fairly turned his back and--we will
not say fled; firstly, because it is an ignoble term, and, secondly,
because Mr. Pickwick's figure was by no means adapted for that mode of
retreat--he trotted away, at as quick a rate as his legs would convey
him; so quickly, indeed, that he did not perceive the awkwardness of
his situation, to the full extent, until too late.
The opposite troops, whose falling-in had perplexed Mr. Pickwick a few
seconds before, were drawn up to repel the mimic attack of the sham
besiegers of the citadel; and the consequence was that Mr. Pickwick and
his two companions found themselves suddenly inclosed between two lines
of great length, the one advancing at a rapid pace, and the other
firmly waiting the collision in hostile array.
"Hoi!" shouted the officers of the advancing line.
"Get out of the way," cried the officers of the stationary one.
"Where are we to go to?" screamed the agitated Pickwickians.
"Hoi--hoi--hoi!" was the only reply. There was a moment of intense
bewilderment, a heavy tramp of footsteps, a violent concussion, a
smothered laugh; the half-dozen regiments were half a thousand yards
off, and the soles of Mr. Pickwick's boots were elevated in air.
Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle had each performed a compulsory somerset
with remarkable agility, when the first object that met the eyes of
the latter as he sat on the ground, staunching with a yellow silk
handkerchief the stream of life which issued from his nose, was his
venerated leader at some distance off, running after his own hat, which
was gamboling playfully away in perspective.
There are very few moments in a man's existence when he experiences
so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable
commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat. A vast deal of
coolness, and a peculiar degree of judgment, are requisite in catching
a hat. A man must not be precipitate, or he runs over it; he must not
rush into the opposite extreme, or he loses it altogether. The best
way is, to keep gently up with the object of pursuit, to be wary and
cautious, to watch your opportunity well, get gradually before it, then
make a rapid dive, seize it by the crown, and stick it firmly on your
head: smiling pleasantly all the time, as if you thought it as good a
joke as anybody else.
There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick's hat rolled sportively
before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled
over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide; and
on it might have rolled, far beyond Mr. Pickwick's reach, had not its
course been providentially stopped, just as that gentleman was on the
point of resigning it to its fate.
Mr. Pickwick, we say, was completely exhausted, and about to give
up the chase, when the hat was blown with some violence against the
wheel of a carriage, which was drawn up in a line with half-a-dozen
other vehicles on the spot to which his steps had been directed. Mr.
Pickwick, perceiving his advantage, darted briskly forward, secured his
property, planted it on his head, and paused to take breath. He had
not been stationary half a minute, when he heard his own name eagerly
pronounced by a voice, which he at once recognised as Mr. Tupman's,
and, looking upwards, he beheld a sight which filled him with surprise
and pleasure.
In an open barouche, the horses of which had been taken out, the better
to accommodate it to the crowded place, stood a stout old gentleman,
in a blue coat and bright buttons, corduroy breeches and top boots,
two young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a young gentleman apparently
enamoured of one of the young ladies in scarfs and feathers, a lady of
doubtful age, probably the aunt of the aforesaid, and Mr. Tupman, as
easy and unconcerned as if he had belonged to the family from the first
moments of his infancy. Fastened up behind the barouche was a hamper
of spacious dimensions--one of those hampers which always awakens in
a contemplative mind associations connected with cold fowls, tongues,
and bottles of wine--and on the box sat a fat and red-faced boy, in a
state of somnolency, whom no speculative observer could have regarded
for an instant without setting down as the official dispenser of the
contents of the before-mentioned hamper, when the proper time for their
consumption should arrive.
Mr. Pickwick had bestowed a hasty glance on these interesting objects,
when he was again greeted by his faithful disciple.
"Pickwick--Pickwick," said Mr. Tupman: "come up here. Make haste."
"Come along, sir. Pray, come up," said the stout gentleman. "Joe!--damn
that boy, he's gone to sleep again.--Joe, let down the steps." The
fat boy rolled slowly off the box, let down the steps, and held the
carriage door invitingly open. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle came up at
the moment.
"Room for you all, gentlemen," said the stout man. "Two inside, and one
out. Joe, make room for one of these gentlemen on the box. Now, sir,
come along;" and the stout gentleman extended his arm, and pulled first
Mr. Pickwick, and then Mr. Snodgrass, into the barouche by main force.
Mr. Winkle mounted to the box, the fat boy waddled to the same perch,
and fell fast asleep instantly.
[Illustration: "_Damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again_"]
"Well, gentlemen," said the stout man, "very glad to see you. Know
you very well, gentlemen, though you mayn't remember me. I spent some
ev'nins at your club last winter--picked up my friend Mr. Tupman here
this morning, and very glad I was to see him. Well, sir, and how are
you? You do look uncommon well, to be sure."
Mr. Pickwick acknowledged the compliment, and cordially shook hands
with the stout gentleman in the top boots.
"Well, and how are you, sir?" said the stout gentleman, addressing
Mr. Snodgrass with paternal anxiety. "Charming, eh? Well, that's
right--that's right. And how are you, sir (to Mr. Winkle)? Well, I
am glad to hear you say you are well; very glad I am, to be sure. My
daughters, gentlemen--my gals these are; and that's my sister, Miss
Rachael Wardle. She's a Miss, she is; and yet she an't a Miss--eh, sir,
eh?" And the stout gentleman playfully inserted his elbow between the
ribs of Mr. Pickwick, and laughed very heartily.
"Lor, brother!" said Miss Wardle, with a deprecating smile.
"True, true," said the stout gentleman; "no one can deny it. Gentlemen,
I beg your pardon; this is my friend Mr. Trundle. And now you all
know each other, let's be comfortable and happy, and see what's
going forward; that's what I say." So the stout gentleman put on his
spectacles, and Mr. Pickwick pulled out his glass, and everybody stood
up in the carriage, and looked over somebody else's shoulder at the
evolutions of the military.
Astounding evolutions they were, one rank firing over the heads of
another rank, and then running away; and then the other rank firing
over the heads of another rank, and running away in their turn; and
then forming squares, with officers in the centre; and then descending
the trench on one side with scaling-ladders, and ascending it on the
other again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of baskets,
and behaving in the most gallant manner possible. Then there was
such a ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on the battery,
with instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation before they
were let off, and such an awful noise when they did go, that the air
resounded with the screams of ladies. The young Miss Wardles were so
frightened, that Mr. Trundle was actually obliged to hold one of them
up in the carriage, while Mr. Snodgrass supported the other, and Mr.
Wardle's sister suffered under such a dreadful state of nervous alarm,
that Mr. Tupman found it indispensably necessary to put his arm round
her waist, to keep her up at all. Everybody was excited, except the
fat boy, and he slept as soundly as if the roaring of cannon were his
ordinary lullaby.
"Joe, Joe!" said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and
the besiegers and besieged sat down to dinner. "Damn that boy, he's
gone to sleep again. Be good enough to pinch him, sir--in the leg, if
you please; nothing else wakes him--thank you. Undo the hamper, Joe."
The fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a
portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of Mr. Winkle, rolled
off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper, with more
expedition than could have been expected from his previous inactivity.
"Now we must sit close," said the stout gentleman. After a great many
jokes about squeezing the ladies' sleeves, and a vast quantity of
blushing at sundry jocose proposals, that the ladies should sit in the
gentlemen's laps, the whole party were stowed down in the barouche; and
the stout gentleman proceeded to hand the things from the fat boy (who
had mounted up behind for the purpose) into the carriage.
"Now, Joe, knives and forks." The knives and forks were handed in, and
the ladies and gentlemen inside, and Mr. Winkle on the box, were each
furnished with those useful instruments.
"Plates, Joe, plates." A similar process employed in the distribution
of the crockery.
"Now, Joe, the fowls. Damn that boy; he's gone to sleep again. Joe!
Joe!" (Sundry taps on the head with a stick, and the fat boy, with some
difficulty, roused from his lethargy.) "Come, hand in the eatables."
There was something in the sound of the last word which roused the
unctuous boy. He jumped up, and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind
his mountainous cheeks leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it
from the basket.
"Now make haste," said Mr. Wardle; for the fat boy was hanging fondly
over a capon, which he seemed wholly unable to part with. The boy
sighed deeply, and, bestowing an ardent gaze upon its plumpness,
unwillingly consigned it to his master.
"That's right--look sharp. Now the tongue--now the pigeon-pie. Take
care of that veal and ham--mind the lobsters--take the salad out of the
cloth--give me the dressing." Such were the hurried orders which issued
from the lips of Mr. Wardle, as he handed in the different articles
described, and placed dishes in everybody's hands, and on everybody's
knees, in endless number.
"Now, an't this capital?" inquired that jolly personage, when the work
of destruction had commenced.
"Capital!" said Mr. Winkle, who was carving a fowl on the box.
"Glass of wine?"
"With the greatest pleasure."
"You'd better have a bottle to yourself up there, hadn't you?"
"You're very good."
"Joe!"
"Yes, sir." (He wasn't asleep this time, having just succeeded in
abstracting a veal patty.)
"Bottle of wine to the gentleman on the box. Glad to see you, sir."
"Thankee." Mr. Winkle emptied his glass, and placed the bottle on the
coach-box by his side.
"Will you permit me to have the pleasure, sir?" said Mr. Trundle to Mr.
Winkle.
"With great pleasure," replied Mr. Winkle to Mr. Trundle, and then the
two gentlemen took wine, after which they took a glass of wine round,
ladies and all.
"How dear Emily is flirting with the strange gentleman," whispered the
spinster aunt, with true spinster-aunt-like envy, to her brother Mr.
Wardle.
"Oh! I don't know," said the jolly old gentleman; "all very natural, I
dare say--nothing unusual. Mr. Pickwick, some wine, sir?" Mr. Pickwick,
who had been deeply investigating the interior of the pigeon-pie,
readily assented.
"Emily, my dear," said the spinster aunt, with a patronising air,
"don't talk so loud, love."
"Lor, aunt!"
"Aunt and the little old gentleman want to have it all to themselves, I
think," whispered Miss Isabella Wardle to her sister Emily. The young
ladies laughed very heartily, and the old one tried to look amiable,
but couldn't manage it.
"Young girls have _such_ spirits," said Miss Wardle to Mr. Tupman, with
an air of gentle commiseration, as if animal spirits were contraband,
and their possession without a permit, a high crime and misdemeanour.
"Oh, they have," replied Mr. Tupman, not exactly making the sort of
reply that was expected from him. "It's quite delightful."
"Hem!" said Miss Wardle, rather dubiously.
"Will you permit me," said Mr. Tupman, in his blandest manner, touching
the enchanting Rachael's wrist with one hand, and gently elevating the
bottle with the other. "Will you permit me?"
"Oh, sir!" Mr. Tupman looked most impressive; and Rachael expressed her
fear that more guns were going off, in which case, of course, she would
have required support again.
"Do you think my dear nieces pretty?" whispered their affectionate aunt
to Mr. Tupman.
"I should if their aunt wasn't here," replied the ready Pickwickian,
with a passionate glance.
"Oh, you naughty man--but really, if their complexions were a
_little_ better, don't you think they would be nice-looking girls--by
candle-light?"
"Yes; I think they would," said Mr. Tupman, with an air of indifference.
"Oh, you quiz--I know what you were going to say."
"What?" inquired Mr. Tupman, who had not precisely made up his mind to
say anything at all.
"You were going to say that Isabel stoops--I know you were--you men are
such observers. Well, so she does; it can't be denied; and, certainly,
if there is one thing more than another that makes a girl look ugly, it
is stooping. I often tell her that when she gets a little older she'll
be quite frightful. Well, you _are_ a quiz."
Mr. Tupman had no objection to earning the reputation at so cheap a
rate, so he looked very knowing, and smiled mysteriously.
"What a sarcastic smile," said the admiring Rachael; "I declare I'm
quite afraid of you."
"Afraid of me!"
"Oh, you can't disguise anything from me--I know what that smile means
very well."
"What?" said Mr. Tupman, who had not the slightest notion himself.
"You mean," said the amiable aunt, sinking her voice still lower--"You
mean, that you don't think Isabella's stooping is as bad as Emily's
boldness. Well, she _is_ bold! You cannot think how wretched it makes
me sometimes--I'm sure I cry about it for hours together--my dear
brother is _so_ good, and _so_ unsuspicious, that he never sees it;
if he did, I'm quite certain it would break his heart. I wish I could
think it was only manner--I hope it may be--" (Here the affectionate
relative heaved a deep sigh, and shook her head despondingly).
"I'm sure aunt's talking about us," whispered Miss Emily Wardle to her
sister--"I'm quite certain of it--she looks so malicious."
"Is she?" replied Isabella--"Hem! aunt dear!"
"Yes, my dear love!"
"I'm _so_ afraid you'll catch cold, aunt--have a silk handkerchief
to tie round your dear old head--you really should take care of
yourself--consider your age!"
However well deserved this piece of retaliation might have been, it
was as vindictive a one as could well have been resorted to. There is
no guessing in what form of reply the aunt's indignation would have
vented itself, had not Mr. Wardle unconsciously changed the subject, by
calling emphatically for Joe.
"Damn that boy," said the old gentleman, "he's gone to sleep again."
"Very extraordinary boy that," said Mr. Pickwick; "does he always sleep
in this way?"
"Sleep!" said the old gentleman, "he's always asleep. Goes on errands
fast asleep, and snores as he waits at table."
"How very odd!" said Mr. Pickwick.
"Ah! odd indeed," returned the old gentleman; "I'm proud of that
boy--wouldn't part with him on any account--he's a natural curiosity!
Here, Joe--Joe--take these things away, and open another bottle--d'ye
hear?"
The fat boy rose, opened his eyes, swallowed the huge piece of pie
he had been in the act of masticating when he last fell asleep, and
slowly obeyed his master's orders--gloating languidly over the remains
of the feast, as he removed the plates, and deposited them in the
hamper. The fresh bottle was produced, and speedily emptied: the
hamper was made fast in its old place--the fat boy once more mounted
the box--the spectacles and pocket-glass were again adjusted--and the
evolutions of the military recommenced. There was a great fizzing and
banging of guns, and starting of ladies--and then a mine was sprung,
to the gratification of everybody--and when the mine had gone off, the
military and the company followed its example, and went off too.
"Now, mind," said the old gentleman, as he shook hands with Mr.
Pickwick at the conclusion of a conversation which had been carried on
at intervals, during the conclusion of the proceedings--"we shall see
you all to-morrow."
"Most certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick.
"You have got the address."
"Manor Farm, Dingley Dell," said Mr. Pickwick, consulting his
pocket-book.
"That's it," said the old gentleman. "I don't let you off, mind, under
a week; and undertake that you shall see everything worth seeing. If
you've come down for a country life, come to me, and I'll give you
plenty of it. Joe--damn that boy, he's gone to sleep again--Joe, help
Tom put in the horses."
The horses were put in--the driver mounted--the fat boy clambered up by
his side--farewells were exchanged--and the carriage rattled off. As
the Pickwickians turned round to take a last glimpse of it, the setting
sun cast a rich glow on the faces of their entertainers, and fell upon
the form of the fat boy. His head was sunk upon his bosom; and he
slumbered again.
CHAPTER V
[Illustration]
_A Short One. Showing, among other Matters, how Mr. Pickwick
undertook to Drive, and Mr. Winkle to Ride; and how they both
did it_
Bright and pleasant was the sky, balmy the air, and beautiful the
appearance of every object around, as Mr. Pickwick leant over the
balustrades of Rochester Bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for
breakfast. The scene was indeed one which might well have charmed a far
less reflective mind, than that to which it was presented.
On the left of the spectator lay the ruined wall, broken in many
places, and in some, overhanging the narrow beach below in rude and
heavy masses. Huge knots of sea-weed hung upon the jagged and pointed
stones, trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung
mournfully round the dark and ruined battlements. Behind it rose the
ancient castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling
away, but telling us proudly of its own might and strength, as when,
seven hundred years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded
with the noise of feasting and revelry. On either side, the banks of
the Medway, covered with corn-fields and pastures, with here and there
a windmill, or a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could
see, presenting a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by
the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it, as the thin and
half-formed clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun. The
river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as
it flowed noiselessly on; and the oars of the fishermen dipped into
the water with a clear and liquid sound, as the heavy but picturesque
boats glided slowly down the stream.
Mr. Pickwick was roused from the agreeable reverie into which he had
been led by the objects before him, by a deep sigh, and a touch on his
shoulder. He turned round: and the dismal man was at his side.
"Contemplating the scene?" inquired the dismal man.
"I was," said Mr. Pickwick.
"And congratulating yourself on being up so soon?" Mr. Pickwick nodded
assent.
"Ah! people need to rise early, to see the sun in all his splendour,
for his brightness seldom lasts the day through. The morning of day and
the morning of life are but too much alike."
"You speak truly, sir," said Mr. Pickwick.
"How common the saying," continued the dismal man, "'The morning's too
fine to last.' How well might it be applied to our every-day existence.
God! what would I forfeit to have the days of my childhood restored, or
to be able to forget them for ever!"
"You have seen much trouble, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, compassionately.
"I have," said the dismal man, hurriedly; "I have. More than those who
see me now would believe possible." He paused for an instant, and then
said abruptly--
"Did it ever strike you, on such a morning as this, that drowning would
be happiness and peace?"
"God bless me, no!" replied Mr. Pickwick, edging a little from the
balustrade, as the possibility of the dismal man's tipping him over, by
way of experiment, occurred to him rather forcibly.
"_I_ have thought so, often," said the dismal man, without noticing
the action. "The calm, cool water seems to me to murmur an invitation
to repose and rest. A bound, a splash, a brief struggle; there is an
eddy for an instant, it gradually subsides into a gentle ripple; the
waters have closed above your head, and the world has closed upon your
miseries and misfortunes for ever." The sunken eye of the dismal man
flashed brightly as he spoke, but the momentary excitement quickly
subsided: and he turned calmly away, as he said--
"There--enough of that. I wish to see you on another subject. You
invited me to read that paper, the night before last, and listened
attentively while I did so."
"I did," replied Mr. Pickwick; "and I certainly thought----"
"I asked for no opinion," said the dismal man, interrupting him, "and
I want none. You are travelling for amusement and instruction. Suppose
I forwarded you a curious manuscript--observe, not curious because
wild or improbable, but curious as a leaf from the romance of real
life. Would you communicate it to the club, of which you have spoken so
frequently?"
"Certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, "if you wished it; and it would be
entered on their transactions."
"You shall have it," replied the dismal man. "Your address;" and Mr.
Pickwick, having communicated their probable route, the dismal man
carefully noted it down in a greasy pocket-book, and, resisting Mr.
Pickwick's pressing invitation to breakfast, left that gentleman at his
inn, and walked slowly away.
Mr. Pickwick found that his three companions had risen, and were
waiting his arrival to commence breakfast, which was ready laid in
tempting display. They sat down to the meal; and broiled ham, eggs,
tea, coffee and sundries, began to disappear with a rapidity which at
once bore testimony to the excellence of the fare, and the appetites of
its consumers.
"Now, about Manor Farm," said Mr. Pickwick. "How shall we go?"
"We had better consult the waiter, perhaps," said Mr. Tupman, and the
waiter was summoned accordingly.
"Dingley Dell, gentlemen--fifteen miles,
gentlemen--cross-road--post-chaise, sir?"
"Post-chaise won't hold more than two," said Mr. Pickwick.
"True, sir--beg your pardon, sir--very nice four-wheeled chaise,
sir--seat for two behind--one in front for the gentleman that
drives--oh! beg your pardon, sir--that'll only hold three."
"What's to be done?" said Mr. Snodgrass.
"Perhaps one of the gentlemen would like to ride, sir?" suggested the
waiter, looking towards Mr. Winkle; "very good saddle horses, sir--any
of Mr. Wardle's men coming to Rochester bring 'em back, sir."
"The very thing," said Mr. Pickwick. "Winkle, will you go on horseback?"
Mr. Winkle did entertain considerable misgivings in the very lowest
recesses of his own heart, relative to his equestrian skill; but, as he
would not have them even suspected on any account, he at once replied
with great hardihood, "Certainly. I should enjoy it of all things."
Mr. Winkle had rushed upon his fate; there was no resource. "Let them
be at the door by eleven," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Very well, sir," replied the waiter.
The waiter retired; the breakfast concluded; and the travellers
ascended to their respective bedrooms, to prepare a change of clothing,
to take with them on their approaching expedition.
Mr. Pickwick had made his preliminary arrangements, and was looking
over the coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the street, when the
waiter entered and announced that the chaise was ready--an announcement
which the vehicle itself confirmed, by forthwith appearing before the
coffee-room blinds aforesaid.
It was a curious little green box on four wheels, with a low place
like a wine-bin for two behind, and an elevated perch for one in
front, drawn by an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of
bone. An hostler stood near, holding by the bridle another immense
horse--apparently a near relative to the animal in the chaise--ready
saddled for Mr. Winkle.
"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement
while the coats were being put in. "Bless my soul! who's to drive? I
never thought of that."
"Oh! you, of course," said Mr. Tupman.
"Of course," said Mr. Snodgrass.
"I!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
"Not the slightest fear, sir," interposed the hostler. "Warrant him
quiet, sir; a hinfant in arms might drive him."
"He don't shy, does he?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Shy, sir?--He wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vaggin-load of monkeys
with their tails burnt off."
The last recommendation was indisputable. Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass
got into the bin; Mr. Pickwick ascended to his perch, and deposited his
feet on a floor-clothed shelf, erected beneath it for that purpose.
"Now, shiny Villiam," said the hostler to the deputy hostler, "give the
gen'lm'n the ribbins." "Shiny Villiam"--so called, probably, from his
sleek hair and oily countenance--placed the reins in Mr. Pickwick's
left hand; and the upper hostler thrust a whip into his right.
"Wo--o!" cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided
inclination to back into the coffee-room window.
"Wo--o!" echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass, from the bin.
"Only his playfulness, gen'lm'n," said the head hostler encouragingly;
"jist kitch hold on him, Villiam." The deputy restrained the animal's
impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. Winkle in mounting.
"T'other side, sir, if you please."
"Blowed if the gen'lm'n worn't gettin' up on the wrong side," whispered
a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter.
Mr. Winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his saddle, with about as
much difficulty as he would have experienced in getting up the side of
a first-rate man-of-war.
"All right?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it
was all wrong.
"All right," replied Mr. Winkle faintly.
"Let 'em go," cried the hostler,--"Hold him in, sir," and away went
the chaise, and the saddle-horse, with Mr. Pickwick on the box of
the one, and Mr. Winkle on the back of the other, to the delight and
gratification of the whole inn-yard.
"What makes him go sideways?" said Mr. Snodgrass in the bin, to Mr.
Winkle in the saddle.
"I can't imagine," replied Mr. Winkle. His horse was drifting up the
street in the most mysterious manner--side first, with his head toward
one side of the way, and his tail towards the other.
[Illustration: _"Wo--o!" cried Mr. Pickwick._
_"Wo--o!" echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass from the bin._]
Mr. Pickwick had no leisure to observe either this or any other
particular, the whole of his faculties being concentrated in the
management of the animal attached to the chaise, who displayed various
peculiarities, highly interesting to a bystander, but by no means
equally amusing to any one seated behind him. Besides constantly
jerking his head up, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, and
tugging at the reins to an extent which rendered it a matter of great
difficulty for Mr. Pickwick to hold them, he had a singular propensity
for darting suddenly every now and then to the side of the road, then
stopping short, and then rushing forward for some minutes, at a speed
which it was wholly impossible to control.
[Illustration: "_T'other side, sir, if you please_"]
"What _can_ he mean by this?" said Mr. Snodgrass, when the horse had
executed this manoeuvre for the twentieth time.
"I don't know," replied Mr. Tupman; "it _looks_ very like shying, don't
it?" Mr. Snodgrass was about to reply, when he was interrupted by a
shout from Mr. Pickwick.
"Wo--o!" said that gentleman; "I have dropped my whip."
"Winkle," said Mr. Snodgrass as the equestrian came trotting up on
the tall horse, with his hat over his ears, and shaking all over, as
if he would shake to pieces, with the violence of the exercise, "pick
up the whip, there's a good fellow." Mr. Winkle pulled at the bridle
of the tall horse till he was black in the face; and having at length
succeeded in stopping him, dismounted, handed the whip to Mr. Pickwick,
and grasping the reins, prepared to remount.
Now whether the tall horse, in the natural playfulness of his
disposition, was desirous of having a little innocent recreation with
Mr. Winkle, or whether it occurred to him that he could perform the
journey as much to his own satisfaction without a rider as with one,
are points upon which, of course, we can arrive at no definite and
distinct conclusion. By whatever motives the animal was actuated,
certain it is that Mr. Winkle had no sooner touched the reins, than he
slipped them over his head, and darted backwards to their full length.
"Poor fellow," said Mr. Winkle, soothingly,--"poor fellow--good
old horse." The "poor fellow" was proof against flattery: the more
Mr. Winkle tried to get nearer him, the more he sidled away; and,
notwithstanding all kinds of coaxing and wheedling, there were Mr.
Winkle and the horse going round and round each other for ten minutes,
at the end of which time each was at precisely the same distance from
the other as when they first commenced--an unsatisfactory sort of thing
under any circumstances, but particularly so in a lonely road, where no
assistance can be procured.
"What am I to do?" shouted Mr. Winkle, after the dodging had been
prolonged for a considerable time. "What am I to do? I can't get on
him."
[Illustration: _Mr. Pickwick ran to his assistance._]
"You had better lead him till we come to a turnpike," replied Mr.
Pickwick from the chaise.
"But he won't come!" roared Mr. Winkle. "Do come and hold him."
Mr. Pickwick was the very personation of kindness and humanity: he
threw the reins on the horse's back, and having descended from his
seat, carefully drew the chaise into the hedge, lest anything should
come along the road, and stepped back to the assistance of his
distressed companion, leaving Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the
vehicle.
The horse no sooner beheld Mr. Pickwick advancing towards him with
the chaise whip in his hand, than he exchanged the rotatory motion in
which he had previously indulged, for a retrograde movement of so very
determined a character, that it at once drew Mr. Winkle, who was still
at the end of the bridle, at a rather quicker rate than fast walking,
in the direction from which they had just come. Mr. Pickwick ran to his
assistance, but the faster Mr. Pickwick ran forward, the faster the
horse ran backward. There was a great scraping of feet, and kicking up
of the dust; and at last Mr. Winkle, his arms being nearly pulled out
of their sockets, fairly let go his hold. The horse paused, stared,
shook his head, turned round, and quietly trotted home to Rochester,
leaving Mr. Winkle and Mr. Pickwick gazing on each other with
countenances of blank dismay. A rattling noise at a little distance
attracted their attention. They looked up.
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the agonised Mr. Pickwick, "there's the
other horse running away!"
It was but too true. The animal was startled by the noise, and the
reins were on his back. The result may be guessed. He tore off with the
four-wheeled chaise behind him, and Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass in the
four-wheeled chaise. The heat was a short one. Mr. Tupman threw himself
into the hedge, Mr. Snodgrass followed his example, the horse dashed
the four-wheeled chaise against a wooden bridge, separated the wheels
from the body, and the bin from the perch; and finally stood stock
still to gaze upon the ruin he had made.
The first care of the two unspilt friends was to extricate their
unfortunate companions from their bed of quickset--a process which
gave them the unspeakable satisfaction of discovering that they had
sustained no injury, beyond sundry rents in their garments, and various
lacerations from the brambles. The next thing to be done was, to
unharness the horse. This complicated process having been effected,
the party walked slowly forward, leading the horse among them, and
abandoning the chaise to its fate.
An hour's walking brought the travellers to a little road-side
public-house, with two elm trees, a horse trough, and a sign-post, in
front; one or two deformed hay-ricks behind, a kitchen garden at the
side, and rotten sheds and mouldering out-houses jumbled in strange
confusion all about it. A red-headed man was working in the garden; and
to him Mr. Pickwick called lustily--"Hallo there!"
The red-headed man raised his body, shaded his eyes with his hand, and
stared, long and coolly, at Mr. Pickwick and his companions.
"Hallo there!" repeated Mr. Pickwick.
"Hallo!" was the red-headed man's reply.
"How far is it to Dingley Dell?"
"Better er seven mile."
"Is it a good road?"
"No, 'tan't." Having uttered this brief reply, and apparently satisfied
himself with another scrutiny, the red-headed man resumed his work.
"We want to put this horse up here," said Mr. Pickwick; "I suppose we
can, can't we?"
"Want to put that ere horse up, do ee?" repeated the red-headed man,
leaning on his spade.
"Of course," replied Mr. Pickwick, who had by this time advanced, horse
in hand, to the garden rails.
"Missus"--roared the man with the red head, emerging from the garden,
and looking very hard at the horse--"Missus!"
A tall bony woman--straight all the way down--in a coarse blue pelisse,
with the waist an inch or two below her armpits, responded to the call.
"Can we put this horse up here, my good woman?" said Mr. Tupman,
advancing, and speaking in his most seductive tones. The woman looked
very hard at the whole party, and the red-headed man whispered
something in her ear.
"No," replied the woman, after a little consideration, "I'm afeered on
it."
"Afraid!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, "what's the woman afraid of?"
"It got us into trouble last time," said the woman, turning into the
house; "I woant have nothin' to say to 'un."
"Most extraordinary thing I ever met with in my life," said the
astonished Mr. Pickwick.
"I--I--really believe," whispered Mr. Winkle, as his friends gathered
round him, "that they think we have come by this horse in some
dishonest manner."
"What!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, in a storm of indignation. Mr. Winkle
modestly repeated his suggestion.
"Hallo, you fellow!" said the angry Mr. Pickwick, "do you think we
stole this horse?"
"I'm sure ye did," replied the red-headed man, with a grin which
agitated his countenance from one auricular organ to the other. Saying
which he turned into the house, and banged the door after him.
"It's like a dream," ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, "a hideous dream. The
idea of a man's walking about, all day, with a dreadful horse that he
can't get rid of!" The depressed Pickwickians turned moodily away, with
a tall quadruped, for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust,
following slowly at their heels.
It was late in the afternoon when the four friends and their
four-footed companion turned into the lane leading to Manor Farm: and
even when they were so near their place of destination, the pleasure
they would have otherwise experienced was materially damped as they
reflected on the singularity of their appearance, and the absurdity of
their situation. Torn clothes, lacerated faces, dusty shoes, exhausted
looks, and, above all, the horse. Oh, how Mr. Pickwick cursed that
horse: he had eyed the noble animal from time to time with looks
expressive of hatred and revenge; more than once he had calculated the
probable amount of the expense he would incur by cutting his throat;
and now the temptation to destroy him, or to cast him loose upon the
world, rushed upon his mind with tenfold force. He was roused from a
meditation on these dire imaginings, by the sudden appearance of two
figures at a turn of the lane. It was Mr. Wardle, and his faithful
attendant, the fat boy.
"Why, where _have_ you been?" said the hospitable old gentleman;
"I've been waiting for you all day. Well, you _do_ look tired. What!
Scratches! Not hurt, I hope--eh? Well, I _am_ glad to hear that--very.
So you've been spilt, eh? Never mind. Common accident in these parts.
Joe--he's asleep again!--Joe, take that horse from the gentleman, and
lead it into the stable."
The fat boy sauntered heavily behind them with the animal; and the old
gentleman, condoling with his guests in homely phrase on so much of the
day's adventures as they thought proper to communicate, led the way to
the kitchen.
"We'll have you put to rights here," said the old gentleman, "and then
I'll introduce you to the people in the parlour. Emma, bring out the
cherry brandy; now, Jane, a needle and thread here; towels and water,
Mary. Come, girls, bustle about."
Three or four buxom girls speedily dispersed in search of the
different articles in requisition, while a couple of large-headed,
circular-visaged males rose from their seats in the chimney-corner
(for although it was a May evening, their attachment to the wood
fire appeared as cordial as if it were Christmas), and dived into
some obscure recesses, from which they speedily produced a bottle of
blacking, and some half-dozen brushes.
"Bustle!" said the old gentleman again, but the admonition was quite
unnecessary, for one of the girls poured out the cherry brandy, and
another brought in the towels, and one of the men suddenly seizing
Mr. Pickwick by the leg, at imminent hazard of throwing him off his
balance, brushed away at his foot, till his corns were red-hot; while
the other shampoo'd Mr. Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, indulging,
during the operation, in that hissing sound which hostlers are wont to
produce when engaged in rubbing down a horse.
Mr. Snodgrass, having concluded his ablutions, took a survey of the
room, while standing with his back to the fire, sipping his cherry
brandy with heartfelt satisfaction. He describes it as a large
apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling
garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions. The walls
were decorated with several hunting-whips, two or three bridles, a
saddle, and an old rusty blunderbuss, with an inscription below it,
intimating that it was "Loaded"--as it had been, on the same authority,
for half a century at least. An old eight-day clock, of solemn and
sedate demeanour, ticked gravely in one corner; and a silver watch, of
equal antiquity, dangled from one of the many hooks which ornamented
the dresser.
"Ready?" said the old gentleman, inquiringly, when his guests had been
washed, mended, brushed, and brandied.
"Quite," replied Mr. Pickwick.
"Come along, then," and the party having traversed several dark
passages, and being joined by Mr. Tupman, who had lingered behind to
snatch a kiss from Emma, for which he had been duly rewarded with
sundry pushings and scratchings, arrived at the parlour door.
"Welcome," said their hospitable host, throwing it open and stepping
forward to announce them, "Welcome, gentlemen, to Manor Farm."
CHAPTER VI
[Illustration]
_An Old-fashioned Card-party. The Clergyman's Verses. The Story
of the Convict's Return_
Several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet
Mr. Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the
performance of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities,
Mr. Pickwick had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate
upon the characters and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was
surrounded--a habit in which he, in common with many other great men,
delighted to indulge.
A very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a
personage than Mr. Wardle's mother--occupied the post of honour on the
right-hand corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of
her having been brought up in the way she should go when young, and
of her not having departed from it when old, ornamented the walls,
in the form of samplers of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal
antiquity, and crimson silk tea-kettle holders of a more modern period.
The aunt, the two young ladies, and Mr. Wardle, each vying with the
other in paying zealous and unremitting attentions to the old lady,
crowded round her easy-chair, one holding her ear-trumpet, another
an orange, and a third a smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily
engaged in patting and punching the pillows which were arranged for her
support. On the opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with
a good-humoured benevolent face--the clergyman of Dingley Dell; and
next him sat his wife, a stout blooming old lady, who looked as if she
were well skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing
home-made cordials greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of
tasting them occasionally very much to her own. A little, hard-headed,
Ribston-pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in
one corner; and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more
old ladies, sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring
very hard at Mr. Pickwick and his fellow-voyagers.
"Mr. Pickwick, mother," said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice.
"Ah!" said the old lady, shaking her head, "I can't hear you."
"Mr. Pickwick, grandma!" screamed both the young ladies together.
"Ah!" exclaimed the old lady. "Well; it don't much matter. He don't
care for an old 'ooman like me, I dare say."
"I assure you, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand,
and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his
benevolent countenance, "I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me
more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family,
and looking so young and well."
"Ah!" said the old lady, after a short pause. "It's all very fine, I
dare say; but I can't hear him."
"Grandma's rather put out now," said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low
tone; "but she'll talk to you presently."
Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age,
and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the
circle.
"Delightful situation this," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Delightful!" echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.
"Well, I think it is," said Mr. Wardle.
"There an't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir," said the
hard-headed man with the pippin-face; "there an't indeed, sir--I'm sure
there an't, sir." The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if
he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better
of him at last.
"There an't a better spot o' ground in all Kent," said the hard-headed
man again, after a pause.
"'Cept Mullins's Meadows," observed the fat man solemnly.
"Mullins's Meadows!" ejaculated the other, with profound contempt.
"Ah, Mullins's Meadows," repeated the fat man.
"Reg'lar good land that," interposed another fat man.
"And so it is, sure-ly," said a third fat man.
"Everybody knows that," said the corpulent host.
The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in the
minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more.
"What are they talking about?" inquired the old lady of one of her
granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people,
she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons
hearing what she said herself.
"About the land, grandma."
"What about the land?--nothing the matter, is there?"
"No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins's
Meadows."
"How should he know anything about it?" inquired the old lady
indignantly. "Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said
so." Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken
above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the
hard-headed delinquent.
"Come, come," said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change
the conversation,--"What say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?"
"I should like it of all things," replied that gentleman; "but pray
don't make up one on my account."
"Oh, I assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber," said Mr. Wardle;
"an't you, mother?"
The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other,
replied in the affirmative.
"Joe, Joe!" said the old gentleman; "Joe--damn that--oh, here he is;
put out the card-tables."
The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out
two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The
whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady; Mr. Miller and the
fat gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company.
The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and
sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled "whist"--a
solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of "game"
has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game
table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to
interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so
much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various
high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat
gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of
the old lady in a proportionate degree.
"There!" said the criminal Miller, triumphantly, as he took up the odd
trick at the conclusion of a hand; "that could not have been played
better, I flatter myself;--impossible to have made another trick."
"Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn't he, sir?" said the
old lady.
Mr. Pickwick nodded assent.
"Ought I, though?" said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his
partner.
"You ought, sir," said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice.
"Very sorry," said the crestfallen Miller.
"Much use that," growled the fat gentleman.
"Two by honours makes us eight," said Mr. Pickwick.
Another hand. "Can you one?" inquired the old lady.
"I can," replied Mr. Pickwick. "Double, single, and the rub."
"Never was such luck," said Mr. Miller.
"Never was such cards," said the fat gentleman.
A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat
gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous.
"Another double," said the old lady: triumphantly making a memorandum
of the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny
under the candlestick.
"A double, sir," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Quite aware of the fact, sir," replied the fat gentleman, sharply.
Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the
unlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high
personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when
he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour and
twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his
retirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of
a man who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuries
sustained. The old lady's hearing decidedly improved, and the unlucky
Miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box.
Meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. Isabella Wardle and
Mr. Trundle "went partners," and Emily Wardle and Mr. Snodgrass did
the same; and even Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt established a
joint-stock company of fish and flattery. Old Mr. Wardle was in the
very height of his jollity; and he was _so_ funny in his management of
the board, and the old ladies were _so_ sharp after their winnings,
that the whole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter.
There was one old lady who always had about half-a-dozen cards to pay
for, at which everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the
old lady looked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever;
on which the old lady's face gradually brightened up, till at last
she laughed louder than any of them. Then, when the spinster aunt got
"matrimony," the young ladies laughed afresh, and the spinster aunt
seemed disposed to be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing
her hand under the table, _she_ brightened up too, and looked rather
knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some
people thought for; whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially
old Mr. Wardle, who enjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. As to
Mr. Snodgrass, he did nothing but whisper poetical sentiments into
his partner's ear, which made one old gentleman facetiously sly,
about partnerships at cards and partnerships for life, and caused the
aforesaid old gentleman to make some remarks thereupon, accompanied
with divers winks and chuckles, which made the company very merry and
the old gentleman's wife especially so. And Mr. Winkle came out with
jokes which are very well known in town, but are not at all known in
the country: and as everybody laughed at them very heartily, and said
they were very capital, Mr. Winkle was in a state of great honour and
glory. And the benevolent clergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy
faces which surrounded the table made the good old man feel happy too;
and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the
heart and not from the lips: and this is the right sort of merriment
after all.
The evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and
when the substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and
the little party formed a social circle round the fire, Mr. Pickwick
thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much
disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment.
"Now this," said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great state
next the old lady's arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his--"This
is just what I like--the happiest moments of my life have been passed
at this old fire-side: and I am so attached to it, that I keep up
a blazing fire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot
to bear it. Why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this
fire-place upon that little stool when she was a girl; didn't you,
mother?"
The tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of old
times and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stole
down the old lady's face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile.
"You must excuse my talking about this old place, Mr. Pickwick,"
resumed the host, after a short pause, "for I love it dearly, and know
no other--the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me;
and so does our little church with the ivy--about which, by the by, our
excellent friend there made a song when he first came amongst us. Mr.
Snodgrass, have you anything in your glass?"
"Plenty, thank you," replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity had
been greatly excited by the last observations of his entertainer. "I
beg your pardon, but you were talking about the song of the Ivy."
"You must ask our friend opposite about that," said the host,
knowingly: indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head.
"May I say that I should like to hear you repeat it, sir?" said Mr.
Snodgrass.
"Why really," replied the clergyman, "it's a very slight affair; and
the only excuse I have for having ever perpetrated it is, that I was a
young man at the time. Such as it is, however, you shall hear it if you
wish."
A murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentleman
proceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife,
the lines in question. "I call them," said he,
THE IVY GREEN
Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend the huge Oak Tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
And he joyously hugs and crawleth round
The rich mould of dead men's graves.
Creeping where grim death has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days,
Shall fatten upon the past:
For the stateliest building man can raise,
Is the Ivy's food at last.
Creeping on, where time has been,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
While the old gentleman repeated these lines a second time, to enable
Mr. Snodgrass to note them down, Mr. Pickwick perused the lineaments
of his face with an expression of great interest. The old gentleman
having concluded his dictation, and Mr. Snodgrass having returned his
note-book to his pocket, Mr. Pickwick said--
"Excuse me, sir, for making the remark on so short an acquaintance; but
a gentleman like yourself cannot fail, I should think, to have observed
many scenes and incidents worth recording, in the course of your
experience as a minister of the Gospel."
"I have witnessed some, certainly," replied the old gentleman; "but the
incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my
sphere of action being so very limited."
"You _did_ make some notes, I think, about John Edmunds, did you not?"
inquired Mr. Wardle, who appeared very desirous to draw his friend out,
for the edification of his new visitors.
The old gentleman slightly nodded his head in token of assent, and was
proceeding to change the subject, when Mr. Pickwick said--
"I beg your pardon, sir; but pray, if I may venture to inquire, who was
John Edmunds?"
"The very thing I was about to ask," said Mr. Snodgrass, eagerly.
"You are fairly in for it," said the jolly host. "You must satisfy the
curiosity of these gentlemen, sooner or later; so you had better take
advantage of this favourable opportunity, and do so at once."
The old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair
forward;--the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together,
especially Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather
hard of hearing; and the old lady's ear trumpet having been duly
adjusted, and Mr. Miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital
of the verses) roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch,
administered beneath the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man,
the old gentleman, without farther preface, commenced the following
tale, to which we have taken the liberty of prefixing the title of
THE CONVICT'S RETURN
"When I first settled in this village," said the old gentleman, "which
is now just five-and-twenty years ago, the most notorious person among
my parishioners was a man of the name of Edmunds, who leased a small
farm near this spot. He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man; idle
and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition.
Beyond the few lazy and reckless vagabonds with whom he sauntered away
his time in the fields, or sotted in the ale-house, he had not a single
friend or acquaintance; no one cared to speak to the man whom many
feared, and every one detested--and Edmunds was shunned by all.
"This man had a wife and one son, who, when I first came here, was
about twelve years old. Of the acuteness of that woman's sufferings,
of the gentle and enduring manner in which she bore them, of the agony
of solicitude with which she reared that boy, no one can form an
adequate conception. Heaven forgive me the supposition, if it be an
uncharitable one, but I do firmly and in my soul believe, that the man
systematically tried for many years to break her heart; but she bore it
all for her child's sake, and, however strange it may seem to many, for
his father's too; for brute as he was, and cruelly as he had treated
her, she had loved him once; and the recollection of what he had been
to her, awakened feelings of forbearance and meekness under suffering
in her bosom, to which all God's creatures, but women, are strangers.
"They were poor--they could not be otherwise when the man pursued
such courses; but the woman's unceasing and unwearied exertions, early
and late, morning, noon, and night, kept them above actual want. Those
exertions were but ill repaid. People who passed the spot in the
evening--sometimes at a late hour of the night--reported that they
had heard the moans and sobs of a woman in distress, and the sound of
blows: and more than once, when it was past midnight, the boy knocked
softly at the door of a neighbour's house, whither he had been sent, to
escape the drunken fury of his unnatural father.
"During the whole of this time, and when the poor creature often bore
about her marks of ill-usage and violence which she could not wholly
conceal, she was a constant attendant at our little church. Regularly
every Sunday, morning and afternoon, she occupied the same seat with
the boy at her side; and though they were both poorly dressed--much
more so than many of their neighbours who were in a lower station--they
were always neat and clean. Every one had a friendly nod and a kind
word for 'poor Mrs. Edmunds'; and sometimes, when she stopped to
exchange a few words with a neighbour at the conclusion of the service
in the little row of elm trees which leads to the church porch, or
lingered behind to gaze with a mother's pride and fondness upon her
healthy boy, as he sported before her with some little companions,
her care-worn face would lighten up with an expression of heartfelt
gratitude; and she would look, if not cheerful and happy, at least
tranquil and contented.
"Five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and
well-grown youth. The time that had strengthened the child's slight
frame and knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed
his mother's form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should
have supported her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should
have cheered her, no more looked upon her own. She occupied her old
seat, but there was a vacant one beside her. The Bible was kept as
carefully as ever, the places were found and folded down as they used
to be: but there was no one to read it with her; and the tears fell
thick and fast upon the book, and blotted the words from her eyes.
Neighbours were as kind as they were wont to be of old, but she shunned
their greetings with averted head. There was no lingering among the
old elm trees now--no cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store.
The desolate woman drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked
hurriedly away.
"Shall I tell you, that the young man, who, looking back to the
earliest of his childhood's days to which memory and consciousness
extended, and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could
remember nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series
of voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with
ill-usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him;--shall I
tell you, that he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart,
and a sullen wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for
him, had linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly
pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame to
her? Alas for human nature! You have anticipated it long since.
"The measure of the unhappy woman's misery and misfortune was
about to be completed. Numerous offences had been committed in the
neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their
boldness increased. A robbery of a daring and aggravated nature
occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had
not calculated on. Young Edmunds was suspected, with three companions.
He was apprehended--committed--tried--condemned--to die.
"The wild and piercing shriek from a woman's voice, which resounded
through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my
ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror to the culprit's heart,
which trial, condemnation--the approach of death itself, had failed
to awaken. The lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness
throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy
pale as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy
limbs of the felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock.
"In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother
threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and fervently besought the
Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles, to
release her from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life
of her only child. A burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as
I hope I may never have to witness again, succeeded. I knew that her
heart was breaking from that hour; but I never once heard complaint or
murmur escape her lips.
"It was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison yard
from day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and
entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain.
He remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for
commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years,
softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour.
"But the spirit of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld
her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. She
fell sick. She dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her
son once more, but her strength failed her, and she sunk powerless on
the ground.
"And now the boasted coldness and indifference of the young man were
tested indeed; and the retribution that fell heavily upon him, nearly
drove him mad. A day passed away and his mother was not there; another
flew by, and she came not near him; a third evening arrived, and yet he
had not seen her; and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated
from her--perhaps for ever. Oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of
former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the
narrow yard--as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for _his_
hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation
rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent
he had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the
ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would
place him by her side. He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron
rail with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and
threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through
the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he
beat his hands together and wept like a child.
"I bore the mother's forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison;
and I carried his solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent
supplication for pardon, to her sick bed. I heard, with pity and
compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her
comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months
before he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no
longer of this world.
"He was removed by night. A few weeks afterwards the poor woman's soul
took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place
of eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service over her
remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone at her
grave's head. Her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to God.
"It had been arranged previously to the convict's departure, that he
should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and
that the letter should be addressed to me. The father had positively
refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was
a matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. Many years
passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half
his term of transportation had expired, and I had received no letter, I
concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, I almost hoped he might be.
"Edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the
country on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance,
perhaps, may be attributed the fact, that though several letters
were despatched, none of them ever reached my hands. He remained in
the same place during the whole fourteen years. At the expiration of
the term, steadily adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he
gave his mother, he made his way back to England amidst innumerable
difficulties, and returned, on foot, to his native place.
"On a fine Sunday evening, in the month of August, John Edmunds set
foot in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years
before. His nearest way lay through the churchyard. The man's heart
swelled as he crossed the stile. The tall old elms, through whose
branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light
upon the shady path, awakened the associations of his earliest days.
He pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother's hand, and
walking peacefully to church. He remembered how he used to look up
into her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears
as she gazed upon his features--tears which fell hot upon his forehead
as she stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too, although he little
knew then what bitter tears hers were. He thought how often he had run
merrily down that path with some childish playfellow, looking back,
ever and again, to catch his mother's smile, or hear her gentle voice;
and then a veil seemed lifted from his memory, and words of kindness
unrequited, and warnings despised, and promises broken, thronged upon
his recollection till his heart failed him, and he could bear it no
longer.
"He entered the church. The evening service was concluded and the
congregation had dispersed, but it was not yet closed. His steps echoed
through the low building with a hollow sound, and he almost feared to
be alone, it was so still and quiet. He looked round him. Nothing was
changed. The place seemed smaller than it used to be, but there were
the old monuments, on which he had gazed with childish awe a thousand
times; the little pulpit with its faded cushion; the Communion-table
before which he had so often repeated the Commandments he had
reverenced as a child, and forgotten as a man. He approached the old
seat; it looked cold and desolate. The cushion had been removed, and
the Bible was not there. Perhaps his mother now occupied a poorer seat,
or possibly she had grown infirm and could not reach the church alone.
He dared not think of what he feared. A cold feeling crept over him,
and he trembled violently as he turned away.
"An old man entered the porch just as he reached it. Edmunds started
back, for he knew him well; many a time he had watched him digging
graves in the churchyard. What would _he_ say to the returned convict?
"The old man raised his eyes to the stranger's face, bid him 'Good
evening,' and walked slowly on. He had forgotten him.
"He walked down the hill, and through the village. The weather was
warm, and the people were sitting at their doors, or strolling in their
little gardens as he passed, enjoying the serenity of the evening, and
their rest from labour. Many a look was turned towards him, and many
a doubtful glance he cast on either side to see whether any knew and
shunned him. There were strange faces in almost every house; in some he
recognised the burly form of some old schoolfellow--a boy when he last
saw him--surrounded by a troop of merry children; in others he saw,
seated in an easy chair at a cottage door, a feeble and infirm old man,
whom he only remembered as a hale and hearty labourer; but they had all
forgotten him, and he passed on unknown.
"The last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth,
casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the
shadows of the orchard trees, as he stood before the old house--the
home of his infancy--to which his heart had yearned with an intensity
of affection not to be described, through long and weary years of
captivity and sorrow. The paling was low, though he well remembered the
time when it had seemed a high wall to him: and he looked over into the
old garden. There were more seeds and gayer flowers than there used to
be, but there were the old trees still--the very tree, under which he
had lain a thousand times when tired of playing in the sun, and felt
the soft mild sleep of happy boyhood steal gently upon him. There were
voices within the house. He listened, but they fell strangely upon his
ear; he knew them not. They were merry too; and he well knew that his
poor old mother could not be cheerful, and he away. The door opened,
and a group of little children bounded out, shouting and romping. The
father, with a little boy in his arms, appeared at the door, and they
crowded round him, clapping their tiny hands, and dragging him out, to
join their joyous sports. The convict thought on the many times he had
shrunk from his father's sight in that very place. He remembered how
often he had buried his trembling head beneath the bed-clothes, and
heard the harsh word, and the hard stripe, and his mother's wailing;
and though the man sobbed aloud with agony of mind as he left the spot,
his fist was clenched, and his teeth were set, in fierce and deadly
passion.
"And such was the return to which he had looked through the weary
perspective of many years, and for which he had undergone so much
suffering! No face of welcome, no look of forgiveness, no house to
receive, no hand to help him--and this too in the old village. What
was his loneliness in the wild thick woods, where man was never seen,
to this!
"He felt that in the distant land of his bondage and infamy, he had
thought of his native place as it was when he left it; not as it would
be when he returned. The sad reality struck coldly at his heart, and
his spirit sank within him. He had not courage to make inquiries, or
to present himself to the only person who was likely to receive him
with kindness and compassion. He walked slowly on; and shunning the
road-side like a guilty man, turned into a meadow he well remembered;
and covering his face with his hands, threw himself upon the grass.
"He had not observed that a man was lying on the bank beside him; his
garments rustled as he turned round to steal a look at the new-comer:
and Edmunds raised his head.
"The man had moved into a sitting posture. His body was much bent, and
his face was wrinkled and yellow. His dress denoted him an inmate of
the workhouse: he had the appearance of being very old, but it looked
more the effect of dissipation or disease, than length of years. He was
staring hard at the stranger, and though his eyes were lustreless and
heavy at first, they appeared to glow with an unnatural and alarmed
expression after they had been fixed upon him for a short time, until
they seemed to be staring from their sockets. Edmunds gradually raised
himself to his knees, and looked more and more earnestly upon the old
man's face. They gazed upon each other in silence.
"The old man was ghastly pale. He shuddered and tottered to his feet.
Edmunds sprang to his. He stepped back a pace or two. Edmunds advanced.
"'Let me hear you speak,' said the convict in a thick broken voice.
"'Stand off!' cried the old man, with a dreadful oath. The convict drew
closer to him.
"'Stand off!' shrieked the old man. Furious with terror, he raised his
stick and struck Edmunds a heavy blow across the face.
"'Father--devil!' murmured the convict, between his set teeth. He
rushed wildly forward, and clenched the old man by the throat--but he
was his father; and his arm fell powerless by his side.
"The old man uttered a loud yell which rang through the lonely fields
like the howl of an evil spirit. His face turned black: the gore rushed
from his mouth and nose, and dyed the grass a deep dark red, as he
staggered and fell. He had ruptured a blood-vessel: and he was a dead
man before his son could raise him.
* * * * *
"In that corner of the churchyard," said the old gentleman, after a
silence of a few moments, "in that corner of the churchyard of which I
have spoken before, there lies buried a man, who was in my employment
for three years after this event: and who was truly contrite, penitent,
and humbled, if ever man was. No one save myself knew in that man's
lifetime who he was, or whence he came:--it was John Edmunds, the
returned convict."
CHAPTER VII
[Illustration]
_How Mr. Winkle, instead of shooting at the Pigeon and killing
the Crow, shot at the Crow and wounded the Pigeon; how the
Dingley Dell Cricket Club played All-Muggleton, and how
All-Muggleton dined at the Dingley Dell expense: with other
interesting and instructive matters._
The fatiguing adventures of the day or the somniferous influence of the
clergyman's tale operated so strongly on the drowsy tendencies of Mr.
Pickwick, that in less than five minutes after he had been shown to his
comfortable bedroom, he fell into a sound and dreamless sleep, from
which he was only awakened by the morning sun darting his bright beams
reproachfully into the apartment. Mr. Pickwick was no sluggard; and he
sprang like an ardent warrior from his tent--bedstead.
"Pleasant, pleasant country," sighed the enthusiastic gentleman, as
he opened his lattice window. "Who could live to gaze from day to day
on bricks and slates, who had once felt the influence of a scene like
this? Who could continue to exist, where there are no cows but the cows
on the chimney-pots; nothing redolent of Pan but pan-tiles; no crop but
stone-crop? Who could bear to drag out a life in such a spot? Who, I
ask, could endure it?" and, having cross-examined solitude after the
most approved precedents, at considerable length, Mr. Pickwick thrust
his head out of the lattice, and looked around him.
The rich, sweet smell of the hay-ricks rose to his chamber window; the
hundred perfumes of the little flower-garden beneath scented the air
around; the deep-green meadows shone in the morning dew that glistened
on every leaf as it trembled in the gentle air; and the birds sang as
if every sparkling drop were a fountain of inspiration to them. Mr.
Pickwick fell into an enchanting and delicious reverie.
"Hallo!" was the sound that roused him.
He looked to the right, but he saw nobody; his eyes wandered to the
left, and pierced the prospect; he stared into the sky, but he wasn't
wanted there; and then he did what a common mind would have done at
once--looked into the garden, and there saw Mr. Wardle.
"How are you?" said that good-humoured individual, out of breath with
his own anticipations of pleasure. "Beautiful morning, an't it? Glad to
see you up so early. Make haste down and come out. I'll wait for you
here."
Mr. Pickwick needed no second invitation. Ten minutes sufficed for the
completion of his toilet, and at the expiration of that time he was by
the old gentleman's side.
"Hallo!" said Mr. Pickwick in his turn: seeing that his companion was
armed with a gun, and that another lay ready on the grass. "What's
going forward?"
"Why, your friend and I," replied the host, "are going out
rook-shooting before breakfast. He's a very good shot, an't he?"
"I've heard him say he's a capital one," replied Mr. Pickwick; "but I
never saw him aim at anything."
"Well," said the host, "I wish he'd come. Joe--Joe!"
The fat boy, who under the exciting influence of the morning did not
appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from
the house.
"Go up, and call the gentleman, and tell him he'll find me and Mr.
Pickwick in the rookery. Show the gentleman the way there; d'ye hear?"
The boy departed to execute his commission; and the host, carrying both
guns like a second Robinson Crusoe, led the way from the garden.
"This is the place," said the old gentleman, pausing after a few
minutes' walking, in an avenue of trees. The information was
unnecessary; for the incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks
sufficiently indicated their whereabout.
The old gentleman laid one gun on the ground, and loaded the other.
"Here they are," said Mr. Pickwick; and as he spoke, the forms of Mr.
Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle appeared in the distance. The
fat boy, not being quite certain which gentleman he was directed to
call, had with peculiar sagacity, and to prevent the possibility of any
mistake, called them all.
"Come along," shouted the old gentleman, addressing Mr. Winkle; "a keen
hand like you ought to have been up long ago, even to such poor work as
this."
Mr. Winkle responded with a forced smile, and took up the spare gun
with an expression of countenance which a metaphysical rook, impressed
with a foreboding of his approaching death by violence, may be supposed
to assume. It might have been keenness, but it looked remarkably like
misery.
The old gentleman nodded; and two ragged boys who had been marshalled
to the spot under the direction of the infant Lambert, forthwith
commenced climbing up two of the trees.
"What are those lads for?" inquired Mr. Pickwick, abruptly. He was
rather alarmed; for he was not quite certain but that the distress of
the agricultural interest, about which he had often heard a great deal,
might have compelled the small boys attached to the soil to earn a
precarious and hazardous subsistence by making marks of themselves for
inexperienced sportsmen.
"Only to start the game," replied Mr. Wardle, laughing.
"To what?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Why, in plain English, to frighten the rooks."
"Oh! is that all?"
"You are satisfied?"
"Quite."
"Very well. Shall I begin?"
"If you please," said Mr. Winkle, glad of any respite.
"Stand aside, then. Now for it."
The boy shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it. Half a dozen
young rooks in violent conversation, flew out to ask what the matter
was. The old gentleman fired by way of reply. Down fell one bird, and
off flew the others.
"Take him up, Joe," said the old gentleman.
There was a smile upon the youth's face as he advanced. Indistinct
visions of rook-pie floated through his imagination. He laughed as he
retired with the bird--it was a plump one.
"Now, Mr. Winkle," said the host, reloading his own gun. "Fire away."
Mr. Winkle advanced, and levelled his gun. Mr. Pickwick and his friends
cowered involuntarily to escape damage from the heavy fall of rooks,
which they felt quite certain would be occasioned by the devastating
barrel of their friend. There was a solemn pause--a shout--a flapping
of wings--a faint click.
"Hallo!" said the old gentleman.
"Won't it go?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Missed fire," said Mr. Winkle, who was very pale: probably from
disappointment.
"Odd," said the old gentleman, taking the gun. "Never knew one of them
miss fire before. Why, I don't see anything of the cap."
"Bless my soul," said Mr. Winkle. "I declare I forgot the cap!"
The slight omission was rectified. Mr. Pickwick crouched again. Mr.
Winkle stepped forward with an air of determination and resolution; and
Mr. Tupman looked out from behind a tree. The boy shouted; four birds
flew out. Mr. Winkle fired. There was a scream as of an individual--not
a rook--in corporeal anguish. Mr. Tupman had saved the lives of
innumerable unoffending birds by receiving a portion of the charge in
his left arm.
To describe the confusion that ensued would be impossible. To tell
how Mr. Pickwick in the first transports of his emotion called Mr.
Winkle "Wretch!" how Mr. Tupman lay prostrate on the ground, and how
Mr. Winkle knelt horror-stricken beside him; how Mr. Tupman called
distractedly upon some feminine Christian name, and then opened
first one eye, and then the other, and then fell back and shut
them both;--all this would be as difficult to describe in detail,
as it would be to depict the gradual recovering of the unfortunate
individual, the binding up of his arm with pocket-handkerchiefs, and
the conveying him back by slow degrees supported by the arms of his
anxious friends.
[Illustration: _"Bless my soul!" said Mr. Winkle, "I declare I forgot
the cap."_]
They drew near the house. The ladies were at the garden-gate, waiting
for their arrival and their breakfast. The spinster aunt appeared; she
smiled, and beckoned them to walk quicker. 'Twas evident she knew not
of the disaster. Poor thing! there are times when ignorance is bliss
indeed.
They approached nearer.
"Why, what _is_ the matter with the little old gentleman?" said
Isabella Wardle. The spinster aunt heeded not the remark; she thought
it applied to Mr. Pickwick. In her eyes Tracy Tupman was a youth; she
viewed his years through a diminishing glass.
"Don't be frightened," called out the old host, fearful of alarming his
daughters. The little party had crowded so completely round Mr. Tupman,
that they could not yet clearly discern the nature of the accident.
"Don't be frightened," said the host.
"What's the matter?" sc
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