‘I will.’

‘He’ll sit next her at table.’

‘Let him.’

‘He’ll flatter her.’

‘Let him.’

‘He’ll pay her every possible attention.’

‘Let him.’

‘And he’ll cut you.’

‘Cut _me_!’ screamed the spinster aunt. ‘_he_ cut _me_; will he!’ and

she trembled with rage and disappointment.

‘You will convince yourself?’ said Jingle.

‘I will.’

‘You’ll show your spirit?’

‘I will.’

You’ll not have him afterwards?’

‘Never.’

‘You’ll take somebody else?’

Yes.’

‘You shall.’

Mr. Jingle fell on his knees, remained thereupon for five minutes

thereafter; and rose the accepted lover of the spinster aunt--

conditionally upon Mr. Tupman’s perjury being made clear and manifest.

The burden of proof lay with Mr. Alfred Jingle; and he produced his

evidence that very day at dinner. The spinster aunt could hardly believe

her eyes. Mr. Tracy Tupman was established at Emily’s side, ogling,

whispering, and smiling, in opposition to Mr. Snodgrass. Not a word, not

a look, not a glance, did he bestow upon his heart’s pride of the

evening before.

‘Damn that boy!’ thought old Mr. Wardle to himself.--He had heard the

story from his mother. ‘Damn that boy! He must have been asleep. It’s

all imagination.’

‘Traitor!’ thought the spinster aunt. ‘Dear Mr. Jingle was not deceiving

me. Ugh! how I hate the wretch!’

The following conversation may serve to explain to our readers this

apparently unaccountable alteration of deportment on the part of Mr.

Tracy Tupman.

The time was evening; the scene the garden. There were two figures

walking in a side path; one was rather short and stout; the other tall

and slim. They were Mr. Tupman and Mr. Jingle. The stout figure

commenced the dialogue.

‘How did I do it?’ he inquired.

‘Splendid--capital--couldn’t act better myself--you must repeat the part

to-morrow--every evening till further notice.’

‘Does Rachael still wish it?’

‘Of course--she don’t like it--but must be done--avert suspicion--afraid

of her brother--says there’s no help for it--only a few days more--when

old folks blinded--crown your happiness.’

‘Any message?’

‘Love--best love--kindest regards--unalterable affection. Can I say

anything for you?’

‘My dear fellow,’ replied the unsuspicious Mr. Tupman, fervently

grasping his ‘friend’s’ hand--‘carry my best love--say how hard I find

it to dissemble--say anything that’s kind: but add how sensible I am of

the necessity of the suggestion she made to me, through you, this

morning. Say I applaud her wisdom and admire her discretion.’

I will. Anything more?’

‘Nothing, only add how ardently I long for the time when I may call her

mine, and all dissimulation may be unnecessary.’

‘Certainly, certainly. Anything more?’

‘Oh, my friend!’ said poor Mr. Tupman, again grasping the hand of his

companion, ‘receive my warmest thanks for your disinterested kindness;

and forgive me if I have ever, even in thought, done you the injustice

of supposing that you could stand in my way. My dear friend, can I ever

repay you?’

‘Don’t talk of it,’ replied Mr. Jingle. He stopped short, as if suddenly

recollecting something, and said--‘By the bye--can’t spare ten pounds,

can you?--very particular purpose--pay you in three days.’

‘I dare say I can,’ replied Mr. Tupman, in the fulness of his heart.

‘Three days, you say?’

‘Only three days--all over then--no more difficulties.’ Mr. Tupman

counted the money into his companion’s hand, and he dropped it piece by

piece into his pocket, as they walked towards the house.

‘Be careful,’ said Mr. Jingle--‘not a look.’

‘Not a wink,’ said Mr. Tupman.

‘Not a syllable.’

‘Not a whisper.’

‘All your attentions to the niece--rather rude, than otherwise, to the

aunt--only way of deceiving the old ones.’

‘I’ll take care,’ said Mr. Tupman aloud.

‘And _I’ll_ take care,’ said Mr. Jingle internally; and they entered the

house.

The scene of that afternoon was repeated that evening, and on the three

afternoons and evenings next ensuing. On the fourth, the host was in

high spirits, for he had satisfied himself that there was no ground for

the charge against Mr. Tupman. So was Mr. Tupman, for Mr. Jingle had

told him that his affair would soon be brought to a crisis. So was Mr.

Pickwick, for he was seldom otherwise. So was not Mr. Snodgrass, for he

had grown jealous of Mr. Tupman. So was the old lady, for she had been

winning at whist. So were Mr. Jingle and Miss Wardle, for reasons of

sufficient importance in this eventful history to be narrated in another

chapter.

CHAPTER IX. A DISCOVERY AND A CHASE

The supper was ready laid, the chairs were drawn round the table,

bottles, jugs, and glasses were arranged upon the sideboard, and

everything betokened the approach of the most convivial period in the

whole four-and-twenty hours.

‘Where’s Rachael?’ said Mr. Wardle.

‘Ay, and Jingle?’ added Mr. Pickwick.

‘Dear me,’ said the host, ‘I wonder I haven’t missed him before. Why, I

don’t think I’ve heard his voice for two hours at least. Emily, my dear,

ring the bell.’

The bell was rung, and the fat boy appeared.

‘Where’s Miss Rachael?’ He couldn’t say.

‘Where’s Mr. Jingle, then?’ He didn’t know. Everybody looked surprised.

It was late--past eleven o’clock. Mr. Tupman laughed in his sleeve. They

were loitering somewhere, talking about him. Ha, ha! capital notion

that--funny.

‘Never mind,’ said Wardle, after a short pause. ‘They’ll turn up

presently, I dare say. I never wait supper for anybody.’

‘Excellent rule, that,’ said Mr. Pickwick--‘admirable.’

‘Pray, sit down,’ said the host.

‘Certainly’ said Mr. Pickwick; and down they sat.

There was a gigantic round of cold beef on the table, and Mr. Pickwick

was supplied with a plentiful portion of it. He had raised his fork to

his lips, and was on the very point of opening his mouth for the

reception of a piece of beef, when the hum of many voices suddenly arose

in the kitchen. He paused, and laid down his fork. Mr. Wardle paused

too, and insensibly released his hold of the carving-knife, which

remained inserted in the beef. He looked at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick

looked at him.

Heavy footsteps were heard in the passage; the parlour door was suddenly

burst open; and the man who had cleaned Mr. Pickwick’s boots on his

first arrival, rushed into the room, followed by the fat boy and all the

domestics.

‘What the devil’s the meaning of this?’ exclaimed the host.

‘The kitchen chimney ain’t a-fire, is it, Emma?’ inquired the old lady.

‘Lor, grandma! No,’ screamed both the young ladies.

‘What’s the matter?’ roared the master of the house.

The man gasped for breath, and faintly ejaculated--

‘They ha’ gone, mas’r!--gone right clean off, Sir!’ (At this juncture

Mr. Tupman was observed to lay down his knife and fork, and to turn very

pale.)

‘Who’s gone?’ said Mr. Wardle fiercely.

‘Mus’r Jingle and Miss Rachael, in a po’-chay, from Blue Lion,

Muggleton. I was there; but I couldn’t stop ‘em; so I run off to tell

‘ee.’

‘I paid his expenses!’ said Mr. Tupman, jumping up frantically. ‘He’s

got ten pounds of mine!--stop him!--he’s swindled me!--I won’t bear it!-

-I’ll have justice, Pickwick!--I won’t stand it!’ and with sundry

incoherent exclamations of the like nature, the unhappy gentleman spun

round and round the apartment, in a transport of frenzy.

‘Lord preserve us!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, eyeing the extraordinary

gestures of his friend with terrified surprise. ‘He’s gone mad! What

shall we do?’

Do!’ said the stout old host, who regarded only the last words of the

sentence. ‘Put the horse in the gig! I’ll get a chaise at the Lion, and

follow ‘em instantly. Where?’--he exclaimed, as the man ran out to

execute the commission--‘where’s that villain, Joe?’

‘Here I am! but I hain’t a willin,’ replied a voice. It was the fat

boy’s.

‘Let me get at him, Pickwick,’ cried Wardle, as he rushed at the ill-

starred youth. ‘He was bribed by that scoundrel, Jingle, to put me on a

wrong scent, by telling a cock-and-bull story of my sister and your

friend Tupman!’ (Here Mr. Tupman sank into a chair.) ‘Let me get at

him!’

‘Don’t let him!’ screamed all the women, above whose exclamations the

blubbering of the fat boy was distinctly audible.

‘I won’t be held!’ cried the old man. ‘Mr. Winkle, take your hands off.

Mr. Pickwick, let me go, sir!’

It was a beautiful sight, in that moment of turmoil and confusion, to

behold the placid and philosophical expression of Mr. Pickwick’s face,

albeit somewhat flushed with exertion, as he stood with his arms firmly

clasped round the extensive waist of their corpulent host, thus

restraining the impetuosity of his passion, while the fat boy was

scratched, and pulled, and pushed from the room by all the females

congregated therein. He had no sooner released his hold, than the man

entered to announce that the gig was ready.

‘Don’t let him go alone!’ screamed the females. ‘He’ll kill somebody!’

‘I’ll go with him,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘You’re a good fellow, Pickwick,’ said the host, grasping his hand.

‘Emma, give Mr. Pickwick a shawl to tie round his neck--make haste. Look

after your grandmother, girls; she has fainted away. Now then, are you

ready?’

Mr. Pickwick’s mouth and chin having been hastily enveloped in a large

shawl, his hat having been put on his head, and his greatcoat thrown

over his arm, he replied in the affirmative.

They jumped into the gig. ‘Give her her head, Tom,’ cried the host; and

away they went, down the narrow lanes; jolting in and out of the cart-

ruts, and bumping up against the hedges on either side, as if they would

go to pieces every moment.

‘How much are they ahead?’ shouted Wardle, as they drove up to the door

of the Blue Lion, round which a little crowd had collected, late as it

was.

‘Not above three-quarters of an hour,’ was everybody’s reply.

‘Chaise-and-four directly!--out with ‘em! Put up the gig afterwards.’

‘Now, boys!’ cried the landlord--‘chaise-and-four out--make haste--look

alive there!’

Away ran the hostlers and the boys. The lanterns glimmered, as the men

ran to and fro; the horses’ hoofs clattered on the uneven paving of the

yard; the chaise rumbled as it was drawn out of the coach-house; and all

was noise and bustle.

‘Now then!--is that chaise coming out to-night?’ cried Wardle.

‘Coming down the yard now, Sir,’ replied the hostler.

Out came the chaise--in went the horses--on sprang the boys--in got the

travellers.

‘Mind--the seven-mile stage in less than half an hour!’ shouted Wardle.

‘Off with you!’

The boys applied whip and spur, the waiters shouted, the hostlers

cheered, and away they went, fast and furiously.

‘Pretty situation,’ thought Mr. Pickwick, when he had had a moment’s

time for reflection. ‘Pretty situation for the general chairman of the

Pickwick Club. Damp chaise--strange horses--fifteen miles an hour--and

twelve o’clock at night!’

For the first three or four miles, not a word was spoken by either of

the gentlemen, each being too much immersed in his own reflections to

address any observations to his companion. When they had gone over that

much ground, however, and the horses getting thoroughly warmed began to

do their work in really good style, Mr. Pickwick became too much

exhilarated with the rapidity of the motion, to remain any longer

perfectly mute.

‘We’re sure to catch them, I think,’ said he.

‘Hope so,’ replied his companion.

‘Fine night,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking up at the moon, which was

shining brightly.

‘So much the worse,’ returned Wardle; ‘for they’ll have had all the

advantage of the moonlight to get the start of us, and we shall lose it.

It will have gone down in another hour.’

‘It will be rather unpleasant going at this rate in the dark, won’t it?’

inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘I dare say it will,’ replied his friend dryly.

Mr. Pickwick’s temporary excitement began to sober down a little, as he

reflected upon the inconveniences and dangers of the expedition in which

he had so thoughtlessly embarked. He was roused by a loud shouting of

the post-boy on the leader.

‘Yo-yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ went the first boy.

‘Yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ went the second.

‘Yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ chimed in old Wardle himself, most lustily, with his

head and half his body out of the coach window.

‘Yo-yo-yo-yoe!’ shouted Mr. Pickwick, taking up the burden of the cry,

though he had not the slightest notion of its meaning or object. And

amidst the yo-yoing of the whole four, the chaise stopped.

‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘There’s a gate here,’ replied old Wardle. ‘We shall hear something of

the fugitives.’

After a lapse of five minutes, consumed in incessant knocking and

shouting, an old man in his shirt and trousers emerged from the

turnpike-house, and opened the gate.

‘How long is it since a post-chaise went through here?’ inquired Mr.

Wardle.

‘How long?’

‘Ah!’

‘Why, I don’t rightly know. It worn’t a long time ago, nor it worn’t a

short time ago--just between the two, perhaps.’

‘Has any chaise been by at all?’

‘Oh, yes, there’s been a chay by.’

‘How long ago, my friend,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick; ‘an hour?’

‘Ah, I dare say it might be,’ replied the man.

‘Or two hours?’ inquired the post--boy on the wheeler.

‘Well, I shouldn’t wonder if it was,’ returned the old man doubtfully.

‘Drive on, boys,’ cried the testy old gentleman; ‘don’t waste any more

time with that old idiot!’

‘Idiot!’ exclaimed the old man with a grin, as he stood in the middle of

the road with the gate half-closed, watching the chaise which rapidly

diminished in the increasing distance. ‘No--not much o’ that either;

you’ve lost ten minutes here, and gone away as wise as you came, arter

all. If every man on the line as has a guinea give him, earns it half as

well, you won’t catch t’other chay this side Mich’lmas, old short-and-

fat.’ And with another prolonged grin, the old man closed the gate, re-

entered his house, and bolted the door after him.

Meanwhile the chaise proceeded, without any slackening of pace, towards

the conclusion of the stage. The moon, as Wardle had foretold, was

rapidly on the wane; large tiers of dark, heavy clouds, which had been

gradually overspreading the sky for some time past, now formed one black

mass overhead; and large drops of rain which pattered every now and then

against the windows of the chaise, seemed to warn the travellers of the

rapid approach of a stormy night. The wind, too, which was directly

against them, swept in furious gusts down the narrow road, and howled

dismally through the trees which skirted the pathway. Mr. Pickwick drew

his coat closer about him, coiled himself more snugly up into the corner

of the chaise, and fell into a sound sleep, from which he was only

awakened by the stopping of the vehicle, the sound of the hostler’s

bell, and a loud cry of ‘Horses on directly!’

But here another delay occurred. The boys were sleeping with such

mysterious soundness, that it took five minutes a-piece to wake them.

The hostler had somehow or other mislaid the key of the stable, and even

when that was found, two sleepy helpers put the wrong harness on the

wrong horses, and the whole process of harnessing had to be gone through

afresh. Had Mr. Pickwick been alone, these multiplied obstacles would

have completely put an end to the pursuit at once, but old Wardle was

not to be so easily daunted; and he laid about him with such hearty

good-will, cuffing this man, and pushing that; strapping a buckle here,

and taking in a link there, that the chaise was ready in a much shorter

time than could reasonably have been expected, under so many

difficulties.

They resumed their journey; and certainly the prospect before them was

by no means encouraging. The stage was fifteen miles long, the night was

dark, the wind high, and the rain pouring in torrents. It was impossible

to make any great way against such obstacles united; it was hard upon

one o’clock already; and nearly two hours were consumed in getting to

the end of the stage. Here, however, an object presented itself, which

rekindled their hopes, and reanimated their drooping spirits.

‘When did this chaise come in?’ cried old Wardle, leaping out of his own

vehicle, and pointing to one covered with wet mud, which was standing in

the yard.

‘Not a quarter of an hour ago, sir,’ replied the hostler, to whom the

question was addressed.

‘Lady and gentleman?’ inquired Wardle, almost breathless with

impatience.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tall gentleman--dress-coat--long legs--thin body?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Elderly lady--thin face--rather skinny--eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘By heavens, it’s the couple, Pickwick,’ exclaimed the old gentleman.

‘Would have been here before,’ said the hostler, ‘but they broke a

trace.’

‘’Tis them!’ said Wardle, ‘it is, by Jove! Chaise-and-four instantly! We

shall catch them yet before they reach the next stage. A guinea a-piece,

boys-be alive there--bustle about--there’s good fellows.’

And with such admonitions as these, the old gentleman ran up and down

the yard, and bustled to and fro, in a state of excitement which

communicated itself to Mr. Pickwick also; and under the influence of

which, that gentleman got himself into complicated entanglements with

harness, and mixed up with horses and wheels of chaises, in the most

surprising manner, firmly believing that by so doing he was materially

forwarding the preparations for their resuming their journey.

‘Jump in--jump in!’ cried old Wardle, climbing into the chaise, pulling

up the steps, and slamming the door after him. ‘Come along! Make haste!’

And before Mr. Pickwick knew precisely what he was about, he felt

himself forced in at the other door, by one pull from the old gentleman

and one push from the hostler; and off they were again.

‘Ah! we are moving now,’ said the old gentleman exultingly. They were

indeed, as was sufficiently testified to Mr. Pickwick, by his constant

collision either with the hard wood-work of the chaise, or the body of

his companion.

‘Hold up!’ said the stout old Mr. Wardle, as Mr. Pickwick dived head

foremost into his capacious waistcoat.

‘I never did feel such a jolting in my life,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Never mind,’ replied his companion, ‘it will soon be over. Steady,

steady.’

Mr. Pickwick planted himself into his own corner, as firmly as he could;

and on whirled the chaise faster than ever.

They had travelled in this way about three miles, when Mr. Wardle, who

had been looking out of the Window for two or three minutes, suddenly

drew in his face, covered with splashes, and exclaimed in breathless

eagerness--

‘Here they are!’

Mr. Pickwick thrust his head out of his window. Yes: there was a chaise-

and-four, a short distance before them, dashing along at full gallop.

‘Go on, go on,’ almost shrieked the old gentleman. ‘Two guineas a-piece,

boys--don’t let ‘em gain on us--keep it up--keep it up.’

The horses in the first chaise started on at their utmost speed; and

those in Mr. Wardle’s galloped furiously behind them.

‘I see his head,’ exclaimed the choleric old man; ‘damme, I see his

head.’

‘So do I’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘that’s he.’

Mr. Pickwick was not mistaken. The countenance of Mr. Jingle, completely

coated with mud thrown up by the wheels, was plainly discernible at the

window of his chaise; and the motion of his arm, which was waving

violently towards the postillions, denoted that he was encouraging them

to increased exertion.

The interest was intense. Fields, trees, and hedges, seemed to rush past

them with the velocity of a whirlwind, so rapid was the pace at which

they tore along. They were close by the side of the first chaise.

Jingle’s voice could be plainly heard, even above the din of the wheels,

urging on the boys. Old Mr. Wardle foamed with rage and excitement. He

roared out scoundrels and villains by the dozen, clenched his fist and

shook it expressively at the object of his indignation; but Mr. Jingle

only answered with a contemptuous smile, and replied to his menaces by a

shout of triumph, as his horses, answering the increased application of

whip and spur, broke into a faster gallop, and left the pursuers behind.

Mr. Pickwick had just drawn in his head, and Mr. Wardle, exhausted with

shouting, had done the same, when a tremendous jolt threw them forward

against the front of the vehicle. There was a sudden bump--a loud crash-

-away rolled a wheel, and over went the chaise.

After a very few seconds of bewilderment and confusion, in which nothing

but the plunging of horses, and breaking of glass could be made out, Mr.

Pickwick felt himself violently pulled out from among the ruins of the

chaise; and as soon as he had gained his feet, extricated his head from

the skirts of his greatcoat, which materially impeded the usefulness of

his spectacles, the full disaster of the case met his view.

Old Mr. Wardle without a hat, and his clothes torn in several places,

stood by his side, and the fragments of the chaise lay scattered at

their feet. The post-boys, who had succeeded in cutting the traces, were

standing, disfigured with mud and disordered by hard riding, by the

horses’ heads. About a hundred yards in advance was the other chaise,

which had pulled up on hearing the crash. The postillions, each with a

broad grin convulsing his countenance, were viewing the adverse party

from their saddles, and Mr. Jingle was contemplating the wreck from the

coach window, with evident satisfaction. The day was just breaking, and

the whole scene was rendered perfectly visible by the grey light of the

morning.

‘Hollo!’ shouted the shameless Jingle, ‘anybody damaged?--elderly

gentlemen--no light weights--dangerous work--very.’

‘You’re a rascal,’ roared Wardle.

‘Ha! ha!’ replied Jingle; and then he added, with a knowing wink, and a

jerk of the thumb towards the interior of the chaise--‘I say--she’s very

well--desires her compliments--begs you won’t trouble yourself--love to

_Tuppy_--won’t you get up behind?--drive on, boys.’

The postillions resumed their proper attitudes, and away rattled the

chaise, Mr. Jingle fluttering in derision a white handkerchief from the

coach window.

Nothing in the whole adventure, not even the upset, had disturbed the

calm and equable current of Mr. Pickwick’s temper. The villainy,

however, which could first borrow money of his faithful follower, and

then abbreviate his name to ‘Tuppy,’ was more than he could patiently

bear. He drew his breath hard, and coloured up to the very tips of his

spectacles, as he said, slowly and emphatically--

‘If ever I meet that man again, I’ll--’

‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Wardle, ‘that’s all very well; but while we

stand talking here, they’ll get their licence, and be married in

London.’

Mr. Pickwick paused, bottled up his vengeance, and corked it down. ‘How

far is it to the next stage?’ inquired Mr. Wardle, of one of the boys.

‘Six mile, ain’t it, Tom?’

‘Rayther better.’

‘Rayther better nor six mile, Sir.’

‘Can’t be helped,’ said Wardle, ‘we must walk it, Pickwick.’

‘No help for it,’ replied that truly great man.

So sending forward one of the boys on horseback, to procure a fresh

chaise and horses, and leaving the other behind to take care of the

broken one, Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Wardle set manfully forward on the

walk, first tying their shawls round their necks, and slouching down

their hats to escape as much as possible from the deluge of rain, which

after a slight cessation had again begun to pour heavily down.

CHAPTER X. CLEARING UP ALL DOUBTS (IF ANY EXISTED) OF THE

DISINTERESTEDNESS OF MR. A. JINGLE’S CHARACTER

There are in London several old inns, once the headquarters of

celebrated coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in

a graver and more solemn manner than they do in these times; but which

have now degenerated into little more than the abiding and booking-

places of country wagons. The reader would look in vain for any of these

ancient hostelries, among the Golden Crosses and Bull and Mouths, which

rear their stately fronts in the improved streets of London. If he would

light upon any of these old places, he must direct his steps to the

obscurer quarters of the town, and there in some secluded nooks he will

find several, still standing with a kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst

the modern innovations which surround them.

In the Borough especially, there still remain some half-dozen old inns,

which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have

escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the encroachments of

private speculation. Great, rambling queer old places they are, with

galleries, and passages, and staircases, wide enough and antiquated

enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories, supposing we

should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any, and

that the world should exist long enough to exhaust the innumerable

veracious legends connected with old London Bridge, and its adjacent

neighbourhood on the Surrey side.

It was in the yard of one of these inns--of no less celebrated a one

than the White Hart--that a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt

off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events narrated

in the last chapter. He was habited in a coarse, striped waistcoat, with

black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and

leggings. A bright red handkerchief was wound in a very loose and

unstudied style round his neck, and an old white hat was carelessly

thrown on one side of his head. There were two rows of boots before him,

one cleaned and the other dirty, and at every addition he made to the

clean row, he paused from his work, and contemplated its results with

evident satisfaction.

The yard presented none of that bustle and activity which are the usual

characteristics of a large coach inn. Three or four lumbering wagons,

each with a pile of goods beneath its ample canopy, about the height of

the second-floor window of an ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a

lofty roof which extended over one end of the yard; and another, which

was probably to commence its journey that morning, was drawn out into

the open space. A double tier of bedroom galleries, with old clumsy

balustrades, ran round two sides of the straggling area, and a double

row of bells to correspond, sheltered from the weather by a little

sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the bar and coffee-room. Two

or three gigs and chaise-carts were wheeled up under different little

sheds and pent-houses; and the occasional heavy tread of a cart-horse,

or rattling of a chain at the farther end of the yard, announced to

anybody who cared about the matter, that the stable lay in that

direction. When we add that a few boys in smock-frocks were lying asleep

on heavy packages, wool-packs, and other articles that were scattered

about on heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be the

general appearance of the yard of the White Hart Inn, High Street,

Borough, on the particular morning in question.

A loud ringing of one of the bells was followed by the appearance of a

smart chambermaid in the upper sleeping gallery, who, after tapping at

one of the doors, and receiving a request from within, called over the

balustrades--

‘Sam!’

‘Hollo,’ replied the man with the white hat.

‘Number twenty-two wants his boots.’

‘Ask number twenty-two, vether he’ll have ‘em now, or vait till he gets

‘em,’ was the reply.

‘Come, don’t be a fool, Sam,’ said the girl coaxingly, ‘the gentleman

wants his boots directly.’

‘Well, you _are_ a nice young ‘ooman for a musical party, you are,’ said

the boot-cleaner. ‘Look at these here boots--eleven pair o’ boots; and

one shoe as belongs to number six, with the wooden leg. The eleven boots

is to be called at half-past eight and the shoe at nine. Who’s number

twenty-two, that’s to put all the others out? No, no; reg’lar rotation,

as Jack Ketch said, ven he tied the men up. Sorry to keep you a-waitin’,

Sir, but I’ll attend to you directly.’

Saying which, the man in the white hat set to work upon a top-boot with

increased assiduity.

There was another loud ring; and the bustling old landlady of the White

Hart made her appearance in the opposite gallery.

‘Sam,’ cried the landlady, ‘where’s that lazy, idle--why, Sam--oh, there

you are; why don’t you answer?’

‘Vouldn’t be gen-teel to answer, till you’d done talking,’ replied Sam

gruffly.

‘Here, clean these shoes for number seventeen directly, and take ‘em to

private sitting-room, number five, first floor.’

The landlady flung a pair of lady’s shoes into the yard, and bustled

away.

‘Number five,’ said Sam, as he picked up the shoes, and taking a piece

of chalk from his pocket, made a memorandum of their destination on the

soles--‘Lady’s shoes and private sittin’-room! I suppose she didn’t come

in the vagin.’

‘She came in early this morning,’ cried the girl, who was still leaning

over the railing of the gallery, ‘with a gentleman in a hackney-coach,

and it’s him as wants his boots, and you’d better do ‘em, that’s all

about it.’

‘Vy didn’t you say so before,’ said Sam, with great indignation,

singling out the boots in question from the heap before him. ‘For all I

know’d he was one o’ the regular threepennies. Private room! and a lady

too! If he’s anything of a gen’l’m’n, he’s vurth a shillin’ a day, let

alone the arrands.’

Stimulated by this inspiring reflection, Mr. Samuel brushed away with

such hearty good-will, that in a few minutes the boots and shoes, with a

polish which would have struck envy to the soul of the amiable Mr.

Warren (for they used Day & Martin at the White Hart), had arrived at

the door of number five.

‘Come in,’ said a man’s voice, in reply to Sam’s rap at the door. Sam

made his best bow, and stepped into the presence of a lady and gentleman

seated at breakfast. Having officiously deposited the gentleman’s boots

right and left at his feet, and the lady’s shoes right and left at hers,

he backed towards the door.

‘Boots,’ said the gentleman.

‘Sir,’ said Sam, closing the door, and keeping his hand on the knob of

the lock.

‘Do you know--what’s a-name--Doctors’ Commons?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Paul’s Churchyard, Sir; low archway on the carriage side, bookseller’s

at one corner, hotel on the other, and two porters in the middle as

touts for licences.’

‘Touts for licences!’ said the gentleman.

‘Touts for licences,’ replied Sam. ‘Two coves in vhite aprons--touches

their hats ven you walk in--“Licence, Sir, licence?” Queer sort, them,

and their mas’rs, too, sir--Old Bailey Proctors--and no mistake.’

‘What do they do?’ inquired the gentleman.

‘Do! You, Sir! That ain’t the worst on it, neither. They puts things

into old gen’l’m’n’s heads as they never dreamed of. My father, Sir, wos

a coachman. A widower he wos, and fat enough for anything--uncommon fat,

to be sure. His missus dies, and leaves him four hundred pound. Down he

goes to the Commons, to see the lawyer and draw the blunt--very smart--

top boots on--nosegay in his button-hole--broad-brimmed tile--green

shawl--quite the gen’l’m’n. Goes through the archvay, thinking how he

should inwest the money--up comes the touter, touches his hat--“Licence,

Sir, licence?”--“What’s that?” says my father.--“Licence, Sir,” says

he.--“What licence?” says my father.--“Marriage licence,” says the

touter.--“Dash my veskit,” says my father, “I never thought o’ that.”--

“I think you wants one, Sir,” says the touter. My father pulls up, and

thinks a bit--“No,” says he, “damme, I’m too old, b’sides, I’m a many

sizes too large,” says he.--“Not a bit on it, Sir,” says the touter.--

“Think not?” says my father.--“I’m sure not,” says he; “we married a

gen’l’m’n twice your size, last Monday.”--“Did you, though?” said my

father.--“To be sure, we did,” says the touter, “you’re a babby to him--

this way, sir--this way!”--and sure enough my father walks arter him,

like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere a

teller sat among dirty papers, and tin boxes, making believe he was

busy. “Pray take a seat, vile I makes out the affidavit, Sir,” says the

lawyer.--“Thank’ee, Sir,” says my father, and down he sat, and stared

with all his eyes, and his mouth vide open, at the names on the boxes.

“What’s your name, Sir,” says the lawyer.--“Tony Weller,” says my

father.--“Parish?” says the lawyer. “Belle Savage,” says my father; for

he stopped there wen he drove up, and he know’d nothing about parishes,

he didn’t.--“And what’s the lady’s name?” says the lawyer. My father was

struck all of a heap. “Blessed if I know,” says he.--“Not know!” says

the lawyer.--“No more nor you do,” says my father; “can’t I put that in

arterwards?”--“Impossible!” says the lawyer.--“Wery well,” says my

father, after he’d thought a moment, “put down Mrs. Clarke.”--“What

Clarke?” says the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink.--“Susan Clarke,

Markis o’ Granby, Dorking,” says my father; “she’ll have me, if I ask. I

des-say--I never said nothing to her, but she’ll have me, I know.” The

licence was made out, and she _did_ have him, and what’s more she’s got

him now; and I never had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. Beg

your pardon, sir,’ said Sam, when he had concluded, ‘but wen I gets on

this here grievance, I runs on like a new barrow with the wheel

greased.’ Having said which, and having paused for an instant to see

whether he was wanted for anything more, Sam left the room.

‘Half-past nine--just the time--off at once;’ said the gentleman, whom

we need hardly introduce as Mr. Jingle.

‘Time--for what?’ said the spinster aunt coquettishly.

‘Licence, dearest of angels--give notice at the church--call you mine,

to-morrow’--said Mr. Jingle, and he squeezed the spinster aunt’s hand.

‘The licence!’ said Rachael, blushing.

‘The licence,’ repeated Mr. Jingle--

‘In hurry, post-haste for a licence, In hurry, ding dong I come back.’

‘How you run on,’ said Rachael.

‘Run on--nothing to the hours, days, weeks, months, years, when we’re

united--run on--they’ll fly on--bolt--mizzle--steam-engine--thousand-

horse power--nothing to it.’

‘Can’t--can’t we be married before to-morrow morning?’ inquired Rachael.

‘Impossible--can’t be--notice at the church--leave the licence to-day--

ceremony come off to-morrow.’

I am so terrified, lest my brother should discover us!’ said Rachael.

‘Discover--nonsense--too much shaken by the break-down--besides--extreme

caution--gave up the post-chaise--walked on--took a hackney-coach--came

to the Borough--last place in the world that he’d look in--ha! ha!--

capital notion that--very.’

‘Don’t be long,’ said the spinster affectionately, as Mr. Jingle stuck

the pinched-up hat on his head.

‘Long away from you?--Cruel charmer,’ and Mr. Jingle skipped playfully

up to the spinster aunt, imprinted a chaste kiss upon her lips, and

danced out of the room.

‘Dear man!’ said the spinster, as the door closed after him.

‘Rum old girl,’ said Mr. Jingle, as he walked down the passage.

It is painful to reflect upon the perfidy of our species; and we will

not, therefore, pursue the thread of Mr. Jingle’s meditations, as he

wended his way to Doctors’ Commons. It will be sufficient for our

purpose to relate, that escaping the snares of the dragons in white

aprons, who guard the entrance to that enchanted region, he reached the

vicar-general’s office in safety and having procured a highly flattering

address on parchment, from the Archbishop of Canterbury, to his ‘trusty

and well-beloved Alfred Jingle and Rachael Wardle, greeting,’ he

carefully deposited the mystic document in his pocket, and retraced his

steps in triumph to the Borough.

He was yet on his way to the White Hart, when two plump gentleman and

one thin one entered the yard, and looked round in search of some

authorised person of whom they could make a few inquiries. Mr. Samuel

Weller happened to be at that moment engaged in burnishing a pair of

painted tops, the personal property of a farmer who was refreshing

himself with a slight lunch of two or three pounds of cold beef and a

pot or two of porter, after the fatigues of the Borough market; and to

him the thin gentleman straightway advanced.

‘My friend,’ said the thin gentleman.

‘You’re one o’ the adwice gratis order,’ thought Sam, ‘or you wouldn’t

be so wery fond o’ me all at once.’ But he only said--‘Well, Sir.’

‘My friend,’ said the thin gentleman, with a conciliatory hem--‘have you

got many people stopping here now? Pretty busy. Eh?’

Sam stole a look at the inquirer. He was a little high-dried man, with a

dark squeezed-up face, and small, restless, black eyes, that kept

winking and twinkling on each side of his little inquisitive nose, as if

they were playing a perpetual game of peep-bo with that feature. He was

dressed all in black, with boots as shiny as his eyes, a low white

neckcloth, and a clean shirt with a frill to it. A gold watch-chain, and

seals, depended from his fob. He carried his black kid gloves _in_ his

hands, and not ON them; and as he spoke, thrust his wrists beneath his

coat tails, with the air of a man who was in the habit of propounding

some regular posers.

‘Pretty busy, eh?’ said the little man.

‘Oh, wery well, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘we shan’t be bankrupts, and we

shan’t make our fort’ns. We eats our biled mutton without capers, and

don’t care for horse-radish ven ve can get beef.’

‘Ah,’ said the little man, ‘you’re a wag, ain’t you?’

‘My eldest brother was troubled with that complaint,’ said Sam; ‘it may

be catching--I used to sleep with him.’

‘This is a curious old house of yours,’ said the little man, looking

round him.

‘If you’d sent word you was a-coming, we’d ha’ had it repaired;’ replied

the imperturbable Sam.

The little man seemed rather baffled by these several repulses, and a

short consultation took place between him and the two plump gentlemen.

At its conclusion, the little man took a pinch of snuff from an oblong

silver box, and was apparently on the point of renewing the

conversation, when one of the plump gentlemen, who in addition to a

benevolent countenance, possessed a pair of spectacles, and a pair of

black gaiters, interfered--

‘The fact of the matter is,’ said the benevolent gentleman, ‘that my

friend here (pointing to the other plump gentleman) will give you half a

guinea, if you’ll answer one or two--’

‘Now, my dear sir--my dear Sir,’ said the little man, ‘pray, allow me--

my dear Sir, the very first principle to be observed in these cases, is

this: if you place the matter in the hands of a professional man, you

must in no way interfere in the progress of the business; you must

repose implicit confidence in him. Really, Mr.--’ He turned to the other

plump gentleman, and said, ‘I forget your friend’s name.’

‘Pickwick,’ said Mr. Wardle, for it was no other than that jolly

personage.

‘Ah, Pickwick--really Mr. Pickwick, my dear Sir, excuse me--I shall be

happy to receive any private suggestions of yours, as AMICUS CURIAE, but

you must see the impropriety of your interfering with my conduct in this

case, with such an AD CAPTANDUM argument as the offer of half a guinea.

Really, my dear Sir, really;’ and the little man took an argumentative

pinch of snuff, and looked very profound.

‘My only wish, Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘was to bring this very

unpleasant matter to as speedy a close as possible.’

‘Quite right--quite right,’ said the little man.

‘With which view,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, ‘I made use of the argument

which my experience of men has taught me is the most likely to succeed

in any case.’

‘Ay, ay,’ said the little man, ‘very good, very good, indeed; but you

should have suggested it to me. My dear sir, I’m quite certain you

cannot be ignorant of the extent of confidence which must be placed in

professional men. If any authority can be necessary on such a point, my

dear sir, let me refer you to the well-known case in Barnwell and--’

‘Never mind George Barnwell,’ interrupted Sam, who had remained a

wondering listener during this short colloquy; ‘everybody knows what

sort of a case his was, tho’ it’s always been my opinion, mind you, that

the young ‘ooman deserved scragging a precious sight more than he did.

Hows’ever, that’s neither here nor there. You want me to accept of half

a guinea. Wery well, I’m agreeable: I can’t say no fairer than that, can

I, sir?’ (Mr. Pickwick smiled.) Then the next question is, what the

devil do you want with me, as the man said, wen he see the ghost?’

‘We want to know--’ said Mr. Wardle.

‘Now, my dear sir--my dear sir,’ interposed the busy little man.

Mr. Wardle shrugged his shoulders, and was silent.

‘We want to know,’ said the little man solemnly; ‘and we ask the

question of you, in order that we may not awaken apprehensions inside--

we want to know who you’ve got in this house at present?’

‘Who there is in the house!’ said Sam, in whose mind the inmates were

always represented by that particular article of their costume, which

came under his immediate superintendence. ‘There’s a vooden leg in

number six; there’s a pair of Hessians in thirteen; there’s two pair of

halves in the commercial; there’s these here painted tops in the

snuggery inside the bar; and five more tops in the coffee-room.’

‘Nothing more?’ said the little man.

‘Stop a bit,’ replied Sam, suddenly recollecting himself. ‘Yes; there’s

a pair of Vellingtons a good deal worn, and a pair o’ lady’s shoes, in

number five.’

‘What sort of shoes?’ hastily inquired Wardle, who, together with Mr.

Pickwick, had been lost in bewilderment at the singular catalogue of

visitors.

‘Country make,’ replied Sam.

‘Any maker’s name?’

‘Brown.’

‘Where of?’

‘Muggleton.

‘It is them,’ exclaimed Wardle. ‘By heavens, we’ve found them.’

‘Hush!’ said Sam. ‘The Vellingtons has gone to Doctors’ Commons.’

‘No,’ said the little man.

‘Yes, for a licence.’

‘We’re in time,’ exclaimed Wardle. ‘Show us the room; not a moment is to

be lost.’

‘Pray, my dear sir--pray,’ said the little man; ‘caution, caution.’ He

drew from his pocket a red silk purse, and looked very hard at Sam as he

drew out a sovereign.

Sam grinned expressively.

‘Show us into the room at once, without announcing us,’ said the little

man, ‘and it’s yours.’

Sam threw the painted tops into a corner, and led the way through a dark

passage, and up a wide staircase. He paused at the end of a second

passage, and held out his hand.

‘Here it is,’ whispered the attorney, as he deposited the money on the

hand of their guide.

The man stepped forward for a few paces, followed by the two friends and

their legal adviser. He stopped at a door.

‘Is this the room?’ murmured the little gentleman.

Sam nodded assent.

Old Wardle opened the door; and the whole three walked into the room

just as Mr. Jingle, who had that moment returned, had produced the

licence to the spinster aunt.

The spinster uttered a loud shriek, and throwing herself into a chair,

covered her face with her hands. Mr. Jingle crumpled up the licence, and

thrust it into his coat pocket. The unwelcome visitors advanced into the

middle of the room.

‘You--you are a nice rascal, arn’t you?’ exclaimed Wardle, breathless

with passion.

‘My dear Sir, my dear sir,’ said the little man, laying his hat on the

table, ‘pray, consider--pray. Defamation of character: action for

damages. Calm yourself, my dear sir, pray--’

‘How dare you drag my sister from my house?’ said the old man.

Ay--ay--very good,’ said the little gentleman, ‘you may ask that. How

dare you, sir?--eh, sir?’

‘Who the devil are you?’ inquired Mr. Jingle, in so fierce a tone, that

the little gentleman involuntarily fell back a step or two.

‘Who is he, you scoundrel,’ interposed Wardle. ‘He’s my lawyer, Mr.

Perker, of Gray’s Inn. Perker, I’ll have this fellow prosecuted--

indicted--I’ll--I’ll--I’ll ruin him. And you,’ continued Mr. Wardle,

turning abruptly round to his sister--‘you, Rachael, at a time of life

when you ought to know better, what do you mean by running away with a

vagabond, disgracing your family, and making yourself miserable? Get on

your bonnet and come back. Call a hackney-coach there, directly, and

bring this lady’s bill, d’ye hear--d’ye hear?’

Cert’nly, Sir,’ replied Sam, who had answered Wardle’s violent ringing

of the bell with a degree of celerity which must have appeared

marvellous to anybody who didn’t know that his eye had been applied to

the outside of the keyhole during the whole interview.

‘Get on your bonnet,’ repeated Wardle.

‘Do nothing of the kind,’ said Jingle. ‘Leave the room, Sir--no business

here--lady’s free to act as she pleases--more than one-and-twenty.’

‘More than one-and-twenty!’ ejaculated Wardle contemptuously. ‘More than

one-and-forty!’

‘I ain’t,’ said the spinster aunt, her indignation getting the better of

her determination to faint.

‘You are,’ replied Wardle; ‘you’re fifty if you’re an hour.’

Here the spinster aunt uttered a loud shriek, and became senseless.

‘A glass of water,’ said the humane Mr. Pickwick, summoning the

landlady.

‘A glass of water!’ said the passionate Wardle. ‘Bring a bucket, and

throw it all over her; it’ll do her good, and she richly deserves it.’

‘Ugh, you brute!’ ejaculated the kind-hearted landlady. ‘Poor dear.’ And

with sundry ejaculations of ‘Come now, there’s a dear--drink a little of

this--it’ll do you good--don’t give way so--there’s a love,’ etc. etc.,

the landlady, assisted by a chambermaid, proceeded to vinegar the

forehead, beat the hands, titillate the nose, and unlace the stays of

the spinster aunt, and to administer such other restoratives as are

usually applied by compassionate females to ladies who are endeavouring

to ferment themselves into hysterics.

‘Coach is ready, Sir,’ said Sam, appearing at the door.

‘Come along,’ cried Wardle. ‘I’ll carry her downstairs.’

At this proposition, the hysterics came on with redoubled violence.

The landlady was about to enter a very violent protest against this

proceeding, and had already given vent to an indignant inquiry whether

Mr. Wardle considered himself a lord of the creation, when Mr. Jingle

interposed--

‘Boots,’ said he, ‘get me an officer.’

‘Stay, stay,’ said little Mr. Perker. ‘Consider, Sir, consider.’

‘I’ll not consider,’ replied Jingle. ‘She’s her own mistress--see who

dares to take her away--unless she wishes it.’

‘I _won’t_ be taken away,’ murmured the spinster aunt. ‘I _don’t_ wish

it.’ (Here there was a frightful relapse.)

‘My dear Sir,’ said the little man, in a low tone, taking Mr. Wardle and

Mr. Pickwick apart--‘my dear Sir, we’re in a very awkward situation.

It’s a distressing case--very; I never knew one more so; but really, my

dear sir, really we have no power to control this lady’s actions. I

warned you before we came, my dear sir, that there was nothing to look

to but a compromise.’

There was a short pause.

‘What kind of compromise would you recommend?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘Why, my dear Sir, our friend’s in an unpleasant position--very much so.

We must be content to suffer some pecuniary loss.’

‘I’ll suffer any, rather than submit to this disgrace, and let her, fool

as she is, be made miserable for life,’ said Wardle.

‘I rather think it can be done,’ said the bustling little man. ‘Mr.

Jingle, will you step with us into the next room for a moment?’

Mr. Jingle assented, and the quartette walked into an empty apartment.

‘Now, sir,’ said the little man, as he carefully closed the door, ‘is

there no way of accommodating this matter--step this way, sir, for a

moment--into this window, Sir, where we can be alone--there, sir, there,

pray sit down, sir. Now, my dear Sir, between you and I, we know very

well, my dear Sir, that you have run off with this lady for the sake of

her money. Don’t frown, Sir, don’t frown; I say, between you and I, _we_

know it. We are both men of the world, and WE know very well that our

friends here, are not--eh?’

Mr. Jingle’s face gradually relaxed; and something distantly resembling

a wink quivered for an instant in his left eye.

‘Very good, very good,’ said the little man, observing the impression he

had made. ‘Now, the fact is, that beyond a few hundreds, the lady has

little or nothing till the death of her mother--fine old lady, my dear

Sir.’

‘_Old_,’ said Mr. Jingle briefly but emphatically.

‘Why, yes,’ said the attorney, with a slight cough. ‘You are right, my

dear Sir, she is rather old. She comes of an old family though, my dear

Sir; old in every sense of the word. The founder of that family came

into Kent when Julius Caesar invaded Britain;--only one member of it,

since, who hasn’t lived to eighty-five, and he was beheaded by one of

the Henrys. The old lady is not seventy-three now, my dear Sir.’ The

little man paused, and took a pinch of snuff.

‘Well,’ cried Mr. Jingle.

‘Well, my dear sir--you don’t take snuff!--ah! so much the better--

expensive habit--well, my dear Sir, you’re a fine young man, man of the

world--able to push your fortune, if you had capital, eh?’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Jingle again.

‘Do you comprehend me?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Don’t you think--now, my dear Sir, I put it to you don’t you think--

that fifty pounds and liberty would be better than Miss Wardle and

expectation?’

‘Won’t do--not half enough!’ said Mr. Jingle, rising.

‘Nay, nay, my dear Sir,’ remonstrated the little attorney, seizing him

by the button. ‘Good round sum--a man like you could treble it in no

time--great deal to be done with fifty pounds, my dear Sir.’

‘More to be done with a hundred and fifty,’ replied Mr. Jingle coolly.

‘Well, my dear Sir, we won’t waste time in splitting straws,’ resumed

the little man, ‘say--say--seventy.’

Won’t do,’ said Mr. Jingle.

‘Don’t go away, my dear sir--pray don’t hurry,’ said the little man.

‘Eighty; come: I’ll write you a cheque at once.’

‘Won’t do,’ said Mr. Jingle.

‘Well, my dear Sir, well,’ said the little man, still detaining him;

‘just tell me what _will_ do.’

‘Expensive affair,’ said Mr. Jingle. ‘Money out of pocket--posting, nine

pounds; licence, three--that’s twelve--compensation, a hundred--hundred

and twelve--breach of honour--and loss of the lady--’

‘Yes, my dear Sir, yes,’ said the little man, with a knowing look,

‘never mind the last two items. That’s a hundred and twelve--say a

hundred--come.’

‘And twenty,’ said Mr. Jingle.

‘Come, come, I’ll write you a cheque,’ said the little man; and down he

sat at the table for that purpose.

‘I’ll make it payable the day after to-morrow,’ said the little man,

with a look towards Mr. Wardle; ‘and we can get the lady away,

meanwhile.’ Mr. Wardle sullenly nodded assent.

‘A hundred,’ said the little man.

‘And twenty,’ said Mr. Jingle.

‘My dear Sir,’ remonstrated the little man.

‘Give it him,’ interposed Mr. Wardle, ‘and let him go.’

The cheque was written by the little gentleman, and pocketed by Mr.

Jingle.

‘Now, leave this house instantly!’ said Wardle, starting up.

‘My dear Sir,’ urged the little man.

‘And mind,’ said Mr. Wardle, ‘that nothing should have induced me to

make this compromise--not even a regard for my family--if I had not

known that the moment you got any money in that pocket of yours, you’d

go to the devil faster, if possible, than you would without it--’

‘My dear sir,’ urged the little man again.

‘Be quiet, Perker,’ resumed Wardle. ‘Leave the room, Sir.’

‘Off directly,’ said the unabashed Jingle. ‘Bye bye, Pickwick.’

If any dispassionate spectator could have beheld the countenance of the

illustrious man, whose name forms the leading feature of the title of

this work, during the latter part of this conversation, he would have

been almost induced to wonder that the indignant fire which flashed from

his eyes did not melt the glasses of his spectacles--so majestic was his

wrath. His nostrils dilated, and his fists clenched involuntarily, as he

heard himself addressed by the villain. But he restrained himself again-

-he did not pulverise him.

‘Here,’ continued the hardened traitor, tossing the licence at Mr.

Pickwick’s feet; ‘get the name altered--take home the lady--do for

Tuppy.’

Mr. Pickwick was a philosopher, but philosophers are only men in armour,

after all. The shaft had reached him, penetrated through his

philosophical harness, to his very heart. In the frenzy of his rage, he

hurled the inkstand madly forward, and followed it up himself. But Mr.

Jingle had disappeared, and he found himself caught in the arms of Sam.

‘Hollo,’ said that eccentric functionary, ‘furniter’s cheap where you

come from, Sir. Self-acting ink, that ‘ere; it’s wrote your mark upon

the wall, old gen’l’m’n. Hold still, Sir; wot’s the use o’ runnin’ arter

a man as has made his lucky, and got to t’other end of the Borough by

this time?’

Mr. Pickwick’s mind, like those of all truly great men, was open to

conviction. He was a quick and powerful reasoner; and a moment’s

reflection sufficed to remind him of the impotency of his rage. It

subsided as quickly as it had been roused. He panted for breath, and

looked benignantly round upon his friends.

Shall we tell the lamentations that ensued when Miss Wardle found

herself deserted by the faithless Jingle? Shall we extract Mr.

Pickwick’s masterly description of that heartrending scene? His note-

book, blotted with the tears of sympathising humanity, lies open before

us; one word, and it is in the printer’s hands. But, no! we will be

resolute! We will not wring the public bosom, with the delineation of

such suffering!

Slowly and sadly did the two friends and the deserted lady return next

day in the Muggleton heavy coach. Dimly and darkly had the sombre

shadows of a summer’s night fallen upon all around, when they again

reached Dingley Dell, and stood within the entrance to Manor Farm.

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

A night of quiet and repose in the profound silence of Dingley Dell, and

an hour’s breathing of its fresh and fragrant air on the ensuing

morning, completely recovered Mr. Pickwick from the effects of his late

fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. That illustrious man had been

separated from his friends and followers for two whole days; and it was

with a degree of pleasure and delight, which no common imagination can

adequately conceive, that he stepped forward to greet Mr. Winkle and Mr.

Snodgrass, as he encountered those gentlemen on his return from his

early walk. The pleasure was mutual; for who could ever gaze on Mr.

Pickwick’s beaming face without experiencing the sensation? But still a

cloud seemed to hang over his companions which that great man could not

but be sensible of, and was wholly at a loss to account for. There was a

mysterious air about them both, as unusual as it was alarming.

‘And how,’ said Mr. Pickwick, when he had grasped his followers by the

hand, and exchanged warm salutations of welcome--‘how is Tupman?’

Mr. Winkle, to whom the question was more peculiarly addressed, made no

reply. He turned away his head, and appeared absorbed in melancholy

reflection.

‘Snodgrass,’ said Mr. Pickwick earnestly, ‘how is our friend--he is not

ill?’

‘No,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass; and a tear trembled on his sentimental

eyelid, like a rain-drop on a window-frame--‘no; he is not ill.’

Mr. Pickwick stopped, and gazed on each of his friends in turn.

‘Winkle--Snodgrass,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘what does this mean? Where is

our friend? What has happened? Speak--I conjure, I entreat--nay, I

command you, speak.’

There was a solemnity--a dignity--in Mr. Pickwick’s manner, not to be

withstood.

‘He is gone,’ said Mr. Snodgrass.

‘Gone!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. ‘Gone!’

‘Gone,’ repeated Mr. Snodgrass.

‘Where!’ ejaculated Mr. Pickwick.

‘We can only guess, from that communication,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass,

taking a letter from his pocket, and placing it in his friend’s hand.

‘Yesterday morning, when a letter was received from Mr. Wardle, stating

that you would be home with his sister at night, the melancholy which

had hung over our friend during the whole of the previous day, was

observed to increase. He shortly afterwards disappeared: he was missing

during the whole day, and in the evening this letter was brought by the

hostler from the Crown, at Muggleton. It had been left in his charge in

the morning, with a strict injunction that it should not be delivered

until night.’

Mr. Pickwick opened the epistle. It was in his friend’s hand-writing,

and these were its contents:--

‘MY DEAR PICKWICK,--_You_, my dear friend, are placed far beyond the

reach of many mortal frailties and weaknesses which ordinary people

cannot overcome. You do not know what it is, at one blow, to be deserted

by a lovely and fascinating creature, and to fall a victim to the

artifices of a villain, who had the grin of cunning beneath the mask of

friendship. I hope you never may.

‘Any letter addressed to me at the Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, will be

forwarded--supposing I still exist. I hasten from the sight of that

world, which has become odious to me. Should I hasten from it

altogether, pity--forgive me. Life, my dear Pickwick, has become

insupportable to me. The spirit which burns within us, is a porter’s

knot, on which to rest the heavy load of worldly cares and troubles; and

when that spirit fails us, the burden is too heavy to be borne. We sink

beneath it. You may tell Rachael--Ah, that name!--

‘TRACY TUPMAN.’

‘We must leave this place directly,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as he refolded

the note. ‘It would not have been decent for us to remain here, under

any circumstances, after what has happened; and now we are bound to

follow in search of our friend.’ And so saying, he led the way to the

house.

His intention was rapidly communicated. The entreaties to remain were

pressing, but Mr. Pickwick was inflexible. Business, he said, required

his immediate attendance.

The old clergyman was present.

‘You are not really going?’ said he, taking Mr. Pickwick aside.

Mr. Pickwick reiterated his former determination.

‘Then here,’ said the old gentleman, ‘is a little manuscript, which I

had hoped to have the pleasure of reading to you myself. I found it on

the death of a friend of mine--a medical man, engaged in our county

lunatic asylum--among a variety of papers, which I had the option of

destroying or preserving, as I thought proper. I can hardly believe that

the manuscript is genuine, though it certainly is not in my friend’s

hand. However, whether it be the genuine production of a maniac, or

founded upon the ravings of some unhappy being (which I think more

probable), read it, and judge for yourself.’

Mr. Pickwick received the manuscript, and parted from the benevolent old

gentleman with many expressions of good-will and esteem.

It was a more difficult task to take leave of the inmates of Manor Farm,

from whom they had received so much hospitality and kindness. Mr.

Pickwick kissed the young ladies--we were going to say, as if they were

his own daughters, only, as he might possibly have infused a little more

warmth into the salutation, the comparison would not be quite

appropriate--hugged the old lady with filial cordiality; and patted the

rosy cheeks of the female servants in a most patriarchal manner, as he

slipped into the hands of each some more substantial expression of his

approval. The exchange of cordialities with their fine old host and Mr.

Trundle was even more hearty and prolonged; and it was not until Mr.

Snodgrass had been several times called for, and at last emerged from a

dark passage followed soon after by Emily (whose bright eyes looked

unusually dim), that the three friends were enabled to tear themselves

from their friendly entertainers. Many a backward look they gave at the

farm, as they walked slowly away; and many a kiss did Mr. Snodgrass waft

in the air, in acknowledgment of something very like a lady’s

handkerchief, which was waved from one of the upper windows, until a

turn of the lane hid the old house from their sight.

At Muggleton they procured a conveyance to Rochester. By the time they

reached the last-named place, the violence of their grief had

sufficiently abated to admit of their making a very excellent early

dinner; and having procured the necessary information relative to the

road, the three friends set forward again in the afternoon to walk to

Cobham.

A delightful walk it was; for it was a pleasant afternoon in June, and

their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind

which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of

the birds that perched upon the boughs. The ivy and the moss crept in

thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread

the ground like a silken mat. They emerged upon an open park, with an

ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of

Elizabeth’s time. Long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on

every side; large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and

occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground, with the speed of

the shadows thrown by the light clouds which swept across a sunny

landscape like a passing breath of summer.

‘If this,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him--‘if this were the place

to which all who are troubled with our friend’s complaint came, I fancy

their old attachment to this world would very soon return.’

‘I think so too,’ said Mr. Winkle.

‘And really,’ added Mr. Pickwick, after half an hour’s walking had

brought them to the village, ‘really, for a misanthrope’s choice, this

is one of the prettiest and most desirable places of residence I ever

met with.’

In this opinion also, both Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass expressed their

concurrence; and having been directed to the Leather Bottle, a clean and

commodious village ale-house, the three travellers entered, and at once

inquired for a gentleman of the name of Tupman.

‘Show the gentlemen into the parlour, Tom,’ said the landlady.

A stout country lad opened a door at the end of the passage, and the

three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, furnished with a large

number of high-backed leather-cushioned chairs, of fantastic shapes, and

embellished with a great variety of old portraits and roughly-coloured

prints of some antiquity. At the upper end of the room was a table, with

a white cloth upon it, well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and

et ceteras; and at the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who

had taken his leave of the world, as possible.

On the entrance of his friends, that gentleman laid down his knife and

fork, and with a mournful air advanced to meet them.

‘I did not expect to see you here,’ he said, as he grasped Mr.

Pickwick’s hand. ‘It’s very kind.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Pickwick, sitting down, and wiping from his forehead the

perspiration which the walk had engendered. ‘Finish your dinner, and

walk out with me. I wish to speak to you alone.’

Mr. Tupman did as he was desired; and Mr. Pickwick having refreshed

himself with a copious draught of ale, waited his friend’s leisure. The

dinner was quickly despatched, and they walked out together.

For half an hour, their forms might have been seen pacing the churchyard

to and fro, while Mr. Pickwick was engaged in combating his companion’s

resolution. Any repetition of his arguments would be useless; for what

language could convey to them that energy and force which their great

originator’s manner communicated? Whether Mr. Tupman was already tired

of retirement, or whether he was wholly unable to resist the eloquent

appeal which was made to him, matters not, he did _not _ resist it at

last.

‘It mattered little to him,’ he said, ‘where he dragged out the

miserable remainder of his days; and since his friend laid so much

stress upon his humble companionship, he was willing to share his

adventures.’

Mr. Pickwick smiled; they shook hands, and walked back to rejoin their

companions.

It was at this moment that Mr. Pickwick made that immortal discovery,

which has been the pride and boast of his friends, and the envy of every

antiquarian in this or any other country. They had passed the door of

their inn, and walked a little way down the village, before they

recollected the precise spot in which it stood. As they turned back, Mr.

Pickwick’s eye fell upon a small broken stone, partially buried in the

ground, in front of a cottage door. He paused.

‘This is very strange,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘What is strange?’ inquired Mr. Tupman, staring eagerly at every object

near him, but the right one. ‘God bless me, what’s the matter?’

This last was an ejaculation of irrepressible astonishment, occasioned

by seeing Mr. Pickwick, in his enthusiasm for discovery, fall on his

knees before the little stone, and commence wiping the dust off it with

his pocket-handkerchief.

‘There is an inscription here,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Is it possible?’ said Mr. Tupman.

‘I can discern,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, rubbing away with all his

might, and gazing intently through his spectacles--‘I can discern a

cross, and a 13, and then a T. This is important,’ continued Mr.

Pickwick, starting up. ‘This is some very old inscription, existing

perhaps long before the ancient alms-houses in this place. It must not

be lost.’

He tapped at the cottage door. A labouring man opened it.

‘Do you know how this stone came here, my friend?’ inquired the

benevolent Mr. Pickwick.

‘No, I doan’t, Sir,’ replied the man civilly. ‘It was here long afore I

was born, or any on us.’

Mr. Pickwick glanced triumphantly at his companion.

‘You--you--are not particularly attached to it, I dare say,’ said Mr.

Pickwick, trembling with anxiety. ‘You wouldn’t mind selling it, now?’

‘Ah! but who’d buy it?’ inquired the man, with an expression of face

which he probably meant to be very cunning.

‘I’ll give you ten shillings for it, at once,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘if

you would take it up for me.’

The astonishment of the village may be easily imagined, when (the little

stone having been raised with one wrench of a spade) Mr. Pickwick, by

dint of great personal exertion, bore it with his own hands to the inn,

and after having carefully washed it, deposited it on the table.

The exultation and joy of the Pickwickians knew no bounds, when their

patience and assiduity, their washing and scraping, were crowned with

success. The stone was uneven and broken, and the letters were

straggling and irregular, but the following fragment of an inscription

was clearly to be deciphered:--

[cross] B I L S T U M P S H I S. M. ARK

Mr. Pickwick’s eyes sparkled with delight, as he sat and gloated over

the treasure he had discovered. He had attained one of the greatest

objects of his ambition. In a county known to abound in the remains of

the early ages; in a village in which there still existed some memorials

of the olden time, he--he, the chairman of the Pickwick Club--had

discovered a strange and curious inscription of unquestionable

antiquity, which had wholly escaped the observation of the many learned

men who had preceded him. He could hardly trust the evidence of his

senses.

‘This--this,’ said he, ‘determines me. We return to town to-morrow.’

‘To-morrow!’ exclaimed his admiring followers.

‘To-morrow,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘This treasure must be at once deposited

where it can be thoroughly investigated and properly understood. I have

another reason for this step. In a few days, an election is to take

place for the borough of Eatanswill, at which Mr. Perker, a gentleman

whom I lately met, is the agent of one of the candidates. We will

behold, and minutely examine, a scene so interesting to every

Englishman.’

‘We will,’ was the animated cry of three voices.

Mr. Pickwick looked round him. The attachment and fervour of his

followers lighted up a glow of enthusiasm within him. He was their

leader, and he felt it.

‘Let us celebrate this happy meeting with a convivial glass,’ said he.

This proposition, like the other, was received with unanimous applause.

Having himself deposited the important stone in a small deal box,

purchased from the landlady for the purpose, he placed himself in an

arm-chair, at the head of the table; and the evening was devoted to

festivity and conversation.

It was past eleven o’clock--a late hour for the little village of

Cobham--when Mr. Pickwick retired to the bedroom which had been prepared

for his reception. He threw open the lattice window, and setting his

light upon the table, fell into a train of meditation on the hurried

events of the two preceding days.

The hour and the place were both favourable to contemplation; Mr.

Pickwick was roused by the church clock striking twelve. The first

stroke of the hour sounded solemnly in his ear, but when the bell ceased

the stillness seemed insupportable--he almost felt as if he had lost a

companion. He was nervous and excited; and hastily undressing himself

and placing his light in the chimney, got into bed.

Every one has experienced that disagreeable state of mind, in which a

sensation of bodily weariness in vain contends against an inability to

sleep. It was Mr. Pickwick’s condition at this moment: he tossed first

on one side and then on the other; and perseveringly closed his eyes as

if to coax himself to slumber. It was of no use. Whether it was the

unwonted exertion he had undergone, or the heat, or the brandy-and-

water, or the strange bed--whatever it was, his thoughts kept reverting

very uncomfortably to the grim pictures downstairs, and the old stories

to which they had given rise in the course of the evening. After half an

hour’s tumbling about, he came to the unsatisfactory conclusion, that it

was of no use trying to sleep; so he got up and partially dressed

himself. Anything, he thought, was better than lying there fancying all

kinds of horrors. He looked out of the window--it was very dark. He

walked about the room--it was very lonely.

He had taken a few turns from the door to the window, and from the

window to the door, when the clergyman’s manuscript for the first time

entered his head. It was a good thought. If it failed to interest him,

it might send him to sleep. He took it from his coat pocket, and drawing

a small table towards his bedside, trimmed the light, put on his

spectacles, and composed himself to read. It was a strange handwriting,

and the paper was much soiled and blotted. The title gave him a sudden

start, too; and he could not avoid casting a wistful glance round the

room. Reflecting on the absurdity of giving way to such feelings,

however, he trimmed the light again, and read as follows:--

A MADMAN’S MANUSCRIPT

‘Yes!--a madman’s! How that word would have struck to my heart, many

years ago! How it would have roused the terror that used to come upon me

sometimes, sending the blood hissing and tingling through my veins, till

the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon my skin, and my knees

knocked together with fright! I like it now though. It’s a fine name.

Show me the monarch whose angry frown was ever feared like the glare of

a madman’s eye--whose cord and axe were ever half so sure as a madman’s

gripe. Ho! ho! It’s a grand thing to be mad! to be peeped at like a wild

lion through the iron bars--to gnash one’s teeth and howl, through the

long still night, to the merry ring of a heavy chain and to roll and

twine among the straw, transported with such brave music. Hurrah for the

madhouse! Oh, it’s a rare place!

‘I remember days when I was afraid of being mad; when I used to start

from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from the

curse of my race; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or

happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary

hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my

brain. I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the

marrow of my bones! that one generation had passed away without the

pestilence appearing among them, and that I was the first in whom it

would revive. I knew it must be so: that so it always had been, and so

it ever would be: and when I cowered in some obscure corner of a crowded

room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn their eyes towards me, I

knew they were telling each other of the doomed madman; and I slunk away

again to mope in solitude.

‘I did this for years; long, long years they were. The nights here are

long sometimes--very long; but they are nothing to the restless nights,

and dreadful dreams I had at that time. It makes me cold to remember

them. Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the

corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to

madness. They told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house

in which my father died, was stained with his own blood, shed by his own

hand in raging madness. I drove my fingers into my ears, but they

screamed into my head till the room rang with it, that in one generation

before him the madness slumbered, but that his grandfather had lived for

years with his hands fettered to the ground, to prevent his tearing

himself to pieces. I knew they told the truth--I knew it well. I had

found it out years before, though they had tried to keep it from me. Ha!

ha! I was too cunning for them, madman as they thought me.

‘At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have feared

it. I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best

among them. I knew I was mad, but they did not even suspect it. How I

used to hug myself with delight, when I thought of the fine trick I was

playing them after their old pointing and leering, when I was not mad,

but only dreading that I might one day become so! And how I used to

laugh for joy, when I was alone, and thought how well I kept my secret,

and how quickly my kind friends would have fallen from me, if they had

known the truth. I could have screamed with ecstasy when I dined alone

with some fine roaring fellow, to think how pale he would have turned,

and how fast he would have run, if he had known that the dear friend who

sat close to him, sharpening a bright, glittering knife, was a madman

with all the power, and half the will, to plunge it in his heart. Oh, it

was a merry life!

‘Riches became mine, wealth poured in upon me, and I rioted in pleasures

enhanced a thousandfold to me by the consciousness of my well-kept

secret. I inherited an estate. The law--the eagle-eyed law itself--had

been deceived, and had handed over disputed thousands to a madman’s

hands. Where was the wit of the sharp-sighted men of sound mind? Where

the dexterity of the lawyers, eager to discover a flaw? The madman’s

cunning had overreached them all.

‘I had money. How I was courted! I spent it profusely. How I was

praised! How those three proud, overbearing brothers humbled themselves

before me! The old, white-headed father, too--such deference--such

respect--such devoted friendship--he worshipped me! The old man had a

daughter, and the young men a sister; and all the five were poor. I was

rich; and when I married the girl, I saw a smile of triumph play upon

the faces of her needy relatives, as they thought of their well-planned

scheme, and their fine prize. It was for me to smile. To smile! To laugh

outright, and tear my hair, and roll upon the ground with shrieks of

merriment. They little thought they had married her to a madman.

‘Stay. If they had known it, would they have saved her? A sister’s

happiness against her husband’s gold. The lightest feather I blow into

the air, against the gay chain that ornaments my body!

‘In one thing I was deceived with all my cunning. If I had not been mad-

-for though we madmen are sharp-witted enough, we get bewildered

sometimes--I should have known that the girl would rather have been

placed, stiff and cold in a dull leaden coffin, than borne an envied

bride to my rich, glittering house. I should have known that her heart

was with the dark-eyed boy whose name I once heard her breathe in her

troubled sleep; and that she had been sacrificed to me, to relieve the

poverty of the old, white-headed man and the haughty brothers.

‘I don’t remember forms or faces now, but I know the girl was beautiful.

I know she was; for in the bright moonlight nights, when I start up from

my sleep, and all is quiet about me, I see, standing still and

motionless in one corner of this cell, a slight and wasted figure with

long black hair, which, streaming down her back, stirs with no earthly

wind, and eyes that fix their gaze on me, and never wink or close. Hush!

the blood chills at my heart as I write it down--that form is _her’s_;

the face is very pale, and the eyes are glassy bright; but I know them

well. That figure never moves; it never frowns and mouths as others do,

that fill this place sometimes; but it is much more dreadful to me, even

than the spirits that tempted me many years ago--it comes fresh from the

grave; and is so very death-like.

‘For nearly a year I saw that face grow paler; for nearly a year I saw

the tears steal down the mournful cheeks, and never knew the cause. I

found it out at last though. They could not keep it from me long. She

had never liked me; I had never thought she did: she despised my wealth,

and hated the splendour in which she lived; but I had not expected that.

She loved another. This I had never thought of. Strange feelings came

over me, and thoughts, forced upon me by some secret power, whirled

round and round my brain. I did not hate her, though I hated the boy she

still wept for. I pitied--yes, I pitied--the wretched life to which her

cold and selfish relations had doomed her. I knew that she could not

live long; but the thought that before her death she might give birth to

some ill-fated being, destined to hand down madness to its offspring,

determined me. I resolved to kill her.

‘For many weeks I thought of poison, and then of drowning, and then of

fire. A fine sight, the grand house in flames, and the madman’s wife

smouldering away to cinders. Think of the jest of a large reward, too,

and of some sane man swinging in the wind for a deed he never did, and

all through a madman’s cunning! I thought often of this, but I gave it

up at last. Oh! the pleasure of stropping the razor day after day,

feeling the sharp edge, and thinking of the gash one stroke of its thin,

bright edge would make!

‘At last the old spirits who had been with me so often before whispered

in my ear that the time was come, and thrust the open razor into my

hand. I grasped it firmly, rose softly from the bed, and leaned over my

sleeping wife. Her face was buried in her hands. I withdrew them softly,

and they fell listlessly on her bosom. She had been weeping; for the

traces of the tears were still wet upon her cheek. Her face was calm and

placid; and even as I looked upon it, a tranquil smile lighted up her

pale features. I laid my hand softly on her shoulder. She started--it

was only a passing dream. I leaned forward again. She screamed, and

woke.

‘One motion of my hand, and she would never again have uttered cry or

sound. But I was startled, and drew back. Her eyes were fixed on mine. I

knew not how it was, but they cowed and frightened me; and I quailed

beneath them. She rose from the bed, still gazing fixedly and steadily

on me. I trembled; the razor was in my hand, but I could not move. She

made towards the door. As she neared it, she turned, and withdrew her

eyes from my face. The spell was broken. I bounded forward, and clutched

her by the arm. Uttering shriek upon shriek, she sank upon the ground.

‘Now I could have killed her without a struggle; but the house was

alarmed. I heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs. I replaced the

razor in its usual drawer, unfastened the door, and called loudly for

assistance.

‘They came, and raised her, and placed her on the bed. She lay bereft of

animation for hours; and when life, look, and speech returned, her

senses had deserted her, and she raved wildly and furiously.

‘Doctors were called in--great men who rolled up to my door in easy

carriages, with fine horses and gaudy servants. They were at her bedside

for weeks. They had a great meeting and consulted together in low and

solemn voices in another room. One, the cleverest and most celebrated

among them, took me aside, and bidding me prepare for the worst, told

me--me, the madman!--that my wife was mad. He stood close beside me at

an open window, his eyes looking in my face, and his hand laid upon my

arm. With one effort, I could have hurled him into the street beneath.

It would have been rare sport to have done it; but my secret was at

stake, and I let him go. A few days after, they told me I must place her

under some restraint: I must provide a keeper for her. I! I went into

the open fields where none could hear me, and laughed till the air

resounded with my shouts!

‘She died next day. The white-headed old man followed her to the grave,

and the proud brothers dropped a tear over the insensible corpse of her

whose sufferings they had regarded in her lifetime with muscles of iron.

All this was food for my secret mirth, and I laughed behind the white

handkerchief which I held up to my face, as we rode home, till the tears

came into my eyes.

‘But though I had carried my object and killed her, I was restless and

disturbed, and I felt that before long my secret must be known. I could

not hide the wild mirth and joy which boiled within me, and made me when

I was alone, at home, jump up and beat my hands together, and dance

round and round, and roar aloud. When I went out, and saw the busy

crowds hurrying about the streets; or to the theatre, and heard the

sound of music, and beheld the people dancing, I felt such glee, that I

could have rushed among them, and torn them to pieces limb from limb,

and howled in transport. But I ground my teeth, and struck my feet upon

the floor, and drove my sharp nails into my hands. I kept it down; and

no one knew I was a madman yet.

‘I remember--though it’s one of the last things I can remember: for now

I mix up realities with my dreams, and having so much to do, and being

always hurried here, have no time to separate the two, from some strange

confusion in which they get involved--I remember how I let it out at

last. Ha! ha! I think I see their frightened looks now, and feel the

ease with which I flung them from me, and dashed my clenched fist into

their white faces, and then flew like the wind, and left them screaming

and shouting far behind. The strength of a giant comes upon me when I

think of it. There--see how this iron bar bends beneath my furious

wrench. I could snap it like a twig, only there are long galleries here

with many doors--I don’t think I could find my way along them; and even

if I could, I know there are iron gates below which they keep locked and

barred. They know what a clever madman I have been, and they are proud

to have me here, to show.

‘Let me see: yes, I had been out. It was late at night when I reached

home, and found the proudest of the three proud brothers waiting to see

me--urgent business he said: I recollect it well. I hated that man with

all a madman’s hate. Many and many a time had my fingers longed to tear

him. They told me he was there. I ran swiftly upstairs. He had a word to

say to me. I dismissed the servants. It was late, and we were alone

together--for the first time.

‘I kept my eyes carefully from him at first, for I knew what he little

thought--and I gloried in the knowledge--that the light of madness

gleamed from them like fire. We sat in silence for a few minutes. He

spoke at last. My recent dissipation, and strange remarks, made so soon

after his sister’s death, were an insult to her memory. Coupling

together many circumstances which had at first escaped his observation,

he thought I had not treated her well. He wished to know whether he was

right in inferring that I meant to cast a reproach upon her memory, and

a disrespect upon her family. It was due to the uniform he wore, to

demand this explanation.

‘This man had a commission in the army--a commission, purchased with my

money, and his sister’s misery! This was the man who had been foremost

in the plot to ensnare me, and grasp my wealth. This was the man who had

been the main instrument in forcing his sister to wed me; well knowing

that her heart was given to that puling boy. Due to his uniform! The

livery of his degradation! I turned my eyes upon him--I could not help

it--but I spoke not a word.

‘I saw the sudden change that came upon him beneath my gaze. He was a

bold man, but the colour faded from his face, and he drew back his

chair. I dragged mine nearer to him; and I laughed--I was very merry

then--I saw him shudder. I felt the madness rising within me. He was

afraid of me.

‘“You were very fond of your sister when she was alive,” I said.--

“Very.”

‘He looked uneasily round him, and I saw his hand grasp the back of his

chair; but he said nothing.

‘“You villain,” said I, “I found you out: I discovered your hellish

plots against me; I know her heart was fixed on some one else before you

compelled her to marry me. I know it--I know it.”

‘He jumped suddenly from his chair, brandished it aloft, and bid me

stand back--for I took care to be getting closer to him all the time I

spoke.

‘I screamed rather than talked, for I felt tumultuous passions eddying

through my veins, and the old spirits whispering and taunting me to tear

his heart out.

‘“Damn you,” said I, starting up, and rushing upon him; “I killed her. I

am a madman. Down with you. Blood, blood! I will have it!”

‘I turned aside with one blow the chair he hurled at me in his terror,

and closed with him; and with a heavy crash we rolled upon the floor

together.

‘It was a fine struggle that; for he was a tall, strong man, fighting

for his life; and I, a powerful madman, thirsting to destroy him. I knew

no strength could equal mine, and I was right. Right again, though a

madman! His struggles grew fainter. I knelt upon his chest, and clasped

his brawny throat firmly with both hands. His face grew purple; his eyes

were starting from his head, and with protruded tongue, he seemed to

mock me. I squeezed the tighter.

‘The door was suddenly burst open with a loud noise, and a crowd of

people rushed forward, crying aloud to each other to secure the madman.

‘My secret was out; and my only struggle now was for liberty and

freedom. I gained my feet before a hand was on me, threw myself among my

assailants, and cleared my way with my strong arm, as if I bore a

hatchet in my hand, and hewed them down before me. I gained the door,

dropped over the banisters, and in an instant was in the street.

‘Straight and swift I ran, and no one dared to stop me. I heard the

noise of the feet behind, and redoubled my speed. It grew fainter and

fainter in the distance, and at length died away altogether; but on I

bounded, through marsh and rivulet, over fence and wall, with a wild

shout which was taken up by the strange beings that flocked around me on

every side, and swelled the sound, till it pierced the air. I was borne

upon the arms of demons who swept along upon the wind, and bore down

bank and hedge before them, and spun me round and round with a rustle

and a speed that made my head swim, until at last they threw me from

them with a violent shock, and I fell heavily upon the earth. When I

woke I found myself here--here in this gray cell, where the sunlight

seldom comes, and the moon steals in, in rays which only serve to show

the dark shadows about me, and that silent figure in its old corner.

When I lie awake, I can sometimes hear strange shrieks and cries from

distant parts of this large place. What they are, I know not; but they

neither come from that pale form, nor does it regard them. For from the

first shades of dusk till the earliest light of morning, it still stands

motionless in the same place, listening to the music of my iron chain,

and watching my gambols on my straw bed.’

At the end of the manuscript was written, in another hand, this note:--

[The unhappy man whose ravings are recorded above, was a melancholy

instance of the baneful results of energies misdirected in early life,

and excesses prolonged until their consequences could never be repaired.

The thoughtless riot, dissipation, and debauchery of his younger days

produced fever and delirium. The first effects of the latter was the

strange delusion, founded upon a well-known medical theory, strongly

contended for by some, and as strongly contested by others, that an

hereditary madness existed in his family. This produced a settled gloom,

which in time developed a morbid insanity, and finally terminated in

raving madness. There is every reason to believe that the events he

detailed, though distorted in the description by his diseased

imagination, really happened. It is only matter of wonder to those who

were acquainted with the vices of his early career, that his passions,

when no longer controlled by reason, did not lead him to the commission

of still more frightful deeds.]

Mr. Pickwick’s candle was just expiring in the socket, as he concluded

the perusal of the old clergyman’s manuscript; and when the light went

suddenly out, without any previous flicker by way of warning, it

communicated a very considerable start to his excited frame. Hastily

throwing off such articles of clothing as he had put on when he rose

from his uneasy bed, and casting a fearful glance around, he once more

scrambled hastily between the sheets, and soon fell fast asleep.

The sun was shining brilliantly into his chamber, when he awoke, and the

morning was far advanced. The gloom which had oppressed him on the

previous night had disappeared with the dark shadows which shrouded the

landscape, and his thoughts and feelings were as light and gay as the

morning itself. After a hearty breakfast, the four gentlemen sallied

forth to walk to Gravesend, followed by a man bearing the stone in its

deal box. They reached the town about one o’clock (their luggage they

had directed to be forwarded to the city, from Rochester), and being

fortunate enough to secure places on the outside of a coach, arrived in

London in sound health and spirits, on that same afternoon.

The next three or four days were occupied with the preparations which

were necessary for their journey to the borough of Eatanswill. As any

references to that most important undertaking demands a separate

chapter, we may devote the few lines which remain at the close of this,

to narrate, with great brevity, the history of the antiquarian

discovery.

It appears from the Transactions of the Club, then, that Mr. Pickwick

lectured upon the discovery at a General Club Meeting, convened on the

night succeeding their return, and entered into a variety of ingenious

and erudite speculations on the meaning of the inscription. It also

appears that a skilful artist executed a faithful delineation of the

curiosity, which was engraven on stone, and presented to the Royal

Antiquarian Society, and other learned bodies: that heart-burnings and

jealousies without number were created by rival controversies which were

penned upon the subject; and that Mr. Pickwick himself wrote a pamphlet,

containing ninety-six pages of very small print, and twenty-seven

different readings of the inscription: that three old gentlemen cut off

their eldest sons with a shilling a-piece for presuming to doubt the

antiquity of the fragment; and that one enthusiastic individual cut

himself off prematurely, in despair at being unable to fathom its

meaning: that Mr. Pickwick was elected an honorary member of seventeen

native and foreign societies, for making the discovery: that none of the

seventeen could make anything of it; but that all the seventeen agreed

it was very extraordinary.

Mr. Blotton, indeed--and the name will be doomed to the undying contempt

of those who cultivate the mysterious and the sublime--Mr. Blotton, we

say, with the doubt and cavilling peculiar to vulgar minds, presumed to

state a view of the case, as degrading as ridiculous. Mr. Blotton, with

a mean desire to tarnish the lustre of the immortal name of Pickwick,

actually undertook a journey to Cobham in person, and on his return,

sarcastically observed in an oration at the club, that he had seen the

man from whom the stone was purchased; that the man presumed the stone

to be ancient, but solemnly denied the antiquity of the inscription--

inasmuch as he represented it to have been rudely carved by himself in

an idle mood, and to display letters intended to bear neither more or

less than the simple construction of--‘BILL STUMPS, HIS MARK’; and that

Mr. Stumps, being little in the habit of original composition, and more

accustomed to be guided by the sound of words than by the strict rules

of orthography, had omitted the concluding ‘L’ of his Christian name.

The Pickwick Club (as might have been expected from so enlightened an

institution) received this statement with the contempt it deserved,

expelled the presumptuous and ill-conditioned Blotton from the society,

and voted Mr. Pickwick a pair of gold spectacles, in token of their

confidence and approbation: in return for which, Mr. Pickwick caused a

portrait of himself to be painted, and hung up in the club room.

Mr. Blotton was ejected but not conquered. He also wrote a pamphlet,

addressed to the seventeen learned societies, native and foreign,

containing a repetition of the statement he had already made, and rather

more than half intimating his opinion that the seventeen learned

societies were so many ‘humbugs.’ Hereupon, the virtuous indignation of

the seventeen learned societies being roused, several fresh pamphlets

appeared; the foreign learned societies corresponded with the native

learned societies; the native learned societies translated the pamphlets

of the foreign learned societies into English; the foreign learned

societies translated the pamphlets of the native learned societies into

all sorts of languages; and thus commenced that celebrated scientific

discussion so well known to all men, as the Pickwick controversy.

But this base attempt to injure Mr. Pickwick recoiled upon the head of

its calumnious author. The seventeen learned societies unanimously voted

the presumptuous Blotton an ignorant meddler, and forthwith set to work

upon more treatises than ever. And to this day the stone remains, an

illegible monument of Mr. Pickwick’s greatness, and a lasting trophy to

the littleness of his enemies.

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

Mr. Pickwick’s apartments in Goswell Street, although on a limited

scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable description, but

peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius and

observation. His sitting-room was the first-floor front, his bedroom the

second-floor front; and thus, whether he were sitting at his desk in his

parlour, or standing before the dressing-glass in his dormitory, he had

an equal opportunity of contemplating human nature in all the numerous

phases it exhibits, in that not more populous than popular thoroughfare.

His landlady, Mrs. Bardell--the relict and sole executrix of a deceased

custom-house officer--was a comely woman of bustling manners and

agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, improved by

study and long practice, into an exquisite talent. There were no

children, no servants, no fowls. The only other inmates of the house

were a large man and a small boy; the first a lodger, the second a

production of Mrs. Bardell’s. The large man was always home precisely at

ten o’clock at night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself into

the limits of a dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlour; and the

infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bardell were

exclusively confined to the neighbouring pavements and gutters.

Cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house; and in it Mr.

Pickwick’s will was law.

To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy of the

establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of Mr.

Pickwick’s mind, his appearance and behaviour on the morning previous to

that which had been fixed upon for the journey to Eatanswill would have

been most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced the room to and fro

with hurried steps, popped his head out of the window at intervals of

about three minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and

exhibited many other manifestations of impatience very unusual with him.

It was evident that something of great importance was in contemplation,

but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell had been enabled to

discover.

‘Mrs. Bardell,’ said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable female

approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apartment.

‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Bardell.

‘Your little boy is a very long time gone.’

‘Why it’s a good long way to the Borough, sir,’ remonstrated Mrs.

Bardell.

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘very true; so it is.’ Mr. Pickwick relapsed

into silence, and Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting.

‘Mrs. Bardell,’ said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a few minutes.

‘Sir,’ said Mrs. Bardell again.

‘Do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep

one?’

‘La, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Bardell, colouring up to the very border

of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimonial twinkle

in the eyes of her lodger; ‘La, Mr. Pickwick, what a question!’

‘Well, but do you?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘That depends,’ said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster very near to

Mr. Pickwick’s elbow which was planted on the table. ‘That depends a

good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pickwick; and whether it’s a

saving and careful person, sir.’

‘That’s very true,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘but the person I have in my eye

(here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) I think possesses these

qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable knowledge of the world, and

a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. Bardell, which may be of material use to

me.’

‘La, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Bardell, the crimson rising to her cap-

border again.

‘I do,’ said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in

speaking of a subject which interested him--‘I do, indeed; and to tell

you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind.’

‘Dear me, sir,’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell.

‘You’ll think it very strange now,’ said the amiable Mr. Pickwick, with

a good-humoured glance at his companion, ‘that I never consulted you

about this matter, and never even mentioned it, till I sent your little

boy out this morning--eh?’

Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long worshipped Mr.

Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a

pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never dared

to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose--a deliberate plan, too--

sent her little boy to the Borough, to get him out of the way--how

thoughtful--how considerate!

‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘what do you think?’

‘Oh, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agitation, ‘you’re

very kind, sir.’

‘It’ll save you a good deal of trouble, won’t it?’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Oh, I never thought anything of the trouble, sir,’ replied Mrs.

Bardell; ‘and, of course, I should take more trouble to please you then,

than ever; but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so much

consideration for my loneliness.’

‘Ah, to be sure,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I never thought of that. When I am

in town, you’ll always have somebody to sit with you. To be sure, so you

will.’

‘I am sure I ought to be a very happy woman,’ said Mrs. Bardell.

‘And your little boy--’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Bless his heart!’ interposed Mrs. Bardell, with a maternal sob.

‘He, too, will have a companion,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick, ‘a lively one,

who’ll teach him, I’ll be bound, more tricks in a week than he would

ever learn in a year.’ And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly.

‘Oh, you dear--’ said Mrs. Bardell.

Mr. Pickwick started.

‘Oh, you kind, good, playful dear,’ said Mrs. Bardell; and without more

ado, she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round Mr. Pickwick’s

neck, with a cataract of tears and a chorus of sobs.

‘Bless my soul,’ cried the astonished Mr. Pickwick; ‘Mrs. Bardell, my

good woman--dear me, what a situation--pray consider.--Mrs. Bardell,

don’t--if anybody should come--’

‘Oh, let them come,’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell frantically; ‘I’ll never

leave you--dear, kind, good soul;’ and, with these words, Mrs. Bardell

clung the tighter.

‘Mercy upon me,’ said Mr. Pickwick, struggling violently, ‘I hear

somebody coming up the stairs. Don’t, don’t, there’s a good creature,

don’t.’ But entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavailing; for Mrs.

Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick’s arms; and before he could gain

time to deposit her on a chair, Master Bardell entered the room,

ushering in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass.

Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless and speechless. He stood with his

lovely burden in his arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his

friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition or explanation.

They, in their turn, stared at him; and Master Bardell, in his turn,

stared at everybody.

The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, and the

perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they might have remained

in exactly the same relative situations until the suspended animation of

the lady was restored, had it not been for a most beautiful and touching

expression of filial affection on the part of her youthful son. Clad in

a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very

considerable size, he at first stood at the door astounded and

uncertain; but by degrees, the impression that his mother must have

suffered some personal damage pervaded his partially developed mind, and

considering Mr. Pickwick as the aggressor, he set up an appalling and

semi-earthly kind of howling, and butting forward with his head,

commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back and legs,

with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm, and the violence

of his excitement, allowed.

‘Take this little villain away,’ said the agonised Mr. Pickwick, ‘he’s

mad.’

‘What is the matter?’ said the three tongue-tied Pickwickians.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Mr. Pickwick pettishly. ‘Take away the boy.’

(Here Mr. Winkle carried the interesting boy, screaming and struggling,

to the farther end of the apartment.) ‘Now help me, lead this woman

downstairs.’

‘Oh, I am better now,’ said Mrs. Bardell faintly.

‘Let me lead you downstairs,’ said the ever-gallant Mr. Tupman.

‘Thank you, sir--thank you;’ exclaimed Mrs. Bardell hysterically. And

downstairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by her affectionate son.

‘I cannot conceive,’ said Mr. Pickwick when his friend returned--‘I

cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. I had merely

announced to her my intention of keeping a man-servant, when she fell

into the extraordinary paroxysm in which you found her. Very

extraordinary thing.’

‘Very,’ said his three friends.

‘Placed me in such an extremely awkward situation,’ continued Mr.

Pickwick.

‘Very,’ was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and

looked dubiously at each other.

This behaviour was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked their

incredulity. They evidently suspected him.

‘There is a man in the passage now,’ said Mr. Tupman.

‘It’s the man I spoke to you about,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘I sent for him

to the Borough this morning. Have the goodness to call him up,

Snodgrass.’

Mr. Snodgrass did as he was desired; and Mr. Samuel Weller forthwith

presented himself.

‘Oh--you remember me, I suppose?’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘I should think so,’ replied Sam, with a patronising wink. ‘Queer start

that ‘ere, but he was one too many for you, warn’t he? Up to snuff and a

pinch or two over--eh?’

‘Never mind that matter now,’ said Mr. Pickwick hastily; ‘I want to

speak to you about something else. Sit down.’

‘Thank’ee, sir,’ said Sam. And down he sat without further bidding,

having previously deposited his old white hat on the landing outside the

door. ‘’Tain’t a wery good ‘un to look at,’ said Sam, ‘but it’s an

astonishin’ ‘un to wear; and afore the brim went, it was a wery handsome

tile. Hows’ever it’s lighter without it, that’s one thing, and every

hole lets in some air, that’s another--wentilation gossamer I calls it.’

On the delivery of this sentiment, Mr. Weller smiled agreeably upon the

assembled Pickwickians.

‘Now with regard to the matter on which I, with the concurrence of these

gentlemen, sent for you,’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘That’s the pint, sir,’ interposed Sam; ‘out vith it, as the father said

to his child, when he swallowed a farden.’

‘We want to know, in the first place,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘whether you

have any reason to be discontented with your present situation.’

‘Afore I answers that ‘ere question, gen’l’m’n,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘I

should like to know, in the first place, whether you’re a-goin’ to

purwide me with a better?’

A sunbeam of placid benevolence played on Mr. Pickwick’s features as he

said, ‘I have half made up my mind to engage you myself.’

‘Have you, though?’ said Sam.

Mr. Pickwick nodded in the affirmative.

‘Wages?’ inquired Sam.

‘Twelve pounds a year,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.

‘Clothes?’

‘Two suits.’

‘Work?’

‘To attend upon me; and travel about with me and these gentlemen here.’

‘Take the bill down,’ said Sam emphatically. ‘I’m let to a single

gentleman, and the terms is agreed upon.’

‘You accept the situation?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.

‘Cert’nly,’ replied Sam. ‘If the clothes fits me half as well as the

place, they’ll do.’

‘You can get a character of course?’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Ask the landlady o’ the White Hart about that, Sir,’ replied Sam.

‘Can you come this evening?’

‘I’ll get into the clothes this minute, if they’re here,’ said Sam, with

great alacrity.

‘Call at eight this evening,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘and if the inquiries

are satisfactory, they shall be provided.’

With the single exception of one amiable indiscretion, in which an

assistant housemaid had equally participated, the history of Mr.

Weller’s conduct was so very blameless, that Mr. Pickwick felt fully

justified in closing the engagement that very evening. With the

promptness and energy which characterised not only the public

proceedings, but all the private actions of this extraordinary man, he

at once led his new attendant to one of those convenient emporiums where

gentlemen’s new and second-hand clothes are provided, and the

troublesome and inconvenient formality of measurement dispensed with;

and before night had closed in, Mr. Weller was furnished with a grey

coat with the P. C. button, a black hat with a cockade to it, a pink

striped waistcoat, light breeches and gaiters, and a variety of other

necessaries, too numerous to recapitulate.

‘Well,’ said that suddenly-transformed individual, as he took his seat

on the outside of the Eatanswill coach next morning; ‘I wonder whether

I’m meant to be a footman, or a groom, or a gamekeeper, or a seedsman. I

looks like a sort of compo of every one on ‘em. Never mind; there’s a

change of air, plenty to see, and little to do; and all this suits my

complaint uncommon; so long life to the Pickvicks, says I!’

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

We will frankly acknowledge that, up to the period of our being first

immersed in the voluminous papers of the Pickwick Club, we had never

heard of Eatanswill; we will with equal candour admit that we have in

vain searched for proof of the actual existence of such a place at the

present day. Knowing the deep reliance to be placed on every note and

statement of Mr. Pickwick’s, and not presuming to set up our

recollection against the recorded declarations of that great man, we

have consulted every authority, bearing upon the subject, to which we

could possibly refer. We have traced every name in schedules A and B,

without meeting with that of Eatanswill; we have minutely examined every

corner of the pocket county maps issued for the benefit of society by

our distinguished publishers, and the same result has attended our

investigation. We are therefore led to believe that Mr. Pickwick, with

that anxious desire to abstain from giving offence to any, and with

those delicate feelings for which all who knew him well know he was so

eminently remarkable, purposely substituted a fictitious designation,

for the real name of the place in which his observations were made. We

are confirmed in this belief by a little circumstance, apparently slight

and trivial in itself, but when considered in this point of view, not

undeserving of notice. In Mr. Pickwick’s note-book, we can just trace an

entry of the fact, that the places of himself and followers were booked

by the Norwich coach; but this entry was afterwards lined through, as if

for the purpose of concealing even the direction in which the borough is

situated. We will not, therefore, hazard a guess upon the subject, but

will at once proceed with this history, content with the materials which

its characters have provided for us.

It appears, then, that the Eatanswill people, like the people of many

other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty

importance, and that every man in Eatanswill, conscious of the weight

that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and

soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town--the Blues

and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs,

and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and the

consequence was, that whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at

public meeting, town-hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words

arose between them. With these dissensions it is almost superfluous to

say that everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the

Buffs proposed to new skylight the market-place, the Blues got up public

meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the

erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one

man and stood aghast at the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff

shops, Blue inns and Buff inns--there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle

in the very church itself.

Of course it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of

these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative:

and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town--the Eatanswill

_Gazette_ and the Eatanswill _Independent_; the former advocating Blue

principles, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. Fine

newspapers they were. Such leading articles, and such spirited attacks!-

-’Our worthless contemporary, the _Gazette_’--‘That disgraceful and

dastardly journal, the _Independent_’--‘That false and scurrilous print,

the _Independent_’--‘That vile and slanderous calumniator, the

_Gazette_;’ these, and other spirit-stirring denunciations, were strewn

plentifully over the columns of each, in every number, and excited

feelings of the most intense delight and indignation in the bosoms of

the townspeople.

Mr. Pickwick, with his usual foresight and sagacity, had chosen a

peculiarly desirable moment for his visit to the borough. Never was such

a contest known. The Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, was the

Blue candidate; and Horatio Fizkin, Esq., of Fizkin Lodge, near

Eatanswill, had been prevailed upon by his friends to stand forward on

the Buff interest. The _Gazette_ warned the electors of Eatanswill that

the eyes not only of England, but of the whole civilised world, were

upon them; and the _Independent_ imperatively demanded to know, whether

the constituency of Eatanswill were the grand fellows they had always

taken them for, or base and servile tools, undeserving alike of the name

of Englishmen and the blessings of freedom. Never had such a commotion

agitated the town before.

It was late in the evening when Mr. Pickwick and his companions,

assisted by Sam, dismounted from the roof of the Eatanswill coach. Large

blue silk flags were flying from the windows of the Town Arms Inn, and

bills were posted in every sash, intimating, in gigantic letters, that

the Honourable Samuel Slumkey’s committee sat there daily. A crowd of

idlers were assembled in the road, looking at a hoarse man in the

balcony, who was apparently talking himself very red in the face in Mr.

Slumkey’s behalf; but the force and point of whose arguments were

somewhat impaired by the perpetual beating of four large drums which Mr.

Fizkin’s committee had stationed at the street corner. There was a busy

little man beside him, though, who took off his hat at intervals and

motioned to the people to cheer, which they regularly did, most

enthusiastically; and as the red-faced gentleman went on talking till he

was redder in the face than ever, it seemed to answer his purpose quite

as well as if anybody had heard him.

The Pickwickians had no sooner dismounted than they were surrounded by a

branch mob of the honest and independent, who forthwith set up three

deafening cheers, which being responded to by the main body (for it’s

not at all necessary for a crowd to know what they are cheering about),

swelled into a tremendous roar of triumph, which stopped even the red-

faced man in the balcony.

‘Hurrah!’ shouted the mob, in conclusion.

‘One cheer more,’ screamed the little fugleman in the balcony, and out

shouted the mob again, as if lungs were cast-iron, with steel works.

‘Slumkey for ever!’ roared the honest and independent.

‘Slumkey for ever!’ echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat.

‘No Fizkin!’ roared the crowd.

‘Certainly not!’ shouted Mr. Pickwick. ‘Hurrah!’ And then there was

another roaring, like that of a whole menagerie when the elephant has

rung the bell for the cold meat.