[Illustration]
_The Chief Features of which, will be found to be an Authentic
Version of the Legend of Prince Bladud, and a most extraordinary
Calamity that befell Mr. Winkle_
As Mr. Pickwick contemplated a stay of at least two months in Bath, he
deemed it advisable to take private lodgings for himself and friends
for that period; and as a favourable opportunity offered for their
securing, on moderate terms, the upper portion of a house in the Royal
Crescent, which was larger than they required, Mr. and Mrs. Dowler
offered to relieve them of a bedroom and sitting-room. This proposition
was at once accepted, and in three days' time they were all located
in their new abode, when Mr. Pickwick began to drink the waters with
the utmost assiduity. Mr. Pickwick took them systematically. He drank
a quarter of a pint before breakfast, and then walked up a hill; and
another quarter of a pint after breakfast, and then walked down a hill;
and after every fresh quarter of a pint, Mr. Pickwick declared, in
the most solemn and emphatic terms, that he felt a great deal better:
whereat his friends were very much delighted, though they had not been
previously aware that there was anything the matter with him.
The great pump-room is a spacious saloon, ornamented with Corinthian
pillars, and a music gallery, and a Tompion clock, and a statue of
Nash, and a golden inscription, to which all the water-drinkers should
attend, for it appeals to them in the cause of a deserving charity.
There is a large bar with a marble vase, out of which the pumper gets
the water; and there are a number of yellow-looking tumblers, out of
which the company get it; and it is a most edifying and satisfactory
sight to behold the perseverance and gravity with which they swallow
it. There are baths near at hand, in which a part of the company wash
themselves; and a band plays afterwards, to congratulate the remainder
on their having done so. There is another pump-room, into which infirm
ladies and gentlemen are wheeled, in such an astonishing variety of
chairs and chaises, that any adventurous individual who goes in with
the regular number of toes, is in imminent danger of coming out without
them; and there is a third, into which the quiet people go, for it
is less noisy than either. There is an immensity of promenading,
on crutches and off, with sticks and without, and a great deal of
conversation, and liveliness, and pleasantry.
Every morning the regular water-drinkers, Mr. Pickwick among the
number, met each other in the pump-room, took their quarter of a
pint, and walked constitutionally. At the afternoon's promenade, Lord
Mutanhed, and the Honourable Mr. Crushton, the Dowager Lady Snuphanuph,
Mrs. Colonel Wugsby, and all the great people, and all the morning
water-drinkers, met in grand assemblage. After this, they walked out,
or drove out, or were pushed out in bath-chairs, and met one another
again. After this, the gentlemen went to the reading-rooms and met
divisions of the mass. After this, they went home. If it were theatre
night, perhaps they met at the theatre; if it were assembly night, they
met at the rooms; and if it were neither, they met the next day. A very
pleasant routine, with perhaps a slight tinge of sameness.
Mr. Pickwick was sitting up by himself, after a day spent in this
manner, making entries in his journal: his friends having retired to
bed: when he was roused by a gentle tap at the room door.
"Beg your pardon, sir," said Mrs. Craddock, the landlady, peeping in;
"but did you want anything more, sir?"
"Nothing more, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick.
"My young girl is gone to bed, sir," said Mrs. Craddock; "and Mr.
Dowler is good enough to say that he'll sit up for Mrs. Dowler, as the
party isn't expected to be over till late; so I was thinking if you
wanted nothing more, Mr. Pickwick, I would go to bed."
"By all means, ma'am," replied Mr. Pickwick.
"Wish you good night, sir," said Mrs. Craddock.
"Good night, ma'am," rejoined Mr. Pickwick.
Mrs. Craddock closed the door, and Mr. Pickwick resumed his writing.
In half an hour's time the entries were concluded. Mr. Pickwick
carefully rubbed the last page on the blotting paper, shut up the book,
wiped his pen on the bottom of the inside of his coat-tail, and opened
the drawer of the inkstand to put it carefully away. There were a
couple of sheets of writing paper, pretty closely written over, in the
inkstand drawer, and they were folded so that the title, which was in
a good round hand, was fully disclosed to him. Seeing from this, that
it was no private document: and as it seemed to relate to Bath, and was
very short: Mr. Pickwick unfolded it, lighted his bed-room candle that
it might burn up well by the time he finished; and drawing his chair
nearer the fire, read as follows:
THE TRUE LEGEND OF PRINCE BLADUD
"Less than two hundred years agone, on one of the public baths in this
city, there appeared an inscription in honour of its mighty founder,
the renowned Prince Bladud. That inscription is now erased.
"For many hundred years before that time, there had been handed down,
from age to age, an old legend, that the illustrious Prince being
afflicted with leprosy, on his return from reaping a rich harvest
of knowledge in Athens, shunned the court of his royal father, and
consorted moodily with husbandmen and pigs. Among the herd (so said the
legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the Prince
had a fellow feeling--for he too was wise--a pig of thoughtful and
reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was
terrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply as
he looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his
royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears.
"This sagacious pig was fond of bathing in rich, moist mud. Not in
summer, as common pigs do now, to cool themselves, and did even in
those distant ages (which is a proof that the light of civilisation had
already begun to dawn, though feebly), but in the cold sharp days of
winter. His coat was ever so sleek, and his complexion so clear, that
the Prince resolved to essay the purifying qualities of the same water
that his friend resorted to. He made the trial. Beneath that black mud,
bubbled the hot springs of Bath. He washed, and was cured. Hastening to
his father's court, he paid his best respects, and returning quickly
hither, founded this city, and its famous baths.
"He sought the pig with all the ardour of their early friendship--but,
alas! the waters had been his death. He had imprudently taken a bath at
too high a temperature, and the natural philosopher was no more! He was
succeeded by Pliny, who also fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge.
"This _was_ the legend. Listen to the true one.
"A great many centuries since, there flourished in great state, the
famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, King of Britain. He was a mighty
monarch. The earth shook when he walked: he was so very stout. His
people basked in the light of his countenance: it was so red and
glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good
many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a
remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made
up in circumference. If any degenerate monarch of modern times could
be in any way compared with him, I should say the venerable King Cole
would be that illustrious potentate.
"This good king had a queen, who eighteen years before, had had a son,
who was called Bladud. He was sent to a preparatory seminary in his
father's dominions until he was ten years old, and was then despatched
in charge of a trusty messenger, to a finishing school at Athens; and
as there was no extra charge for remaining during the holidays, and no
notice required previous to the removal of a pupil, there he remained
for eight long years, at the expiration of which time, the king his
father sent the Lord Chamberlain over, to settle the bill, and to bring
him home: which, the Lord Chamberlain doing, was received with shouts,
and pensioned immediately.
"When King Lud saw the Prince his son, and found he had grown up such a
fine young man, he perceived at once what a grand thing it would be to
have him married without delay, so that his children might be the means
of perpetuating the glorious race of Lud, down to the very latest ages
of the world. With this view, he sent a special embassy, composed of
great noblemen who had nothing particular to do, and wanted lucrative
employment, to a neighbouring king, and demanded his fair daughter in
marriage for his son: stating at the same time that he was anxious to
be on the most affectionate terms with his brother and friend, but that
if they couldn't agree in arranging this marriage, he should be under
the unpleasant necessity of invading his kingdom, and putting his eyes
out. To this, the other king (who was the weaker of the two) replied,
that he was very much obliged to his friend and brother for all his
goodness and magnanimity, and that his daughter was quite ready to be
married, whenever Prince Bladud liked to come and fetch her.
"This answer no sooner reached Britain, than the whole nation were
transported with joy. Nothing was heard, on all sides, but the sounds
of feasting and revelry,--except the chinking of money as it was paid
in by the people to the collector of the Royal Treasures, to defray
the expenses of the happy ceremony. It was upon this occasion that
King Lud, seated on the top of his throne in full council, rose, in
the exuberance of his feelings, and commanded the Lord Chief Justice
to order in the richest wines and the court minstrels: an act of
graciousness which has been, through the ignorance of traditionary
historians, attributed to King Cole, in those celebrated lines in which
his majesty is represented as--
'Calling for his pipe, and calling for his pot,
And calling for his fiddlers three.'
Which is an obvious injustice to the memory of King Lud, and a
dishonest exaltation of the virtues of King Cole.
"But in the midst of all this festivity and rejoicing, there was
one individual present who tasted not when the sparkling wines were
poured forth, and who danced not when the minstrels played. This was
no other than Prince Bladud himself, in honour of whose happiness a
whole people were at that very moment straining alike their throats
and purse-strings. The truth was, that the Prince, forgetting the
undoubted right of the minister for foreign affairs to fall in love on
his behalf, had, contrary to every precedent of policy and diplomacy,
already fallen in love on his own account, and privately contracted
himself unto the fair daughter of a noble Athenian.
"Here we have a striking example of one of the manifold advantages of
civilisation and refinement. If the Prince had lived in later days, he
might at once have married the object of his father's choice, and then
set himself seriously to work, to relieve himself of the burden which
rested heavily upon him. He might have endeavoured to break her heart
by a systematic course of insult and neglect; or, if the spirit of her
sex, and a proud consciousness of her many wrongs, had upheld her under
this ill treatment, he might have sought to take her life, and so get
rid of her effectually. But neither mode of relief suggested itself to
Prince Bladud; so he solicited a private audience, and told his father.
"It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their
passions. King Lud flew into a frightful rage, tossed his crown up to
the ceiling, and caught it again--for in those days kings kept their
crowns on their heads, and not in the Tower--stamped the ground, rapped
his forehead, wondered why his own flesh and blood rebelled against
him, and, finally, calling in his guards, ordered the Prince away to
instant confinement in a lofty turret; a course of treatment which the
kings of old very generally pursued towards their sons, when their
matrimonial inclinations did not happen to point to the same quarter as
their own.
"When Prince Bladud had been shut up in the lofty turret for the
greater part of a year, with no better prospect before his bodily
eyes than a stone wall, or before his mental vision than prolonged
imprisonment, he naturally began to ruminate on a plan of escape,
which, after months of preparation, he managed to accomplish;
considerately leaving his dinner knife in the heart of his gaoler, lest
the poor fellow (who had a family) should be considered privy to his
flight, and punished accordingly by the infuriated king.
"The monarch was frantic at the loss of his son. He knew not on whom to
vent his grief and wrath, until fortunately bethinking himself of the
Lord Chamberlain who had brought him home, he struck off his pension
and his head together.
"Meanwhile the young Prince, effectually disguised, wandered on foot
through his father's dominions, cheered and supported in all his
hardships by sweet thoughts of the Athenian maid, who was the innocent
cause of his weary trials. One day he stopped to rest in a country
village; and seeing that there were gay dances going forward on the
green, and gay faces passing to and fro, ventured to inquire of a
reveller who stood near him, the reason for this rejoicing.
"'Know you not, O stranger,' was the reply, 'of the recent proclamation
of our gracious king?'
"'Proclamation! No. What proclamation?' rejoined the Prince--for he had
travelled along the bye and little-frequented ways and knew nothing of
what had passed upon the public roads, such as they were.
"'Why,' replied the peasant, 'the foreign lady that our Prince wished
to wed, is married to a foreign noble of her own country; and the king
proclaims the fact, and a great public festival besides; for now, of
course, Prince Bladud will come back and marry the lady his father
chose, who they say is as beautiful as the noonday sun. Your health,
sir. God save the king!'
"The Prince remained to hear no more. He fled from the spot, and
plunged into the thickest recesses of a neighbouring wood. On, on, he
wandered night and day: beneath the blazing sun, and the cold pale
moon: through the dry heat of noon, and the damp cold of night: in the
grey light of morn, and the red glare of eve. So heedless was he of
time or object, that being bound for Athens, he wandered as far out of
his way as Bath.
"There was no city where Bath stands, then. There was no vestige of
human habitation, or sign of man's resort, to bear the name; but there
was the same noble country, the same broad expanse of hill and dale,
the same beautiful channel stealing on, far away: the same lofty
mountains which, like the troubles of life, viewed at a distance, and
partially obscured by the bright mist of its morning, lose their
ruggedness and asperity, and seem all ease and softness. Moved by the
gentle beauty of the scene, the Prince sank upon the green turf, and
bathed his swollen feet in his tears.
"'Oh!' said the unhappy Bladud, clasping his hands, and mournfully
raising his eyes towards the sky, 'would that my wanderings might end
here! Would that these grateful tears, with which I now mourn hope
misplaced, and love despised, might flow in peace for ever!'
"The wish was heard. It was in the time of the heathen deities, who
used occasionally to take people at their words, with a promptness, in
some cases, extremely awkward. The ground opened beneath the Prince's
feet; he sunk into the chasm; and instantaneously it closed upon his
head for ever, save where his hot tears welled up through the earth,
and where they have continued to gush forth ever since.
"It is observable that, to this day, large numbers of elderly ladies
and gentlemen who have been disappointed in procuring partners, and
almost as many young ones who are anxious to obtain them, repair,
annually, to Bath to drink the waters, from which they derive much
strength and comfort. This is most complimentary to the virtue of
Prince Bladud's tears, and strongly corroborative of the veracity of
this legend."
* * * * *
Mr. Pickwick yawned several times, when he had arrived at the end of
this little manuscript: carefully refolded, and replaced it in the
inkstand drawer: and then, with a countenance expressive of the utmost
weariness, lighted his chamber candle, and went upstairs to bed.
He stopped at Mr. Dowler's door, according to custom, and knocked to
say good night.
"Ah!" said Dowler, "going to bed? I wish I was. Dismal night. Windy;
isn't it?"
"Very," said Mr. Pickwick. "Good night."
"Good night."
Mr. Pickwick went to his bed-chamber, and Mr. Dowler resumed his seat
before the fire, in fulfilment of his rash promise to sit up till his
wife came home.
There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody,
especially if that somebody be at a party. You cannot help thinking how
quickly the time passes with them, which drags so heavily with you; and
the more you think of this, the more your hopes of their speedy arrival
decline. Clocks tick so loud, too, when you are sitting up alone, and
you seem as if you had an under garment of cobwebs on. First, something
tickles your right knee, and then the same sensation irritates your
left. You have no sooner changed your position than it comes again
in the arms; when you have fidgeted your limbs into all sorts of odd
shapes, you have a sudden relapse in the nose, which you rub as if to
rub it off--as there is no doubt you would, if you could. Eyes, too,
are mere personal inconveniences; and the wick of one candle gets an
inch and a half long, while you are snuffing the other. These, and
various other little nervous annoyances, render sitting up for a length
of time after everybody else has gone to bed, anything but a cheerful
amusement.
This was just Mr. Dowler's opinion as he sat before the fire, and
felt honestly indignant with all the inhuman people at the party who
were keeping him up. He was not put into better humour either by the
reflection that he had taken it into his head, early in the evening, to
think that he had got an ache there, and so stopped at home. At length,
after several droppings asleep, and fallings forward towards the bars,
and catchings backward soon enough to prevent being branded in the
face, Mr. Dowler made up his mind that he would throw himself on the
bed in the back room and _think_--not sleep, of course.
"I'm a heavy sleeper," said Mr. Dowler, as he flung himself on the
bed. "I must keep awake. I suppose I shall hear a knock here. Yes.
I thought so. I can hear the watchman. There he goes. Fainter now,
though. A little fainter. He's turning the corner. Ah!" When Mr. Dowler
arrived at this point, _he_ turned the corner at which he had been long
hesitating, and fell fast asleep.
Just as the clock struck three, there was blown into the crescent a
sedan-chair with Mrs. Dowler inside, borne by one short fat chairman,
and one long thin one, who had much ado to keep their bodies
perpendicular: to say nothing of the chair. But on that high ground,
and in the crescent, which the wind swept round and round, as if it
were going to tear the paving stones up, its fury was tremendous.
They were very glad to set the chair down, and give a good round loud
double-knock at the street door.
They waited some time, but nobody came.
"Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think," said the short chairman,
warming his hands at the attendant link-boy's torch.
"I wish he'd give 'em a squeeze and wake 'em," observed the long one.
"Knock again, will you, if you please," cried Mrs. Dowler from the
chair. "Knock two or three times, if you please."
The short man was quite willing to get the job over, as soon as
possible; so he stood on the step, and gave four or five most startling
double knocks, of eight or ten knocks a piece: while the long man went
into the road, and looked up at the windows for a light.
Nobody came. It was all as silent and dark as ever.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Dowler. "You must knock again, if you please."
"Theer ain't a bell, is there, ma'am?" said the short chairman.
"Yes, there is," interposed the link-boy, "I've been a ringing at it
ever so long."
"It's only a handle," said Mrs. Dowler, "the wire's broken."
"I wish the servants' heads wos," growled the long man.
"I must trouble you to knock again, if you please," said Mrs. Dowler
with the utmost politeness.
The short man did knock again several times, without producing the
smallest effect. The tall man, growing very impatient, then relieved
him, and kept on perpetually knocking double knocks of two loud knocks
each, like an insane postman.
At length Mr. Winkle began to dream that he was at a club, and that
the members being very refractory, the chairman was obliged to hammer
the table a good deal to preserve order; then he had a confused notion
of an auction room where there were no bidders, and the auctioneer was
buying everything in; and ultimately he began to think it just within
the bounds of possibility that somebody might be knocking at the street
door. To make quite certain, however, he remained quiet in bed for ten
minutes or so, and listened; and when he had counted two or three and
thirty knocks, he felt quite satisfied, and gave himself a great deal
of credit for being so wakeful.
"Rap rap--rap rap--rap rap--ra, ra, ra, ra, ra, rap!" went the knocker.
Mr. Winkle jumped out of bed, wondering very much what could possibly
be the matter, and hastily putting on his stockings and slippers,
folded his dressing-gown round him, lighted a flat candle from the
rushlight that was burning in the fireplace, and hurried downstairs.
"Here's somebody comin' at last, ma'am," said the short chairman.
"I wish I wos behind him vith a bradawl," muttered the long one.
"Who's there?" cried Mr. Winkle, undoing the chain.
"Don't stop to ask questions, cast-iron head," replied the long man,
with great disgust, taking it for granted that the inquirer was a
footman; "but open the door."
"Come, look sharp, timber eyelids," added the other encouragingly.
Mr. Winkle, being half asleep, obeyed the command mechanically, opened
the door a little, and peeped out. The first thing he saw, was the
red glare of the link-boy's torch. Startled by the sudden fear that
the house might be on fire, he hastily threw the door wide open, and
holding the candle above his head, stared eagerly before him, not quite
certain whether what he saw was a sedan-chair or a fire-engine. At this
instant there came a violent gust of wind; the light was blown out; Mr.
Winkle felt himself irresistibly impelled on to the steps; and the door
blew to, with a loud crash.
"Well, young man, now you _have_ done it!" said the short chairman.
Mr. Winkle, catching sight of a lady's face at the window of the sedan,
turned hastily round, plied the knocker with all his might and main,
and called frantically upon the chairman to take the chair away again.
"Take it away, take it away!" cried Mr. Winkle. "Here's somebody coming
out of another house; put me into the chair. Hide me! Do something with
me!"
All this time he was shivering with cold; and every time he raised
his hand to the knocker, the wind took the dressing-gown in a most
unpleasant manner.
"The people are coming down the crescent now. There are ladies with
'em; cover me up with something. Stand before me!" roared Mr. Winkle.
But the chairmen were too much exhausted with laughing to afford him
the slightest assistance, and the ladies were every moment approaching
nearer and nearer.
Mr. Winkle gave a last hopeless knock; the ladies were only a few doors
off. He threw away the extinguished candle, which, all this time, he
had held above his head, and fairly bolted into the sedan-chair where
Mrs. Dowler was.
Now, Mrs. Craddock had heard the knocking and the voices at last; and
only waiting to put something smarter on her head than her night-cap,
ran down into the front drawing-room to make sure that it was the right
party. Throwing up the window sash as Mr. Winkle was rushing into the
chair, she no sooner caught sight of what was going forward below, than
she raised a vehement and dismal shriek, and implored Mr. Dowler to get
up directly, for his wife was running away with another gentleman.
Upon this, Mr. Dowler bounced off the bed as abruptly as an india-rubber
ball, and rushing into the front room, arrived at one window just as
Mr. Pickwick threw up the other; when the first object that met the
gaze of both, was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan-chair.
"Watchman," shouted Dowler furiously; "stop him--hold him--keep him
tight--shut him in, till I come down. I'll cut his throat--give me a
knife--from ear to ear, Mrs. Craddock--I will!" And breaking from the
shrieking landlady, and from Mr. Pickwick, the indignant husband seized
a small supper-knife, and tore into the street.
But Mr. Winkle didn't wait for him. He no sooner heard the horrible
threat of the valorous Dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan, quite
as quickly as he had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into
the road, took to his heels and tore round the crescent, hotly pursued
by Dowler and the watchman. He kept ahead; the door was open as he
came round the second time; he rushed in, slammed it in Dowler's face,
mounted to his bed-room, locked the door, piled a washhand-stand, chest
of drawers, and table against it, and packed up a few necessaries ready
for flight with the first ray of morning.
[Illustration: _Mr. Winkle took to his heels and tore round the
Crescent._]
Dowler came up to the outside of the door; avowed, through the keyhole,
his steadfast determination of cutting Mr. Winkle's throat next day;
and, after a great confusion of voices in the drawing-room, amidst
which that of Mr. Pickwick was distinctly heard endeavouring to make
peace, the inmates dispersed to their several bed-chambers, and all was
quite once more.
It is not unlikely that the inquiry may be made, where Mr. Weller was,
all this time? We will state where he was, in the next chapter.