great glee. ‘The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the night-
bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always rushes
into the church just before the psalms, when the people have got nothing
to do but look about ‘em, and calls me out, with horror and dismay
depicted on his countenance. “Bless my soul,” everybody says, “somebody
taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf, sent for. What a business
that young man has!”’
At the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of
medicine, Mr. Bob Sawyer and his friend, Ben Allen, threw themselves
back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. When they had
enjoyed the joke to their heart’s content, the discourse changed to
topics in which Mr. Winkle was more immediately interested.
We think we have hinted elsewhere, that Mr. Benjamin Allen had a way of
becoming sentimental after brandy. The case is not a peculiar one, as we
ourself can testify, having, on a few occasions, had to deal with
patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. At this precise
period of his existence, Mr. Benjamin Allen had perhaps a greater
predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before; the cause of
which malady was briefly this. He had been staying nearly three weeks
with Mr. Bob Sawyer; Mr. Bob Sawyer was not remarkable for temperance,
nor was Mr. Benjamin Allen for the ownership of a very strong head; the
consequence was that, during the whole space of time just mentioned, Mr.
Benjamin Allen had been wavering between intoxication partial, and
intoxication complete.
‘My dear friend,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, taking advantage of Mr. Bob
Sawyer’s temporary absence behind the counter, whither he had retired to
dispense some of the second-hand leeches, previously referred to; ‘my
dear friend, I am very miserable.’
Mr. Winkle professed his heartfelt regret to hear it, and begged to know
whether he could do anything to alleviate the sorrows of the suffering
student.
‘Nothing, my dear boy, nothing,’ said Ben. ‘You recollect Arabella,
Winkle? My sister Arabella--a little girl, Winkle, with black eyes--when
we were down at Wardle’s? I don’t know whether you happened to notice
her--a nice little girl, Winkle. Perhaps my features may recall her
countenance to your recollection?’
Mr. Winkle required nothing to recall the charming Arabella to his mind;
and it was rather fortunate he did not, for the features of her brother
Benjamin would unquestionably have proved but an indifferent refresher
to his memory. He answered, with as much calmness as he could assume,
that he perfectly remembered the young lady referred to, and sincerely
trusted she was in good health.
‘Our friend Bob is a delightful fellow, Winkle,’ was the only reply of
Mr. Ben Allen.
‘Very,’ said Mr. Winkle, not much relishing this close connection of the
two names.
‘I designed ‘em for each other; they were made for each other, sent into
the world for each other, born for each other, Winkle,’ said Mr. Ben
Allen, setting down his glass with emphasis. ‘There’s a special destiny
in the matter, my dear sir; there’s only five years’ difference between
‘em, and both their birthdays are in August.’
Mr. Winkle was too anxious to hear what was to follow to express much
wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it was; so
Mr. Ben Allen, after a tear or two, went on to say that, notwithstanding
all his esteem and respect and veneration for his friend, Arabella had
unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most determined antipathy to
his person.
‘And I think,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, in conclusion. ‘I think there’s a
prior attachment.’
‘Have you any idea who the object of it might be?’ asked Mr. Winkle,
with great trepidation.
Mr. Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above
his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up by
saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could guess;
that was all.
‘I’d show him what I thought of him,’ said Mr. Ben Allen. And round went
the poker again, more fiercely than before.
All this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of Mr. Winkle,
who remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up
resolution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent.
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Ben Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very
cunning; ‘I didn’t think Wardle’s exactly the place for a headstrong
girl; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being
dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country to spend a
few months at an old aunt’s, in a nice, dull, close place. I think that
will cure her, my boy. If it doesn’t, I’ll take her abroad for a little
while, and see what that’ll do.’
‘Oh, the aunt’s is in Bristol, is it?’ faltered Mr. Winkle.
‘No, no, not in Bristol,’ replied Mr. Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over
his right shoulder; ‘over that way--down there. But, hush, here’s Bob.
Not a word, my dear friend, not a word.’
Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest
degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment rankled
in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him that the
fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had
he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost what it might; but
here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the
explanatory ‘over that way,’ and ‘down there,’ of Mr. Ben Allen, meant
three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess.
But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for Bob
Sawyer’s return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a meat-pie
from the baker’s, of which that gentleman insisted on his staying to
partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman, who officiated
in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s housekeeper; and a third knife and
fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy in the gray livery
(for Mr. Sawyer’s domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on a
limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served up, as
Mr. Sawyer remarked, ‘in its native pewter.’
After dinner, Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the shop,
and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein, stirring up
and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very creditable and
apothecary-like manner. Mr. Sawyer, being a bachelor, had only one
tumbler in the house, which was assigned to Mr. Winkle as a compliment
to the visitor, Mr. Ben Allen being accommodated with a funnel with a
cork in the narrow end, and Bob Sawyer contented himself with one of
those wide-lipped crystal vessels inscribed with a variety of cabalistic
characters, in which chemists are wont to measure out their liquid drugs
in compounding prescriptions. These preliminaries adjusted, the punch
was tasted, and pronounced excellent; and it having been arranged that
Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen should be considered at liberty to fill twice
to Mr. Winkle’s once, they started fair, with great satisfaction and
good-fellowship.
There was no singing, because Mr. Bob Sawyer said it wouldn’t look
professional; but to make amends for this deprivation there was so much
talking and laughing that it might have been heard, and very likely was,
at the end of the street. Which conversation materially lightened the
hours and improved the mind of Mr. Bob Sawyer’s boy, who, instead of
devoting the evening to his ordinary occupation of writing his name on
the counter, and rubbing it out again, peeped through the glass door,
and thus listened and looked on at the same time.
The mirth of Mr. Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious, Mr.
Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had
well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in,
announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer late
Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke up
the party. Mr. Bob Sawyer, understanding the message, after some twenty
repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself, and,
having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and issued
forth. Resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and finding
it quite impossible to engage Mr. Ben Allen in any intelligible
conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other,
Mr. Winkle took his departure, and returned to the Bush.
The anxiety of his mind, and the numerous meditations which Arabella had
awakened, prevented his share of the mortar of punch producing that
effect upon him which it would have had under other circumstances. So,
after taking a glass of soda-water and brandy at the bar, he turned into
the coffee-room, dispirited rather than elevated by the occurrences of
the evening.
Sitting in front of the fire, with his back towards him, was a tallish
gentleman in a greatcoat: the only other occupant of the room. It was
rather a cool evening for the season of the year, and the gentleman drew
his chair aside to afford the new-comer a sight of the fire. What were
Mr. Winkle’s feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed to view the face
and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary Dowler!
Mr. Winkle’s first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest
bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind
Mr. Dowler’s head. He had made one step towards it, before he checked
himself. As he did so, Mr. Dowler very hastily drew back.
‘Mr. Winkle, Sir. Be calm. Don’t strike me. I won’t bear it. A blow!
Never!’ said Mr. Dowler, looking meeker than Mr. Winkle had expected in
a gentleman of his ferocity.
‘A blow, Sir?’ stammered Mr. Winkle.
‘A blow, Sir,’ replied Dowler. ‘Compose your feelings. Sit down. Hear
me.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, trembling from head to foot, ‘before I consent
to sit down beside, or opposite you, without the presence of a waiter, I
must be secured by some further understanding. You used a threat against
me last night, Sir, a dreadful threat, Sir.’ Here Mr. Winkle turned very
pale indeed, and stopped short.
‘I did,’ said Dowler, with a countenance almost as white as Mr.
Winkle’s. ‘Circumstances were suspicious. They have been explained. I
respect your bravery. Your feeling is upright. Conscious innocence.
There’s my hand. Grasp it.’
‘Really, Sir,’ said Mr. Winkle, hesitating whether to give his hand or
not, and almost fearing that it was demanded in order that he might be
taken at an advantage, ‘really, Sir, I--’
‘I know what you mean,’ interposed Dowler. ‘You feel aggrieved. Very
natural. So should I. I was wrong. I beg your pardon. Be friendly.
Forgive me.’ With this, Dowler fairly forced his hand upon Mr. Winkle,
and shaking it with the utmost vehemence, declared he was a fellow of
extreme spirit, and he had a higher opinion of him than ever.
‘Now,’ said Dowler, ‘sit down. Relate it all. How did you find me? When
did you follow? Be frank. Tell me.’
‘It’s quite accidental,’ replied Mr. Winkle, greatly perplexed by the
curious and unexpected nature of the interview. ‘Quite.’
‘Glad of it,’ said Dowler. ‘I woke this morning. I had forgotten my
threat. I laughed at the accident. I felt friendly. I said so.’
‘To whom?’ inquired Mr. Winkle.
‘To Mrs. Dowler. “You made a vow,” said she. “I did,” said I. “It was a
rash one,” said she. “It was,” said I. “I’ll apologise. Where is he?”’
‘Who?’ inquired Mr. Winkle.
‘You,’ replied Dowler. ‘I went downstairs. You were not to be found.
Pickwick looked gloomy. Shook his head. Hoped no violence would be
committed. I saw it all. You felt yourself insulted. You had gone, for a
friend perhaps. Possibly for pistols. “High spirit,” said I. “I admire
him.”’
Mr. Winkle coughed, and beginning to see how the land lay, assumed a
look of importance.
‘I left a note for you,’ resumed Dowler. ‘I said I was sorry. So I was.
Pressing business called me here. You were not satisfied. You followed.
You required a verbal explanation. You were right. It’s all over now. My
business is finished. I go back to-morrow. Join me.’
As Dowler progressed in his explanation, Mr. Winkle’s countenance grew
more and more dignified. The mysterious nature of the commencement of
their conversation was explained; Mr. Dowler had as great an objection
to duelling as himself; in short, this blustering and awful personage
was one of the most egregious cowards in existence, and interpreting Mr.
Winkle’s absence through the medium of his own fears, had taken the same
step as himself, and prudently retired until all excitement of feeling
should have subsided.
As the real state of the case dawned upon Mr. Winkle’s mind, he looked
very terrible, and said he was perfectly satisfied; but at the same
time, said so with an air that left Mr. Dowler no alternative but to
infer that if he had not been, something most horrible and destructive
must inevitably have occurred. Mr. Dowler appeared to be impressed with
a becoming sense of Mr. Winkle’s magnanimity and condescension; and the
two belligerents parted for the night, with many protestations of
eternal friendship.
About half-past twelve o’clock, when Mr. Winkle had been revelling some
twenty minutes in the full luxury of his first sleep, he was suddenly
awakened by a loud knocking at his chamber door, which, being repeated
with increased vehemence, caused him to start up in bed, and inquire who
was there, and what the matter was.
‘Please, Sir, here’s a young man which says he must see you directly,’
responded the voice of the chambermaid.
‘A young man!’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle.
‘No mistake about that ‘ere, Sir,’ replied another voice through the
keyhole; ‘and if that wery same interestin’ young creetur ain’t let in
vithout delay, it’s wery possible as his legs vill enter afore his
countenance.’ The young man gave a gentle kick at one of the lower
panels of the door, after he had given utterance to this hint, as if to
add force and point to the remark.
‘Is that you, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, springing out of bed.
‘Quite unpossible to identify any gen’l’m’n vith any degree o’ mental
satisfaction, vithout lookin’ at him, Sir,’ replied the voice
dogmatically.
Mr. Winkle, not much doubting who the young man was, unlocked the door;
which he had no sooner done than Mr. Samuel Weller entered with great
precipitation, and carefully relocking it on the inside, deliberately
put the key in his waistcoat pocket; and, after surveying Mr. Winkle
from head to foot, said--
‘You’re a wery humorous young gen’l’m’n, you air, Sir!’
‘What do you mean by this conduct, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle
indignantly. ‘Get out, sir, this instant. What do you mean, Sir?’
‘What do I mean,’ retorted Sam; ‘come, Sir, this is rayther too rich, as
the young lady said when she remonstrated with the pastry-cook, arter
he’d sold her a pork pie as had got nothin’ but fat inside. What do I
mean! Well, that ain’t a bad ‘un, that ain’t.’
‘Unlock that door, and leave this room immediately, Sir,’ said Mr.
Winkle.
‘I shall leave this here room, sir, just precisely at the wery same
moment as you leaves it,’ responded Sam, speaking in a forcible manner,
and seating himself with perfect gravity. ‘If I find it necessary to
carry you away, pick-a-back, o’ course I shall leave it the least bit o’
time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you won’t
reduce me to extremities; in saying wich, I merely quote wot the
nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ven he vouldn’t come out of
his shell by means of a pin, and he conseqvently began to be afeered
that he should be obliged to crack him in the parlour door.’ At the end
of this address, which was unusually lengthy for him, Mr. Weller planted
his hands on his knees, and looked full in Mr. Winkle’s face, with an
expression of countenance which showed that he had not the remotest
intention of being trifled with.
‘You’re a amiably-disposed young man, Sir, I don’t think,’ resumed Mr.
Weller, in a tone of moral reproof, ‘to go inwolving our precious
governor in all sorts o’ fanteegs, wen he’s made up his mind to go
through everythink for principle. You’re far worse nor Dodson, Sir; and
as for Fogg, I consider him a born angel to you!’ Mr. Weller having
accompanied this last sentiment with an emphatic slap on each knee,
folded his arms with a look of great disgust, and threw himself back in
his chair, as if awaiting the criminal’s defence.
‘My good fellow,’ said Mr. Winkle, extending his hand--his teeth
chattering all the time he spoke, for he had been standing, during the
whole of Mr. Weller’s lecture, in his night-gear--‘my good fellow, I
respect your attachment to my excellent friend, and I am very sorry
indeed to have added to his causes for disquiet. There, Sam, there!’
‘Well,’ said Sam, rather sulkily, but giving the proffered hand a
respectful shake at the same time--‘well, so you ought to be, and I am
very glad to find you air; for, if I can help it, I won’t have him put
upon by nobody, and that’s all about it.’
‘Certainly not, Sam,’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘There! Now go to bed, Sam, and
we’ll talk further about this in the morning.’
‘I’m wery sorry,’ said Sam, ‘but I can’t go to bed.’
‘Not go to bed!’ repeated Mr. Winkle.
‘No,’ said Sam, shaking his head. ‘Can’t be done.’
‘You don’t mean to say you’re going back to-night, Sam?’ urged Mr.
Winkle, greatly surprised.
‘Not unless you particklerly wish it,’ replied Sam; ‘but I mustn’t leave
this here room. The governor’s orders wos peremptory.’
‘Nonsense, Sam,’ said Mr. Winkle, ‘I must stop here two or three days;
and more than that, Sam, you must stop here too, to assist me in gaining
an interview with a young lady--Miss Allen, Sam; you remember her--whom
I must and will see before I leave Bristol.’
But in reply to each of these positions, Sam shook his head with great
firmness, and energetically replied, ‘It can’t be done.’
After a great deal of argument and representation on the part of Mr.
Winkle, however, and a full disclosure of what had passed in the
interview with Dowler, Sam began to waver; and at length a compromise
was effected, of which the following were the main and principal
conditions:--
That Sam should retire, and leave Mr. Winkle in the undisturbed
possession of his apartment, on the condition that he had permission to
lock the door on the outside, and carry off the key; provided always,
that in the event of an alarm of fire, or other dangerous contingency,
the door should be instantly unlocked. That a letter should be written
to Mr. Pickwick early next morning, and forwarded per Dowler, requesting
his consent to Sam and Mr. Winkle’s remaining at Bristol, for the
purpose and with the object already assigned, and begging an answer by
the next coach--, if favourable, the aforesaid parties to remain
accordingly, and if not, to return to Bath immediately on the receipt
thereof. And, lastly, that Mr. Winkle should be understood as distinctly
pledging himself not to resort to the window, fireplace, or other
surreptitious mode of escape in the meanwhile. These stipulations having
been concluded, Sam locked the door and departed.
He had nearly got downstairs, when he stopped, and drew the key from his
pocket.
‘I quite forgot about the knockin’ down,’ said Sam, half turning back.
‘The governor distinctly said it was to be done. Amazin’ stupid o’ me,
that ‘ere! Never mind,’ said Sam, brightening up, ‘it’s easily done to-
morrow, anyvays.’
Apparently much consoled by this reflection, Mr. Weller once more
deposited the key in his pocket, and descending the remainder of the
stairs without any fresh visitations of conscience, was soon, in common
with the other inmates of the house, buried in profound repose.
CHAPTER XXXIX. MR. SAMUEL WELLER, BEING INTRUSTED WITH A MISSION OF
LOVE, PROCEEDS TO EXECUTE IT; WITH WHAT SUCCESS WILL HEREINAFTER APPEAR
During the whole of next day, Sam kept Mr. Winkle steadily in sight,
fully determined not to take his eyes off him for one instant, until he
should receive express instructions from the fountain-head. However
disagreeable Sam’s very close watch and great vigilance were to Mr.
Winkle, he thought it better to bear with them, than, by any act of
violent opposition, to hazard being carried away by force, which Mr.
Weller more than once strongly hinted was the line of conduct that a
strict sense of duty prompted him to pursue. There is little reason to
doubt that Sam would very speedily have quieted his scruples, by bearing
Mr. Winkle back to Bath, bound hand and foot, had not Mr. Pickwick’s
prompt attention to the note, which Dowler had undertaken to deliver,
forestalled any such proceeding. In short, at eight o’clock in the
evening, Mr. Pickwick himself walked into the coffee-room of the Bush
Tavern, and told Sam with a smile, to his very great relief, that he had
done quite right, and it was unnecessary for him to mount guard any
longer.
‘I thought it better to come myself,’ said Mr. Pickwick, addressing Mr.
Winkle, as Sam disencumbered him of his great-coat and travelling-shawl,
‘to ascertain, before I gave my consent to Sam’s employment in this
matter, that you are quite in earnest and serious, with respect to this
young lady.’
‘Serious, from my heart--from my soul!’ returned Mr. Winkle, with great
energy.
‘Remember,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with beaming eyes, ‘we met her at our
excellent and hospitable friend’s, Winkle. It would be an ill return to
tamper lightly, and without due consideration, with this young lady’s
affections. I’ll not allow that, sir. I’ll not allow it.’
‘I have no such intention, indeed,’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle warmly. ‘I have
considered the matter well, for a long time, and I feel that my
happiness is bound up in her.’
‘That’s wot we call tying it up in a small parcel, sir,’ interposed Mr.
Weller, with an agreeable smile.
Mr. Winkle looked somewhat stern at this interruption, and Mr. Pickwick
angrily requested his attendant not to jest with one of the best
feelings of our nature; to which Sam replied, ‘That he wouldn’t, if he
was aware on it; but there were so many on ‘em, that he hardly know’d
which was the best ones wen he heerd ‘em mentioned.’
Mr. Winkle then recounted what had passed between himself and Mr. Ben
Allen, relative to Arabella; stated that his object was to gain an
interview with the young lady, and make a formal disclosure of his
passion; and declared his conviction, founded on certain dark hints and
mutterings of the aforesaid Ben, that, wherever she was at present
immured, it was somewhere near the Downs. And this was his whole stock
of knowledge or suspicion on the subject.
With this very slight clue to guide him, it was determined that Mr.
Weller should start next morning on an expedition of discovery; it was
also arranged that Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle, who were less confident
of their powers, should parade the town meanwhile, and accidentally drop
in upon Mr. Bob Sawyer in the course of the day, in the hope of seeing
or hearing something of the young lady’s whereabouts.
Accordingly, next morning, Sam Weller issued forth upon his quest, in no
way daunted by the very discouraging prospect before him; and away he
walked, up one street and down another--we were going to say, up one
hill and down another, only it’s all uphill at Clifton--without meeting
with anything or anybody that tended to throw the faintest light on the
matter in hand. Many were the colloquies into which Sam entered with
grooms who were airing horses on roads, and nursemaids who were airing
children in lanes; but nothing could Sam elicit from either the first-
mentioned or the last, which bore the slightest reference to the object
of his artfully-prosecuted inquiries. There were a great many young
ladies in a great many houses, the greater part whereof were shrewdly
suspected by the male and female domestics to be deeply attached to
somebody, or perfectly ready to become so, if opportunity afforded. But
as none among these young ladies was Miss Arabella Allen, the
information left Sam at exactly the old point of wisdom at which he had
stood before.
Sam struggled across the Downs against a good high wind, wondering
whether it was always necessary to hold your hat on with both hands in
that part of the country, and came to a shady by-place, about which were
sprinkled several little villas of quiet and secluded appearance.
Outside a stable door at the bottom of a long back lane without a
thoroughfare, a groom in undress was idling about, apparently persuading
himself that he was doing something with a spade and a wheel-barrow. We
may remark, in this place, that we have scarcely ever seen a groom near
a stable, in his lazy moments, who has not been, to a greater or less
extent, the victim of this singular delusion.
Sam thought he might as well talk to this groom as to any one else,
especially as he was very tired with walking, and there was a good large
stone just opposite the wheel-barrow; so he strolled down the lane, and,
seating himself on the stone, opened a conversation with the ease and
freedom for which he was remarkable.
‘Mornin’, old friend,’ said Sam.
‘Arternoon, you mean,’ replied the groom, casting a surly look at Sam.
‘You’re wery right, old friend,’ said Sam; ‘I _do_ mean arternoon. How
are you?’
‘Why, I don’t find myself much the better for seeing of you,’ replied
the ill-tempered groom.
‘That’s wery odd--that is,’ said Sam, ‘for you look so uncommon
cheerful, and seem altogether so lively, that it does vun’s heart good
to see you.’
The surly groom looked surlier still at this, but not sufficiently so to
produce any effect upon Sam, who immediately inquired, with a
countenance of great anxiety, whether his master’s name was not Walker.
‘No, it ain’t,’ said the groom.
‘Nor Brown, I s’pose?’ said Sam.
‘No, it ain’t.’
‘Nor Vilson?’
‘No; nor that either,’ said the groom.
‘Vell,’ replied Sam, ‘then I’m mistaken, and he hasn’t got the honour o’
my acquaintance, which I thought he had. Don’t wait here out o’
compliment to me,’ said Sam, as the groom wheeled in the barrow, and
prepared to shut the gate. ‘Ease afore ceremony, old boy; I’ll excuse
you.’
‘I’d knock your head off for half-a-crown,’ said the surly groom,
bolting one half of the gate.
‘Couldn’t afford to have it done on those terms,’ rejoined Sam. ‘It ‘ud
be worth a life’s board wages at least, to you, and ‘ud be cheap at
that. Make my compliments indoors. Tell ‘em not to vait dinner for me,
and say they needn’t mind puttin’ any by, for it’ll be cold afore I come
in.’
In reply to this, the groom waxing very wroth, muttered a desire to
damage somebody’s person; but disappeared without carrying it into
execution, slamming the door angrily after him, and wholly unheeding
Sam’s affectionate request, that he would leave him a lock of his hair
before he went.
Sam continued to sit on the large stone, meditating upon what was best
to be done, and revolving in his mind a plan for knocking at all the
doors within five miles of Bristol, taking them at a hundred and fifty
or two hundred a day, and endeavouring to find Miss Arabella by that
expedient, when accident all of a sudden threw in his way what he might
have sat there for a twelvemonth and yet not found without it.
Into the lane where he sat, there opened three or four garden gates,
belonging to as many houses, which though detached from each other, were
only separated by their gardens. As these were large and long, and well
planted with trees, the houses were not only at some distance off, but
the greater part of them were nearly concealed from view. Sam was
sitting with his eyes fixed upon the dust-heap outside the next gate to
that by which the groom had disappeared, profoundly turning over in his
mind the difficulties of his present undertaking, when the gate opened,
and a female servant came out into the lane to shake some bedside
carpets.
Sam was so very busy with his own thoughts, that it is probable he would
have taken no more notice of the young woman than just raising his head
and remarking that she had a very neat and pretty figure, if his
feelings of gallantry had not been most strongly roused by observing
that she had no one to help her, and that the carpets seemed too heavy
for her single strength. Mr. Weller was a gentleman of great gallantry
in his own way, and he no sooner remarked this circumstance than he
hastily rose from the large stone, and advanced towards her.
‘My dear,’ said Sam, sliding up with an air of great respect, ‘you’ll
spile that wery pretty figure out o’ all perportion if you shake them
carpets by yourself. Let me help you.’
The young lady, who had been coyly affecting not to know that a
gentleman was so near, turned round as Sam spoke--no doubt (indeed she
said so, afterwards) to decline this offer from a perfect stranger--when
instead of speaking, she started back, and uttered a half-suppressed
scream. Sam was scarcely less staggered, for in the countenance of the
well-shaped female servant, he beheld the very features of his
valentine, the pretty housemaid from Mr. Nupkins’s.
‘Wy, Mary, my dear!’ said Sam.
‘Lauk, Mr. Weller,’ said Mary, ‘how you do frighten one!’
Sam made no verbal answer to this complaint, nor can we precisely say
what reply he did make. We merely know that after a short pause Mary
said, ‘Lor, do adun, Mr. Weller!’ and that his hat had fallen off a few
moments before--from both of which tokens we should be disposed to infer
that one kiss, or more, had passed between the parties.
‘Why, how did you come here?’ said Mary, when the conversation to which
this interruption had been offered, was resumed.
‘O’ course I came to look arter you, my darlin’,’ replied Mr. Weller;
for once permitting his passion to get the better of his veracity.
‘And how did you know I was here?’ inquired Mary. ‘Who could have told
you that I took another service at Ipswich, and that they afterwards
moved all the way here? Who _could _have told you that, Mr. Weller?’
‘Ah, to be sure,’ said Sam, with a cunning look, ‘that’s the pint. Who
could ha’ told me?’
‘It wasn’t Mr. Muzzle, was it?’ inquired Mary.
‘Oh, no.’ replied Sam, with a solemn shake of the head, ‘it warn’t him.’
‘It must have been the cook,’ said Mary.
‘O’ course it must,’ said Sam.
‘Well, I never heard the like of that!’ exclaimed Mary.
‘No more did I,’ said Sam. ‘But Mary, my dear’--here Sam’s manner grew
extremely affectionate--‘Mary, my dear, I’ve got another affair in hand
as is wery pressin’. There’s one o’ my governor’s friends--Mr. Winkle,
you remember him?’
‘Him in the green coat?’ said Mary. ‘Oh, yes, I remember him.’
‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘he’s in a horrid state o’ love; reg’larly comfoozled,
and done over vith it.’
‘Lor!’ interposed Mary.
‘Yes,’ said Sam; ‘but that’s nothin’ if we could find out the young
‘ooman;’ and here Sam, with many digressions upon the personal beauty of
Mary, and the unspeakable tortures he had experienced since he last saw
her, gave a faithful account of Mr. Winkle’s present predicament.
‘Well,’ said Mary, ‘I never did!’
‘O’ course not,’ said Sam, ‘and nobody never did, nor never vill
neither; and here am I a-walkin’ about like the wandering Jew--a
sportin’ character you have perhaps heerd on Mary, my dear, as vos
alvays doin’ a match agin’ time, and never vent to sleep--looking arter
this here Miss Arabella Allen.’
‘Miss who?’ said Mary, in great astonishment.
‘Miss Arabella Allen,’ said Sam.
‘Goodness gracious!’ said Mary, pointing to the garden door which the
sulky groom had locked after him. ‘Why, it’s that very house; she’s been
living there these six weeks. Their upper house-maid, which is lady’s-
maid too, told me all about it over the wash-house palin’s before the
family was out of bed, one mornin’.’
‘Wot, the wery next door to you?’ said Sam.
‘The very next,’ replied Mary.
Mr. Weller was so deeply overcome on receiving this intelligence that he
found it absolutely necessary to cling to his fair informant for
support; and divers little love passages had passed between them, before
he was sufficiently collected to return to the subject.
‘Vell,’ said Sam at length, ‘if this don’t beat cock-fightin’ nothin’
never vill, as the lord mayor said, ven the chief secretary o’ state
proposed his missis’s health arter dinner. That wery next house! Wy,
I’ve got a message to her as I’ve been a-trying all day to deliver.’
‘Ah,’ said Mary, ‘but you can’t deliver it now, because she only walks
in the garden in the evening, and then only for a very little time; she
never goes out, without the old lady.’
Sam ruminated for a few moments, and finally hit upon the following plan
of operations; that he should return just at dusk--the time at which
Arabella invariably took her walk--and, being admitted by Mary into the
garden of the house to which she belonged, would contrive to scramble up
the wall, beneath the overhanging boughs of a large pear-tree, which
would effectually screen him from observation; would there deliver his
message, and arrange, if possible, an interview on behalf of Mr. Winkle
for the ensuing evening at the same hour. Having made this arrangement
with great despatch, he assisted Mary in the long-deferred occupation of
shaking the carpets.
It is not half as innocent a thing as it looks, that shaking little
pieces of carpet--at least, there may be no great harm in the shaking,
but the folding is a very insidious process. So long as the shaking
lasts, and the two parties are kept the carpet’s length apart, it is as
innocent an amusement as can well be devised; but when the folding
begins, and the distance between them gets gradually lessened from one
half its former length to a quarter, and then to an eighth, and then to
a sixteenth, and then to a thirty-second, if the carpet be long enough,
it becomes dangerous. We do not know, to a nicety, how many pieces of
carpet were folded in this instance, but we can venture to state that as
many pieces as there were, so many times did Sam kiss the pretty
housemaid.
Mr. Weller regaled himself with moderation at the nearest tavern until
it was nearly dusk, and then returned to the lane without the
thoroughfare. Having been admitted into the garden by Mary, and having
received from that lady sundry admonitions concerning the safety of his
limbs and neck, Sam mounted into the pear-tree, to wait until Arabella
should come into sight.
He waited so long without this anxiously-expected event occurring, that
he began to think it was not going to take place at all, when he heard
light footsteps upon the gravel, and immediately afterwards beheld
Arabella walking pensively down the garden. As soon as she came nearly
below the tree, Sam began, by way of gently indicating his presence, to
make sundry diabolical noises similar to those which would probably be
natural to a person of middle age who had been afflicted with a
combination of inflammatory sore throat, croup, and whooping-cough, from
his earliest infancy.
Upon this, the young lady cast a hurried glance towards the spot whence
the dreadful sounds proceeded; and her previous alarm being not at all
diminished when she saw a man among the branches, she would most
certainly have decamped, and alarmed the house, had not fear fortunately
deprived her of the power of moving, and caused her to sink down on a
garden seat, which happened by good luck to be near at hand.
‘She’s a-goin’ off,’ soliloquised Sam in great perplexity. ‘Wot a thing
it is, as these here young creeturs will go a-faintin’ avay just ven
they oughtn’t to. Here, young ‘ooman, Miss Sawbones, Mrs. Vinkle,
don’t!’
Whether it was the magic of Mr. Winkle’s name, or the coolness of the
open air, or some recollection of Mr. Weller’s voice, that revived
Arabella, matters not. She raised her head and languidly inquired,
‘Who’s that, and what do you want?’
‘Hush,’ said Sam, swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching there
in as small a compass as he could reduce himself to, ‘only me, miss,
only me.’
‘Mr. Pickwick’s servant!’ said Arabella earnestly.
‘The wery same, miss,’ replied Sam. ‘Here’s Mr. Vinkle reg’larly sewed
up vith desperation, miss.’
‘Ah!’ said Arabella, drawing nearer the wall.
‘Ah, indeed,’ said Sam. ‘Ve thought ve should ha’ been obliged to
strait-veskit him last night; he’s been a-ravin’ all day; and he says if
he can’t see you afore to-morrow night’s over, he vishes he may be
somethin’ unpleasanted if he don’t drownd hisself.’
‘Oh, no, no, Mr. Weller!’ said Arabella, clasping her hands.
‘That’s wot he says, miss,’ replied Sam coolly. ‘He’s a man of his word,
and it’s my opinion he’ll do it, miss. He’s heerd all about you from the
sawbones in barnacles.’
‘From my brother!’ said Arabella, having some faint recognition of Sam’s
description.
‘I don’t rightly know which is your brother, miss,’ replied Sam. ‘Is it
the dirtiest vun o’ the two?’
‘Yes, yes, Mr. Weller,’ returned Arabella, ‘go on. Make haste, pray.’
‘Well, miss,’ said Sam, ‘he’s heerd all about it from him; and it’s the
gov’nor’s opinion that if you don’t see him wery quick, the sawbones as
we’ve been a-speakin’ on, ‘ull get as much extra lead in his head as’ll
rayther damage the dewelopment o’ the orgins if they ever put it in
spirits artervards.’
‘Oh, what can I do to prevent these dreadful quarrels!’ exclaimed
Arabella.
‘It’s the suspicion of a priory ‘tachment as is the cause of it all,’
replied Sam. ‘You’d better see him, miss.’
‘But how?--where?’ cried Arabella. ‘I dare not leave the house alone. My
brother is so unkind, so unreasonable! I know how strange my talking
thus to you may appear, Mr. Weller, but I am very, very unhappy--’ and
here poor Arabella wept so bitterly that Sam grew chivalrous.
‘It may seem wery strange talkin’ to me about these here affairs, miss,’
said Sam, with great vehemence; ‘but all I can say is, that I’m not only
ready but villin’ to do anythin’ as’ll make matters agreeable; and if
chuckin’ either o’ them sawboneses out o’ winder ‘ull do it, I’m the
man.’ As Sam Weller said this, he tucked up his wristbands, at the
imminent hazard of falling off the wall in so doing, to intimate his
readiness to set to work immediately.
Flattering as these professions of good feeling were, Arabella
resolutely declined (most unaccountably, as Sam thought) to avail
herself of them. For some time she strenuously refused to grant Mr.
Winkle the interview Sam had so pathetically requested; but at length,
when the conversation threatened to be interrupted by the unwelcome
arrival of a third party, she hurriedly gave him to understand, with
many professions of gratitude, that it was barely possible she might be
in the garden an hour later, next evening. Sam understood this perfectly
well; and Arabella, bestowing upon him one of her sweetest smiles,
tripped gracefully away, leaving Mr. Weller in a state of very great
admiration of her charms, both personal and mental.
Having descended in safety from the wall, and not forgotten to devote a
few moments to his own particular business in the same department, Mr.
Weller then made the best of his way back to the Bush, where his
prolonged absence had occasioned much speculation and some alarm.
‘We must be careful,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after listening attentively to
Sam’s tale, ‘not for our sakes, but for that of the young lady. We must
be very cautious.’
‘_We_!’ said Mr. Winkle, with marked emphasis.
Mr. Pickwick’s momentary look of indignation at the tone of this remark,
subsided into his characteristic expression of benevolence, as he
replied--
‘_We_, Sir! I shall accompany you.’
‘You!’ said Mr. Winkle.
‘I,’ replied Mr. Pickwick mildly. ‘In affording you this interview, the
young lady has taken a natural, perhaps, but still a very imprudent
step. If I am present at the meeting--a mutual friend, who is old enough
to be the father of both parties--the voice of calumny can never be
raised against her hereafter.’
Mr. Pickwick’s eyes lightened with honest exultation at his own
foresight, as he spoke thus. Mr. Winkle was touched by this little trait
of his delicate respect for the young _protegee _of his friend, and took
his hand with a feeling of regard, akin to veneration.
‘You _SHALL _ go,’ said Mr. Winkle.
‘I will,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Sam, have my greatcoat and shawl ready,
and order a conveyance to be at the door to-morrow evening, rather
earlier than is absolutely necessary, in order that we may be in good
time.’
Mr. Weller touched his hat, as an earnest of his obedience, and withdrew
to make all needful preparations for the expedition.
The coach was punctual to the time appointed; and Mr. Weller, after duly
installing Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle inside, took his seat on the box
by the driver. They alighted, as had been agreed on, about a quarter of
a mile from the place of rendezvous, and desiring the coachman to await
their return, proceeded the remaining distance on foot.
It was at this stage of the undertaking that Mr. Pickwick, with many
smiles and various other indications of great self-satisfaction,
produced from one of his coat pockets a dark lantern, with which he had
specially provided himself for the occasion, and the great mechanical
beauty of which he proceeded to explain to Mr. Winkle, as they walked
along, to the no small surprise of the few stragglers they met.
‘I should have been the better for something of this kind, in my last
garden expedition, at night; eh, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking good-
humouredly round at his follower, who was trudging behind.
‘Wery nice things, if they’re managed properly, Sir,’ replied Mr.
Weller; ‘but wen you don’t want to be seen, I think they’re more useful
arter the candle’s gone out, than wen it’s alight.’
Mr. Pickwick appeared struck by Sam’s remarks, for he put the lantern
into his pocket again, and they walked on in silence.
‘Down here, Sir,’ said Sam. ‘Let me lead the way. This is the lane,
Sir.’
Down the lane they went, and dark enough it was. Mr. Pickwick brought
out the lantern, once or twice, as they groped their way along, and
threw a very brilliant little tunnel of light before them, about a foot
in diameter. It was very pretty to look at, but seemed to have the
effect of rendering surrounding objects rather darker than before.
At length they arrived at the large stone. Here Sam recommended his
master and Mr. Winkle to seat themselves, while he reconnoitred, and
ascertained whether Mary was yet in waiting.
After an absence of five or ten minutes, Sam returned to say that the
gate was opened, and all quiet. Following him with stealthy tread, Mr.
Pickwick and Mr. Winkle soon found themselves in the garden. Here
everybody said, ‘Hush!’ a good many times; and that being done, no one
seemed to have any very distinct apprehension of what was to be done
next.
‘Is Miss Allen in the garden yet, Mary?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, much
agitated.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ replied the pretty housemaid. ‘The best thing to be
done, sir, will be for Mr. Weller to give you a hoist up into the tree,
and perhaps Mr. Pickwick will have the goodness to see that nobody comes
up the lane, while I watch at the other end of the garden. Goodness
gracious, what’s that?’
‘That ‘ere blessed lantern ‘ull be the death on us all,’ exclaimed Sam
peevishly. ‘Take care wot you’re a-doin’ on, sir; you’re a-sendin’ a
blaze o’ light, right into the back parlour winder.’
‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning hastily aside, ‘I didn’t mean to
do that.’
‘Now, it’s in the next house, sir,’ remonstrated Sam.
‘Bless my heart!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, turning round again.
‘Now, it’s in the stable, and they’ll think the place is afire,’ said
Sam. ‘Shut it up, sir, can’t you?’
‘It’s the most extraordinary lantern I ever met with, in all my life!’
exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, greatly bewildered by the effects he had so
unintentionally produced. ‘I never saw such a powerful reflector.’
‘It’ll be vun too powerful for us, if you keep blazin’ avay in that
manner, sir,’ replied Sam, as Mr. Pickwick, after various unsuccessful
efforts, managed to close the slide. ‘There’s the young lady’s
footsteps. Now, Mr. Winkle, sir, up vith you.’
‘Stop, stop!’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I must speak to her first. Help me up,
Sam.’
‘Gently, Sir,’ said Sam, planting his head against the wall, and making
a platform of his back. ‘Step atop o’ that ‘ere flower-pot, Sir. Now
then, up vith you.’
‘I’m afraid I shall hurt you, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Never mind me, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Lend him a hand, Mr. Winkle, sir.
Steady, sir, steady! That’s the time o’ day!’
As Sam spoke, Mr. Pickwick, by exertions almost supernatural in a
gentleman of his years and weight, contrived to get upon Sam’s back; and
Sam gently raising himself up, and Mr. Pickwick holding on fast by the
top of the wall, while Mr. Winkle clasped him tight by the legs, they
contrived by these means to bring his spectacles just above the level of
the coping.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking over the wall, and catching sight
of Arabella, on the other side, ‘don’t be frightened, my dear, it’s only
me.’ ‘Oh, pray go away, Mr. Pickwick,’ said Arabella. ‘Tell them all to
go away. I am so dreadfully frightened. Dear, dear Mr. Pickwick, don’t
stop there. You’ll fall down and kill yourself, I know you will.’
‘Now, pray don’t alarm yourself, my dear,’ said Mr. Pickwick soothingly.
‘There is not the least cause for fear, I assure you. Stand firm, Sam,’
said Mr. Pickwick, looking down.
‘All right, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Don’t be longer than you can
conweniently help, sir. You’re rayther heavy.’
‘Only another moment, Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.
‘I merely wished you to know, my dear, that I should not have allowed my
young friend to see you in this clandestine way, if the situation in
which you are placed had left him any alternative; and, lest the
impropriety of this step should cause you any uneasiness, my love, it
may be a satisfaction to you, to know that I am present. That’s all, my
dear.’
‘Indeed, Mr. Pickwick, I am very much obliged to you for your kindness
and consideration,’ replied Arabella, drying her tears with her
handkerchief. She would probably have said much more, had not Mr.
Pickwick’s head disappeared with great swiftness, in consequence of a
false step on Sam’s shoulder which brought him suddenly to the ground.
He was up again in an instant however; and bidding Mr. Winkle make haste
and get the interview over, ran out into the lane to keep watch, with
all the courage and ardour of youth. Mr. Winkle himself, inspired by the
occasion, was on the wall in a moment, merely pausing to request Sam to
be careful of his master.
‘I’ll take care on him, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘Leave him to me.’
‘Where is he? What’s he doing, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle.
‘Bless his old gaiters,’ rejoined Sam, looking out at the garden door.
‘He’s a-keepin’ guard in the lane vith that ‘ere dark lantern, like a
amiable Guy Fawkes! I never see such a fine creetur in my days. Blessed
if I don’t think his heart must ha’ been born five-and-twenty year arter
his body, at least!’
Mr. Winkle stayed not to hear the encomium upon his friend. He had
dropped from the wall; thrown himself at Arabella’s feet; and by this
time was pleading the sincerity of his passion with an eloquence worthy
even of Mr. Pickwick himself.
While these things were going on in the open air, an elderly gentleman
of scientific attainments was seated in his library, two or three houses
off, writing a philosophical treatise, and ever and anon moistening his
clay and his labours with a glass of claret from a venerable-looking
bottle which stood by his side. In the agonies of composition, the
elderly gentleman looked sometimes at the carpet, sometimes at the
ceiling, and sometimes at the wall; and when neither carpet, ceiling,
nor wall afforded the requisite degree of inspiration, he looked out of
the window.
In one of these pauses of invention, the scientific gentleman was gazing
abstractedly on the thick darkness outside, when he was very much
surprised by observing a most brilliant light glide through the air, at
a short distance above the ground, and almost instantaneously vanish.
After a short time the phenomenon was repeated, not once or twice, but
several times; at last the scientific gentleman, laying down his pen,
began to consider to what natural causes these appearances were to be
assigned.
They were not meteors; they were too low. They were not glow-worms; they
were too high. They were not will-o’-the-wisps; they were not fireflies;
they were not fireworks. What could they be? Some extraordinary and
wonderful phenomenon of nature, which no philosopher had ever seen
before; something which it had been reserved for him alone to discover,
and which he should immortalise his name by chronicling for the benefit
of posterity. Full of this idea, the scientific gentleman seized his pen
again, and committed to paper sundry notes of these unparalleled
appearances, with the date, day, hour, minute, and precise second at
which they were visible: all of which were to form the data of a
voluminous treatise of great research and deep learning, which should
astonish all the atmospherical wiseacres that ever drew breath in any
part of the civilised globe.
He threw himself back in his easy-chair, wrapped in contemplations of
his future greatness. The mysterious light appeared more brilliantly
than before, dancing, to all appearance, up and down the lane, crossing
from side to side, and moving in an orbit as eccentric as comets
themselves.
The scientific gentleman was a bachelor. He had no wife to call in and
astonish, so he rang the bell for his servant.
‘Pruffle,’ said the scientific gentleman, ‘there is something very
extraordinary in the air to-night? Did you see that?’ said the
scientific gentleman, pointing out of the window, as the light again
became visible.
‘Yes, I did, Sir.’
‘What do you think of it, Pruffle?’
‘Think of it, Sir?’
‘Yes. You have been bred up in this country. What should you say was the
cause for those lights, now?’
The scientific gentleman smilingly anticipated Pruffle’s reply that he
could assign no cause for them at all. Pruffle meditated.
‘I should say it was thieves, Sir,’ said Pruffle at length.
‘You’re a fool, and may go downstairs,’ said the scientific gentleman.
‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Pruffle. And down he went.
But the scientific gentleman could not rest under the idea of the
ingenious treatise he had projected being lost to the world, which must
inevitably be the case if the speculation of the ingenious Mr. Pruffle
were not stifled in its birth. He put on his hat and walked quickly down
the garden, determined to investigate the matter to the very bottom.
Now, shortly before the scientific gentleman walked out into the garden,
Mr. Pickwick had run down the lane as fast as he could, to convey a
false alarm that somebody was coming that way; occasionally drawing back
the slide of the dark lantern to keep himself from the ditch. The alarm
was no sooner given, than Mr. Winkle scrambled back over the wall, and
Arabella ran into the house; the garden gate was shut, and the three
adventurers were making the best of their way down the lane, when they
were startled by the scientific gentleman unlocking his garden gate.
‘Hold hard,’ whispered Sam, who was, of course, the first of the party.
‘Show a light for just vun second, Sir.’
Mr. Pickwick did as he was desired, and Sam, seeing a man’s head peeping
out very cautiously within half a yard of his own, gave it a gentle tap
with his clenched fist, which knocked it, with a hollow sound, against
the gate. Having performed this feat with great suddenness and
dexterity, Mr. Weller caught Mr. Pickwick up on his back, and followed
Mr. Winkle down the lane at a pace which, considering the burden he
carried, was perfectly astonishing.
‘Have you got your vind back agin, Sir,’ inquired Sam, when they had
reached the end.
‘Quite. Quite, now,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.
‘Then come along, Sir,’ said Sam, setting his master on his feet again.
‘Come betveen us, sir. Not half a mile to run. Think you’re vinnin’ a
cup, sir. Now for it.’
Thus encouraged, Mr. Pickwick made the very best use of his legs. It may
be confidently stated that a pair of black gaiters never got over the
ground in better style than did those of Mr. Pickwick on this memorable
occasion.
The coach was waiting, the horses were fresh, the roads were good, and
the driver was willing. The whole party arrived in safety at the Bush
before Mr. Pickwick had recovered his breath.
‘In with you at once, sir,’ said Sam, as he helped his master out.
‘Don’t stop a second in the street, arter that ‘ere exercise. Beg your
pardon, sir,’ continued Sam, touching his hat as Mr. Winkle descended,
‘hope there warn’t a priory ‘tachment, sir?’
Mr. Winkle grasped his humble friend by the hand, and whispered in his
ear, ‘It’s all right, Sam; quite right.’ Upon which Mr. Weller struck
three distinct blows upon his nose in token of intelligence, smiled,
winked, and proceeded to put the steps up, with a countenance expressive
of lively satisfaction.
As to the scientific gentleman, he demonstrated, in a masterly treatise,
that these wonderful lights were the effect of electricity; and clearly
proved the same by detailing how a flash of fire danced before his eyes
when he put his head out of the gate, and how he received a shock which
stunned him for a quarter of an hour afterwards; which demonstration
delighted all the scientific associations beyond measure, and caused him
to be considered a light of science ever afterwards.
CHAPTER XL. INTRODUCES MR. PICKWICK TO A NEW AND NOT UNINTERESTING SCENE
IN THE GREAT DRAMA OF LIFE
The remainder of the period which Mr. Pickwick had assigned as the
duration of the stay at Bath passed over without the occurrence of
anything material. Trinity term commenced. On the expiration of its
first week, Mr. Pickwick and his friends returned to London; and the
former gentleman, attended of course by Sam, straightway repaired to his
old quarters at the George and Vulture.
On the third morning after their arrival, just as all the clocks in the
city were striking nine individually, and somewhere about nine hundred
and ninety-nine collectively, Sam was taking the air in George Yard,
when a queer sort of fresh-painted vehicle drove up, out of which there
jumped with great agility, throwing the reins to a stout man who sat
beside him, a queer sort of gentleman, who seemed made for the vehicle,
and the vehicle for him.
The vehicle was not exactly a gig, neither was it a stanhope. It was not
what is currently denominated a dog-cart, neither was it a taxed cart,
nor a chaise-cart, nor a guillotined cabriolet; and yet it had something
of the character of each and every of these machines. It was painted a
bright yellow, with the shafts and wheels picked out in black; and the
driver sat in the orthodox sporting style, on cushions piled about two
feet above the rail. The horse was a bay, a well-looking animal enough;
but with something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him,
nevertheless, which accorded both with the vehicle and his master.
The master himself was a man of about forty, with black hair, and
carefully combed whiskers. He was dressed in a particularly gorgeous
manner, with plenty of articles of jewellery about him--all about three
sizes larger than those which are usually worn by gentlemen--and a rough
greatcoat to crown the whole. Into one pocket of this greatcoat, he
thrust his left hand the moment he dismounted, while from the other he
drew forth, with his right, a very bright and glaring silk handkerchief,
with which he whisked a speck or two of dust from his boots, and then,
crumpling it in his hand, swaggered up the court.
It had not escaped Sam’s attention that, when this person dismounted, a
shabby-looking man in a brown greatcoat shorn of divers buttons, who had
been previously slinking about, on the opposite side of the way, crossed
over, and remained stationary close by. Having something more than a
suspicion of the object of the gentleman’s visit, Sam preceded him to
the George and Vulture, and, turning sharp round, planted himself in the
centre of the doorway.
‘Now, my fine fellow!’ said the man in the rough coat, in an imperious
tone, attempting at the same time to push his way past.
‘Now, Sir, wot’s the matter?’ replied Sam, returning the push with
compound interest.
‘Come, none of this, my man; this won’t do with me,’ said the owner of
the rough coat, raising his voice, and turning white. ‘Here, Smouch!’
‘Well, wot’s amiss here?’ growled the man in the brown coat, who had
been gradually sneaking up the court during this short dialogue.
‘Only some insolence of this young man’s,’ said the principal, giving
Sam another push.
‘Come, none o’ this gammon,’ growled Smouch, giving him another, and a
harder one.
This last push had the effect which it was intended by the experienced
Mr. Smouch to produce; for while Sam, anxious to return the compliment,
was grinding that gentleman’s body against the door-post, the principal
crept past, and made his way to the bar, whither Sam, after bandying a
few epithetical remarks with Mr. Smouch, followed at once.
‘Good-morning, my dear,’ said the principal, addressing the young lady
at the bar, with Botany Bay ease, and New South Wales gentility; ‘which
is Mr. Pickwick’s room, my dear?’
‘Show him up,’ said the barmaid to a waiter, without deigning another
look at the exquisite, in reply to his inquiry.
The waiter led the way upstairs as he was desired, and the man in the
rough coat followed, with Sam behind him, who, in his progress up the
staircase, indulged in sundry gestures indicative of supreme contempt
and defiance, to the unspeakable gratification of the servants and other
lookers-on. Mr. Smouch, who was troubled with a hoarse cough, remained
below, and expectorated in the passage.
Mr. Pickwick was fast asleep in bed, when his early visitor, followed by
Sam, entered the room. The noise they made, in so doing, awoke him.
‘Shaving-water, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, from within the curtains.
‘Shave you directly, Mr. Pickwick,’ said the visitor, drawing one of
them back from the bed’s head. ‘I’ve got an execution against you, at
the suit of Bardell.--Here’s the warrant.--Common Pleas.--Here’s my
card. I suppose you’ll come over to my house.’ Giving Mr. Pickwick a
friendly tap on the shoulder, the sheriff’s officer (for such he was)
threw his card on the counterpane, and pulled a gold toothpick from his
waistcoat pocket.
‘Namby’s the name,’ said the sheriff’s deputy, as Mr. Pickwick took his
spectacles from under the pillow, and put them on, to read the card.
‘Namby, Bell Alley, Coleman Street.’
At this point, Sam Weller, who had had his eyes fixed hitherto on Mr.
Namby’s shining beaver, interfered.
‘Are you a Quaker?’ said Sam.
‘I’ll let you know I am, before I’ve done with you,’ replied the
indignant officer. ‘I’ll teach you manners, my fine fellow, one of these
fine mornings.’
‘Thank’ee,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll do the same to you. Take your hat off.’ With
this, Mr. Weller, in the most dexterous manner, knocked Mr. Namby’s hat
to the other side of the room, with such violence, that he had very
nearly caused him to swallow the gold toothpick into the bargain.
‘Observe this, Mr. Pickwick,’ said the disconcerted officer, gasping for
breath. ‘I’ve been assaulted in the execution of my dooty by your
servant in your chamber. I’m in bodily fear. I call you to witness
this.’
‘Don’t witness nothin’, Sir,’ interposed Sam. ‘Shut your eyes up tight,
Sir. I’d pitch him out o’ winder, only he couldn’t fall far enough,
‘cause o’ the leads outside.’
‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, in an angry voice, as his attendant made
various demonstrations of hostilities, ‘if you say another word, or
offer the slightest interference with this person, I discharge you that
instant.’
‘But, Sir!’ said Sam.
‘Hold your tongue,’ interposed Mr. Pickwick. ‘Take that hat up again.’
But this Sam flatly and positively refused to do; and, after he had been
severely reprimanded by his master, the officer, being in a hurry,
condescended to pick it up himself, venting a great variety of threats
against Sam meanwhile, which that gentleman received with perfect
composure, merely observing that if Mr. Namby would have the goodness to
put his hat on again, he would knock it into the latter end of next
week. Mr. Namby, perhaps thinking that such a process might be
productive of inconvenience to himself, declined to offer the
temptation, and, soon after, called up Smouch. Having informed him that
the capture was made, and that he was to wait for the prisoner until he
should have finished dressing, Namby then swaggered out, and drove away.
Smouch, requesting Mr. Pickwick in a surly manner ‘to be as alive as he
could, for it was a busy time,’ drew up a chair by the door and sat
there, until he had finished dressing. Sam was then despatched for a
hackney-coach, and in it the triumvirate proceeded to Coleman Street. It
was fortunate the distance was short; for Mr. Smouch, besides possessing
no very enchanting conversational powers, was rendered a decidedly
unpleasant companion in a limited space, by the physical weakness to
which we have elsewhere adverted.
The coach having turned into a very narrow and dark street, stopped
before a house with iron bars to all the windows; the door-posts of
which were graced by the name and title of ‘Namby, Officer to the
Sheriffs of London’; the inner gate having been opened by a gentleman
who might have passed for a neglected twin-brother of Mr. Smouch, and
who was endowed with a large key for the purpose, Mr. Pickwick was shown
into the ‘coffee-room.’
This coffee-room was a front parlour, the principal features of which
were fresh sand and stale tobacco smoke. Mr. Pickwick bowed to the three
persons who were seated in it when he entered; and having despatched Sam
for Perker, withdrew into an obscure corner, and looked thence with some
curiosity upon his new companions.
One of these was a mere boy of nineteen or twenty, who, though it was
yet barely ten o’clock, was drinking gin-and-water, and smoking a cigar-
-amusements to which, judging from his inflamed countenance, he had
devoted himself pretty constantly for the last year or two of his life.
Opposite him, engaged in stirring the fire with the toe of his right
boot, was a coarse, vulgar young man of about thirty, with a sallow face
and harsh voice; evidently possessed of that knowledge of the world, and
captivating freedom of manner, which is to be acquired in public-house
parlours, and at low billiard tables. The third tenant of the apartment
was a middle-aged man in a very old suit of black, who looked pale and
haggard, and paced up and down the room incessantly; stopping, now and
then, to look with great anxiety out of the window as if he expected
somebody, and then resuming his walk.
‘You’d better have the loan of my razor this morning, Mr. Ayresleigh,’
said the man who was stirring the fire, tipping the wink to his friend
the boy.
‘Thank you, no, I shan’t want it; I expect I shall be out, in the course
of an hour or so,’ replied the other in a hurried manner. Then, walking
again up to the window, and once more returning disappointed, he sighed
deeply, and left the room; upon which the other two burst into a loud
laugh.
‘Well, I never saw such a game as that,’ said the gentleman who had
offered the razor, whose name appeared to be Price. ‘Never!’ Mr. Price
confirmed the assertion with an oath, and then laughed again, when of
course the boy (who thought his companion one of the most dashing
fellows alive) laughed also.
‘You’d hardly think, would you now,’ said Price, turning towards Mr.
Pickwick, ‘that that chap’s been here a week yesterday, and never once
shaved himself yet, because he feels so certain he’s going out in half
an hour’s time, thinks he may as well put it off till he gets home?’
‘Poor man!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Are his chances of getting out of his
difficulties really so great?’
‘Chances be d----d,’ replied Price; ‘he hasn’t half the ghost of one. I
wouldn’t give _that _for his chance of walking about the streets this
time ten years.’ With this, Mr. Price snapped his fingers
contemptuously, and rang the bell.
‘Give me a sheet of paper, Crookey,’ said Mr. Price to the attendant,
who in dress and general appearance looked something between a bankrupt
glazier, and a drover in a state of insolvency; ‘and a glass of brandy-
and-water, Crookey, d’ye hear? I’m going to write to my father, and I
must have a stimulant, or I shan’t be able to pitch it strong enough
into the old boy.’ At this facetious speech, the young boy, it is almost
needless to say, was fairly convulsed.
‘That’s right,’ said Mr. Price. ‘Never say die. All fun, ain’t it?’
‘Prime!’ said the young gentleman.
‘You’ve got some spirit about you, you have,’ said Price. ‘You’ve seen
something of life.’
‘I rather think I have!’ replied the boy. He had looked at it through
the dirty panes of glass in a bar door.
Mr. Pickwick, feeling not a little disgusted with this dialogue, as well
as with the air and manner of the two beings by whom it had been carried
on, was about to inquire whether he could not be accommodated with a
private sitting-room, when two or three strangers of genteel appearance
entered, at sight of whom the boy threw his cigar into the fire, and
whispering to Mr. Price that they had come to ‘make it all right’ for
him, joined them at a table in the farther end of the room.
It would appear, however, that matters were not going to be made all
right quite so speedily as the young gentleman anticipated; for a very
long conversation ensued, of which Mr. Pickwick could not avoid hearing
certain angry fragments regarding dissolute conduct, and repeated
forgiveness. At last, there were very distinct allusions made by the
oldest gentleman of the party to one Whitecross Street, at which the
young gentleman, notwithstanding his primeness and his spirit, and his
knowledge of life into the bargain, reclined his head upon the table,
and howled dismally.
Very much satisfied with this sudden bringing down of the youth’s
valour, and this effectual lowering of his tone, Mr. Pickwick rang the
bell, and was shown, at his own request, into a private room furnished
with a carpet, table, chairs, sideboard and sofa, and ornamented with a
looking-glass, and various old prints. Here he had the advantage of
hearing Mrs. Namby’s performance on a square piano overhead, while the
breakfast was getting ready; when it came, Mr. Perker came too.
‘Aha, my dear sir,’ said the little man, ‘nailed at last, eh? Come,
come, I’m not sorry for it either, because now you’ll see the absurdity
of this conduct. I’ve noted down the amount of the taxed costs and
damages for which the ca-sa was issued, and we had better settle at once
and lose no time. Namby is come home by this time, I dare say. What say
you, my dear sir? Shall I draw a cheque, or will you?’ The little man
rubbed his hands with affected cheerfulness as he said this, but
glancing at Mr. Pickwick’s countenance, could not forbear at the same
time casting a desponding look towards Sam Weller.
‘Perker,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘let me hear no more of this, I beg. I see
no advantage in staying here, so I shall go to prison to-night.’
‘You can’t go to Whitecross Street, my dear Sir,’ said Perker.
‘Impossible! There are sixty beds in a ward; and the bolt’s on, sixteen
hours out of the four-and-twenty.’
‘I would rather go to some other place of confinement if I can,’ said
Mr. Pickwick. ‘If not, I must make the best I can of that.’
‘You can go to the Fleet, my dear Sir, if you’re determined to go
somewhere,’ said Perker.
‘That’ll do,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘I’ll go there directly I have finished
my breakfast.’
‘Stop, stop, my dear Sir; not the least occasion for being in such a
violent hurry to get into a place that most other men are as eager to
get out of,’ said the good-natured little attorney. ‘We must have a
habeas-corpus. There’ll be no judge at chambers till four o’clock this
afternoon. You must wait till then.’
‘Very good,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with unmoved patience. ‘Then we will
have a chop here, at two. See about it, Sam, and tell them to be
punctual.’
Mr. Pickwick remaining firm, despite all the remonstrances and arguments
of Perker, the chops appeared and disappeared in due course; he was then
put into another hackney coach, and carried off to Chancery Lane, after
waiting half an hour or so for Mr. Namby, who had a select dinner-party
and could on no account be disturbed before.
There were two judges in attendance at Serjeant’s Inn--one King’s Bench,
and one Common Pleas--and a great deal of business appeared to be
transacting before them, if the number of lawyer’s clerks who were
hurrying in and out with bundles of papers, afforded any test. When they
reached the low archway which forms the entrance to the inn, Perker was
detained a few moments parlaying with the coachman about the fare and
the change; and Mr. Pickwick, stepping to one side to be out of the way
of the stream of people that were pouring in and out, looked about him
with some curiosity.
The people that attracted his attention most, were three or four men of
shabby-genteel appearance, who touched their hats to many of the
attorneys who passed, and seemed to have some business there, the nature
of which Mr. Pickwick could not divine. They were curious-looking
fellows. One was a slim and rather lame man in rusty black, and a white
neckerchief; another was a stout, burly person, dressed in the same
apparel, with a great reddish-black cloth round his neck; a third was a
little weazen, drunken-looking body, with a pimply face. They were
loitering about, with their hands behind them, and now and then with an
anxious countenance whispered something in the ear of some of the
gentlemen with papers, as they hurried by. Mr. Pickwick remembered to
have very often observed them lounging under the archway when he had
been walking past; and his curiosity was quite excited to know to what
branch of the profession these dingy-looking loungers could possibly
belong.
He was about to propound the question to Namby, who kept close beside
him, sucking a large gold ring on his little finger, when Perker bustled
up, and observing that there was no time to lose, led the way into the
inn. As Mr. Pickwick followed, the lame man stepped up to him, and
civilly touching his hat, held out a written card, which Mr. Pickwick,
not wishing to hurt the man’s feelings by refusing, courteously accepted
and deposited in his waistcoat pocket.
‘Now,’ said Perker, turning round before he entered one of the offices,
to see that his companions were close behind him. ‘In here, my dear sir.
Hallo, what do you want?’
This last question was addressed to the lame man, who, unobserved by Mr.
Pickwick, made one of the party. In reply to it, the lame man touched
his hat again, with all imaginable politeness, and motioned towards Mr.
Pickwick.
‘No, no,’ said Perker, with a smile. ‘We don’t want you, my dear friend,
we don’t want you.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said the lame man. ‘The gentleman took my
card. I hope you will employ me, sir. The gentleman nodded to me. I’ll
be judged by the gentleman himself. You nodded to me, sir?’
‘Pooh, pooh, nonsense. You didn’t nod to anybody, Pickwick? A mistake, a
mistake,’ said Perker.
‘The gentleman handed me his card,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, producing it
from his waistcoat pocket. ‘I accepted it, as the gentleman seemed to
wish it--in fact I had some curiosity to look at it when I should be at
leisure. I--’
The little attorney burst into a loud laugh, and returning the card to
the lame man, informing him it was all a mistake, whispered to Mr.
Pickwick as the man turned away in dudgeon, that he was only a bail.
‘A what!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘A bail,’ replied Perker.
‘A bail!’
Yes, my dear sir--half a dozen of ‘em here. Bail you to any amount, and
only charge half a crown. Curious trade, isn’t it?’ said Perker,
regaling himself with a pinch of snuff.
‘What! Am I to understand that these men earn a livelihood by waiting
about here, to perjure themselves before the judges of the land, at the
rate of half a crown a crime?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite aghast at
the disclosure.
‘Why, I don’t exactly know about perjury, my dear sir,’ replied the
little gentleman. ‘Harsh word, my dear sir, very harsh word indeed. It’s
a legal fiction, my dear sir, nothing more.’ Saying which, the attorney
shrugged his shoulders, smiled, took a second pinch of snuff, and led
the way into the office of the judge’s clerk.
This was a room of specially dirty appearance, with a very low ceiling
and old panelled walls; and so badly lighted, that although it was broad
day outside, great tallow candles were burning on the desks. At one end,
was a door leading to the judge’s private apartment, round which were
congregated a crowd of attorneys and managing clerks, who were called
in, in the order in which their respective appointments stood upon the
file. Every time this door was opened to let a party out, the next party
made a violent rush to get in; and, as in addition to the numerous
dialogues which passed between the gentlemen who were waiting to see the
judge, a variety of personal squabbles ensued between the greater part
of those who had seen him, there was as much noise as could well be
raised in an apartment of such confined dimensions.
Nor were the conversations of these gentlemen the only sounds that broke
upon the ear. Standing on a box behind a wooden bar at another end of
the room was a clerk in spectacles who was ‘taking the affidavits’;
large batches of which were, from time to time, carried into the private
room by another clerk for the judge’s signature. There were a large
number of attorneys’ clerks to be sworn, and it being a moral
impossibility to swear them all at once, the struggles of these
gentlemen to reach the clerk in spectacles, were like those of a crowd
to get in at the pit door of a theatre when Gracious Majesty honours it
with its presence. Another functionary, from time to time, exercised his
lungs in calling over the names of those who had been sworn, for the
purpose of restoring to them their affidavits after they had been signed
by the judge, which gave rise to a few more scuffles; and all these
things going on at the same time, occasioned as much bustle as the most
active and excitable person could desire to behold. There were yet
another class of persons--those who were waiting to attend summonses
their employers had taken out, which it was optional to the attorney on
the opposite side to attend or not--and whose business it was, from time
to time, to cry out the opposite attorney’s name; to make certain that
he was not in attendance without their knowledge.
For example. Leaning against the wall, close beside the seat Mr.
Pickwick had taken, was an office-lad of fourteen, with a tenor voice;
near him a common-law clerk with a bass one.
A clerk hurried in with a bundle of papers, and stared about him.
‘Sniggle and Blink,’ cried the tenor.
‘Porkin and Snob,’ growled the bass.
‘Stumpy and Deacon,’ said the new-comer.
Nobody answered; the next man who came in, was bailed by the whole
three; and he in his turn shouted for another firm; and then somebody
else roared in a loud voice for another; and so forth.
All this time, the man in the spectacles was hard at work, swearing the
clerks; the oath being invariably administered, without any effort at
punctuation, and usually in the following terms:--
‘Take the book in your right hand this is your name and hand-writing you
swear that the contents of this your affidavit are true so help you God
a shilling you must get change I haven’t got it.’
‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘I suppose they are getting the _Habeas-
corpus_ ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Sam, ‘and I vish they’d bring out the have-his-carcase. It’s
wery unpleasant keepin’ us vaitin’ here. I’d ha’ got half a dozen have-
his-carcases ready, pack’d up and all, by this time.’
What sort of cumbrous and unmanageable machine, Sam Weller imagined a
habeas-corpus to be, does not appear; for Perker, at that moment, walked
up and took Mr. Pickwick away.
The usual forms having been gone through, the body of Samuel Pickwick
was soon afterwards confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by
him taken to the warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until
the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against
Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied.
‘And that,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laughing, ‘will be a very long time. Sam,
call another hackney-coach. Perker, my dear friend, good-bye.’
‘I shall go with you, and see you safe there,’ said Perker.
‘Indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘I would rather go without any other
attendant than Sam. As soon as I get settled, I will write and let you
know, and I shall expect you immediately. Until then, good-bye.’
As Mr. Pickwick said this, he got into the coach which had by this time
arrived, followed by the tipstaff. Sam having stationed himself on the
box, it rolled away.
‘A most extraordinary man that!’ said Perker, as he stopped to pull on
his gloves.
‘What a bankrupt he’d make, Sir,’ observed Mr. Lowten, who was standing
near. ‘How he would bother the commissioners! He’d set ‘em at defiance
if they talked of committing him, Sir.’
The attorney did not appear very much delighted with his clerk’s
professional estimate of Mr. Pickwick’s character, for he walked away
without deigning any reply.
The hackney-coach jolted along Fleet Street, as hackney-coaches usually
do. The horses ‘went better’, the driver said, when they had anything
before them (they must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when there
was nothing), and so the vehicle kept behind a cart; when the cart
stopped, it stopped; and when the cart went on again, it did the same.
Mr. Pickwick sat opposite the tipstaff; and the tipstaff sat with his
hat between his knees, whistling a tune, and looking out of the coach
window.
Time performs wonders. By the powerful old gentleman’s aid, even a
hackney-coach gets over half a mile of ground. They stopped at length,
and Mr. Pickwick alighted at the gate of the Fleet.
The tipstaff, just looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was
following close at his heels, preceded Mr. Pickwick into the prison;
turning to the left, after they had entered, they passed through an open
door into a lobby, from which a heavy gate, opposite to that by which
they had entered, and which was guarded by a stout turnkey with the key
in his hand, led at once into the interior of the prison.
Here they stopped, while the tipstaff delivered his papers; and here Mr.
Pickwick was apprised that he would remain, until he had undergone the
ceremony, known to the initiated as ‘sitting for your portrait.’
‘Sitting for my portrait?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Having your likeness taken, sir,’ replied the stout turnkey.
‘We’re capital hands at likenesses here. Take ‘em in no time, and always
exact. Walk in, sir, and make yourself at home.’
Mr. Pickwick complied with the invitation, and sat himself down; when
Mr. Weller, who stationed himself at the back of the chair, whispered
that the sitting was merely another term for undergoing an inspection by
the different turnkeys, in order that they might know prisoners from
visitors.
‘Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘then I wish the artists would come.
This is rather a public place.’
‘They von’t be long, Sir, I des-say,’ replied Sam. ‘There’s a Dutch
clock, sir.’
‘So I see,’ observed Mr. Pickwick.
‘And a bird-cage, sir,’ says Sam. ‘Veels vithin veels, a prison in a
prison. Ain’t it, Sir?’
As Mr. Weller made this philosophical remark, Mr. Pickwick was aware
that his sitting had commenced. The stout turnkey having been relieved
from the lock, sat down, and looked at him carelessly, from time to
time, while a long thin man who had relieved him, thrust his hands
beneath his coat tails, and planting himself opposite, took a good long
view of him. A third rather surly-looking gentleman, who had apparently
been disturbed at his tea, for he was disposing of the last remnant of a
crust and butter when he came in, stationed himself close to Mr.
Pickwick; and, resting his hands on his hips, inspected him narrowly;
while two others mixed with the group, and studied his features with
most intent and thoughtful faces. Mr. Pickwick winced a good deal under
the operation, and appeared to sit very uneasily in his chair; but he
made no remark to anybody while it was being performed, not even to Sam,
who reclined upon the back of the chair, reflecting, partly on the
situation of his master, and partly on the great satisfaction it would
have afforded him to make a fierce assault upon all the turnkeys there
assembled, one after the other, if it were lawful and peaceable so to
do.
At length the likeness was completed, and Mr. Pickwick was informed that
he might now proceed into the prison.
‘Where am I to sleep to-night?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.
‘Why, I don’t rightly know about to-night,’ replied the stout turnkey.
‘You’ll be chummed on somebody to-morrow, and then you’ll be all snug
and comfortable. The first night’s generally rather unsettled, but
you’ll be set all squares to-morrow.’
After some discussion, it was discovered that one of the turnkeys had a
bed to let, which Mr. Pickwick could have for that night. He gladly
agreed to hire it.
‘If you’ll come with me, I’ll show it you at once,’ said the man. ‘It
ain’t a large ‘un; but it’s an out-and-outer to sleep in. This way,
sir.’
They passed through the inner gate, and descended a short flight of
steps. The key was turned after them; and Mr. Pickwick found himself,
for the first time in his life, within the walls of a debtors’ prison.
CHAPTER XLI. WHAT BEFELL MR. PICKWICK WHEN HE GOT INTO THE FLEET; WHAT
PRISONERS HE SAW THERE, AND HOW HE PASSED THE NIGHT
Mr. Tom Roker, the gentleman who had accompanied Mr. Pickwick into the
prison, turned sharp round to the right when he got to the bottom of the
little flight of steps, and led the way, through an iron gate which
stood open, and up another short flight of steps, into a long narrow
gallery, dirty and low, paved with stone, and very dimly lighted by a
window at each remote end.
‘This,’ said the gentleman, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and
looking carelessly over his shoulder to Mr. Pickwick--‘this here is the
hall flight.’
‘Oh,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking down a dark and filthy staircase,
which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults,
beneath the ground, ‘and those, I suppose, are the little cellars where
the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals. Unpleasant places to
have to go down to; but very convenient, I dare say.’
‘Yes, I shouldn’t wonder if they was convenient,’ replied the gentleman,
‘seeing that a few people live there, pretty snug. That’s the Fair, that
is.’
‘My friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you don’t really mean to say that human
beings live down in those wretched dungeons?’
‘Don’t I?’ replied Mr. Roker, with indignant astonishment; ‘why
shouldn’t I?’
‘Live!--live down there!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘Live down there! Yes, and die down there, too, very often!’ replied Mr.
Roker; ‘and what of that? Who’s got to say anything agin it? Live down
there! Yes, and a wery good place it is to live in, ain’t it?’
As Roker turned somewhat fiercely upon Mr. Pickwick in saying this, and
moreover muttered in an excited fashion certain unpleasant invocations
concerning his own eyes, limbs, and circulating fluids, the latter
gentleman deemed it advisable to pursue the discourse no further. Mr.
Roker then proceeded to mount another staircase, as dirty as that which
led to the place which has just been the subject of discussion, in which
ascent he was closely followed by Mr. Pickwick and Sam.
‘There,’ said Mr. Roker, pausing for breath when they reached another
gallery of the same dimensions as the one below, ‘this is the coffee-
room flight; the one above’s the third, and the one above that’s the
top; and the room where you’re a-going to sleep to-night is the warden’s
room, and it’s this way--come on.’ Having said all this in a breath, Mr.
Roker mounted another flight of stairs with Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller
following at his heels.
These staircases received light from sundry windows placed at some
little distance above the floor, and looking into a gravelled area
bounded by a high brick wall, with iron _chevaux-de-frise_ at the top.
This area, it appeared from Mr. Roker’s statement, was the racket-
ground; and it further appeared, on the testimony of the same gentleman,
that there was a smaller area in that portion of the prison which was
nearest Farringdon Street, denominated and called ‘the Painted Ground,’
from the fact of its walls having once displayed the semblance of
various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects achieved
in bygone times by some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure hours.
Having communicated this piece of information, apparently more for the
purpose of discharging his bosom of an important fact, than with any
specific view of enlightening Mr. Pickwick, the guide, having at length
reached another gallery, led the way into a small passage at the extreme
end, opened a door, and disclosed an apartment of an appearance by no
means inviting, containing eight or nine iron bedsteads.
‘There,’ said Mr. Roker, holding the door open, and looking triumphantly
round at Mr. Pickwick, ‘there’s a room!’
Mr. Pickwick’s face, however, betokened such a very trifling portion of
satisfaction at the appearance of his lodging, that Mr. Roker looked,
for a reciprocity of feeling, into the countenance of Samuel Weller,
who, until now, had observed a dignified silence.
‘There’s a room, young man,’ observed Mr. Roker.
‘I see it,’ replied Sam, with a placid nod of the head.
‘You wouldn’t think to find such a room as this in the Farringdon Hotel,
would you?’ said Mr. Roker, with a complacent smile.
To this Mr. Weller replied with an easy and unstudied closing of one
eye; which might be considered to mean, either that he would have
thought it, or that he would not have thought it, or that he had never
thought anything at all about it, as the observer’s imagination
suggested. Having executed this feat, and reopened his eye, Mr. Weller
proceeded to inquire which was the individual bedstead that Mr. Roker
had so flatteringly described as an out-and-outer to sleep in.
‘That’s it,’ replied Mr. Roker, pointing to a very rusty one in a
corner. ‘It would make any one go to sleep, that bedstead would, whether
they wanted to or not.’
‘I should think,’ said Sam, eyeing the piece of furniture in question
with a look of excessive disgust--‘I should think poppies was nothing to
it.’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Mr. Roker.
‘And I s’pose,’ said Sam, with a sidelong glance at his master, as if to
see whether there were any symptoms of his determination being shaken by
what passed, ‘I s’pose the other gen’l’men as sleeps here _are
_gen’l’men.’
‘Nothing but it,’ said Mr. Roker. ‘One of ‘em takes his twelve pints of
ale a day, and never leaves off smoking even at his meals.’
‘He must be a first-rater,’ said Sam.
‘A1,’ replied Mr. Roker.
Nothing daunted, even by this intelligence, Mr. Pickwick smilingly
announced his determination to test the powers of the narcotic bedstead
for that night; and Mr. Roker, after informing him that he could retire
to rest at whatever hour he thought proper, without any further notice
or formality, walked off, leaving him standing with Sam in the gallery.
It was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this
place which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening, which
had set in outside. As it was rather warm, some of the tenants of the
numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand, had
set their doors ajar. Mr. Pickwick peeped into them as he passed along,
with great curiosity and interest. Here, four or five great hulking
fellows, just visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, were engaged in
noisy and riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of beer, or
playing at all-fours with a very greasy pack of cards. In the adjoining
room, some solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the light of a
feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers,
yellow with dust and dropping to pieces from age, writing, for the
hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances, for the
perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose
heart it would never touch. In a third, a man, with his wife and a whole
crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground,
or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in. And in
a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, the noise, and the
beer, and the tobacco smoke, and the cards, all came over again in
greater force than before.
In the galleries themselves, and more especially on the stair-cases,
there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some because
their rooms were empty and lonesome, others because their rooms were
full and hot; the greater part because they were restless and
uncomfortable, and not possessed of the secret of exactly knowing what
to do with themselves. There were many classes of people here, from the
labouring man in his fustian jacket, to the broken-down spendthrift in
his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at elbows; but there was
the same air about them all--a kind of listless, jail-bird, careless
swagger, a vagabondish who’s-afraid sort of bearing, which is wholly
indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in one moment
if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtors’ prison, and looking
at the very first group of people he sees there, with the same interest
as Mr. Pickwick did.
‘It strikes me, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, leaning over the iron rail at
the stair-head, ‘it strikes me, Sam, that imprisonment for debt is
scarcely any punishment at all.’
‘Think not, sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller.
‘You see how these fellows drink, and smoke, and roar,’ replied Mr.
Pickwick. ‘It’s quite impossible that they can mind it much.’
‘Ah, that’s just the wery thing, Sir,’ rejoined Sam, ‘they don’t mind
it; it’s a reg’lar holiday to them--all porter and skittles. It’s the
t’other vuns as gets done over vith this sort o’ thing; them down-
hearted fellers as can’t svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles
neither; them as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed
up. I’ll tell you wot it is, sir; them as is always a-idlin’ in public-
houses it don’t damage at all, and them as is alvays a-workin’ wen they
can, it damages too much. “It’s unekal,” as my father used to say wen
his grog worn’t made half-and-half: “it’s unekal, and that’s the fault
on it.”’
‘I think you’re right, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a few moments’
reflection, ‘quite right.’
‘P’raps, now and then, there’s some honest people as likes it,’ observed
Mr. Weller, in a ruminative tone, ‘but I never heerd o’ one as I can
call to mind, ‘cept the little dirty-faced man in the brown coat; and
that was force of habit.’
‘And who was he?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick.
‘Wy, that’s just the wery point as nobody never know’d,’ replied Sam.
‘But what did he do?’
‘Wy, he did wot many men as has been much better know’d has done in
their time, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘he run a match agin the constable, and
vun it.’
‘In other words, I suppose,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘he got into debt.’
‘Just that, Sir,’ replied Sam, ‘and in course o’ time he come here in
consekens. It warn’t much--execution for nine pound nothin’, multiplied
by five for costs; but hows’ever here he stopped for seventeen year. If
he got any wrinkles in his face, they were stopped up vith the dirt, for
both the dirty face and the brown coat wos just the same at the end o’
that time as they wos at the beginnin’. He wos a wery peaceful,
inoffendin’ little creetur, and wos alvays a-bustlin’ about for
somebody, or playin’ rackets and never vinnin’; till at last the
turnkeys they got quite fond on him, and he wos in the lodge ev’ry
night, a-chattering vith ‘em, and tellin’ stories, and all that ‘ere.
Vun night he wos in there as usual, along vith a wery old friend of his,
as wos on the lock, ven he says all of a sudden, “I ain’t seen the
market outside, Bill,” he says (Fleet Market wos there at that time)--“I
ain’t seen the market outside, Bill,” he says, “for seventeen year.” “I
know you ain’t,” says the turnkey, smoking his pipe. “I should like to
see it for a minit, Bill,” he says. “Wery probable,” says the turnkey,
smoking his pipe wery fierce, and making believe he warn’t up to wot the
little man wanted. “Bill,” says the little man, more abrupt than afore,
“I’ve got the fancy in my head. Let me see the public streets once more
afore I die; and if I ain’t struck with apoplexy, I’ll be back in five
minits by the clock.” “And wot ‘ud become o’ me if you _wos _struck with
apoplexy?” said the turnkey. “Wy,” says the little creetur, “whoever
found me, ‘ud bring me home, for I’ve got my card in my pocket, Bill,”
he says, “No. 20, Coffee-room Flight”: and that wos true, sure enough,
for wen he wanted to make the acquaintance of any new-comer, he used to
pull out a little limp card vith them words on it and nothin’ else; in
consideration of vich, he vos alvays called Number Tventy. The turnkey
takes a fixed look at him, and at last he says in a solemn manner,
“Tventy,” he says, “I’ll trust you; you Won’t get your old friend into
trouble.” “No, my boy; I hope I’ve somethin’ better behind here,” says
the little man; and as he said it he hit his little vesket wery hard,
and then a tear started out o’ each eye, which wos wery extraordinary,
for it wos supposed as water never touched his face. He shook the
turnkey by the hand; out he vent--’
‘And never came back again,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Wrong for vunce, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, ‘for back he come, two
minits afore the time, a-bilin’ with rage, sayin’ how he’d been nearly
run over by a hackney-coach that he warn’t used to it; and he was blowed
if he wouldn’t write to the lord mayor. They got him pacified at last;
and for five years arter that, he never even so much as peeped out o’
the lodge gate.’
‘At the expiration of that time he died, I suppose,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘No, he didn’t, Sir,’ replied Sam. ‘He got a curiosity to go and taste
the beer at a new public-house over the way, and it wos such a wery nice
parlour, that he took it into his head to go there every night, which he
did for a long time, always comin’ back reg’lar about a quarter of an
hour afore the gate shut, which was all wery snug and comfortable. At
last he began to get so precious jolly, that he used to forget how the
time vent, or care nothin’ at all about it, and he went on gettin’ later
and later, till vun night his old friend wos just a-shuttin’ the gate--
had turned the key in fact--wen he come up. “Hold hard, Bill,” he says.
“Wot, ain’t you come home yet, Tventy?” says the turnkey, “I thought you
wos in, long ago.” “No, I wasn’t,” says the little man, with a smile.
“Well, then, I’ll tell you wot it is, my friend,” says the turnkey,
openin’ the gate wery slow and sulky, “it’s my ‘pinion as you’ve got
into bad company o’ late, which I’m wery sorry to see. Now, I don’t wish
to do nothing harsh,” he says, “but if you can’t confine yourself to
steady circles, and find your vay back at reg’lar hours, as sure as
you’re a-standin’ there, I’ll shut you out altogether!” The little man
was seized vith a wiolent fit o’ tremblin’, and never vent outside the
prison walls artervards!’
As Sam concluded, Mr. Pickwick slowly retraced his steps downstairs.
After a few thoughtful turns in the Painted Ground, which, as it was now
dark, was nearly deserted, he intimated to Mr. Weller that he thought it
high time for him to withdraw for the night; requesting him to seek a
bed in some adjacent public-house, and return early in the morning, to
make arrangements for the removal of his master’s wardrobe from the
George and Vulture. This request Mr. Samuel Weller prepared to obey,
with as good a grace as he could assume, but with a very considerable
show of reluctance nevertheless. He even went so far as to essay sundry
ineffectual hints regarding the expediency of stretching himself on the
gravel for that night; but finding Mr. Pickwick obstinately deaf to any
such suggestions, finally withdrew.
There is no disguising the fact that Mr. Pickwick felt very low-spirited
and uncomfortable--not for lack of society, for the prison was very
full, and a bottle of wine would at once have purchased the utmost good-
fellowship of a few choice spirits, without any more formal ceremony of
introduction; but he was alone in the coarse, vulgar crowd, and felt the
depression of spirits and sinking of heart, naturally consequent on the
reflection that he was cooped and caged up, without a prospect of
liberation. As to the idea of releasing himself by ministering to the
sharpness of Dodson & Fogg, it never for an instant entered his
thoughts.
In this frame of mind he turned again into the coffee-room gallery, and
walked slowly to and fro. The place was intolerably dirty, and the smell
of tobacco smoke perfectly suffocating. There was a perpetual slamming
and banging of doors as the people went in and out; and the noise of
their voices and footsteps echoed and re-echoed through the passages
constantly. A young woman, with a child in her arms, who seemed scarcely
able to crawl, from emaciation and misery, was walking up and down the
passage in conversation with her husband, who had no other place to see
her in. As they passed Mr. Pickwick, he could hear the female sob
bitterly; and once she burst into such a passion of grief, that she was
compelled to lean against the wall for support, while the man took the
child in his arms, and tried to soothe her.
Mr. Pickwick’s heart was really too full to bear it, and he went
upstairs to bed.
Now, although the warder’s room was a very uncomfortable one (being, in
every point of decoration and convenience, several hundred degrees
inferior to the common infirmary of a county jail), it had at present
the merit of being wholly deserted save by Mr. Pickwick himself. So, he
sat down at the foot of his little iron bedstead, and began to wonder
how much a year the warder made out of the dirty room. Having satisfied
himself, by mathematical calculation, that the apartment was about equal
in annual value to the freehold of a small street in the suburbs of
London, he took to wondering what possible temptation could have induced
a dingy-looking fly that was crawling over his pantaloons, to come into
a close prison, when he had the choice of so many airy situations--a
course of meditation which led him to the irresistible conclusion that
the insect was insane. After settling this point, he began to be
conscious that he was getting sleepy; whereupon he took his nightcap out
of the pocket in which he had had the precaution to stow it in the
morning, and, leisurely undressing himself, got into bed and fell
asleep.
‘Bravo! Heel over toe--cut and shuffle--pay away at it, Zephyr! I’m
smothered if the opera house isn’t your proper hemisphere. Keep it up!
Hooray!’ These expressions, delivered in a most boisterous tone, and
accompanied with loud peals of laughter, roused Mr. Pickwick from one of
those sound slumbers which, lasting in reality some half-hour, seem to
the sleeper to have been protracted for three weeks or a month.
The voice had no sooner ceased than the room was shaken with such
violence that the windows rattled in their frames, and the bedsteads
trembled again. Mr. Pickwick started up, and remained for some minutes
fixed in mute astonishment at the scene before him.
On the floor of the room, a man in a broad-skirted green coat, with
corduroy knee-smalls and gray cotton stockings, was performing the most
popular steps of a hornpipe, with a slang and burlesque caricature of
grace and lightness, which, combined with the very appropriate character
of his costume, was inexpressibly absurd. Another man, evidently very
drunk, who had probably been tumbled into bed by his companions, was
sitting up between the sheets, warbling as much as he could recollect of
a comic song, with the most intensely sentimental feeling and
expression; while a third, seated on one of the bedsteads, was
applauding both performers with the air of a profound connoisseur, and
encouraging them by such ebullitions of feeling as had already roused
Mr. Pickwick from his sleep.
This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never
can be seen in full perfection but in such places--they may be met with,
in an imperfect state, occasionally about stable-yards and Public-
houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds,
which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature
for the sole purpose of rearing them.
He was a tall fellow, with an olive complexion, long dark hair, and very
thick bushy whiskers meeting under his chin. He wore no neckerchief, as
he had been playing rackets all day, and his open shirt collar displayed
their full luxuriance. On his head he wore one of the common
eighteenpenny French skull-caps, with a gaudy tassel dangling therefrom,
very happily in keeping with a common fustian coat. His legs, which,
being long, were afflicted with weakness, graced a pair of Oxford-
mixture trousers, made to show the full symmetry of those limbs. Being
somewhat negligently braced, however, and, moreover, but imperfectly
buttoned, they fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a
pair of shoes sufficiently down at heel to display a pair of very soiled
white stockings. There was a rakish, vagabond smartness, and a kind of
boastful rascality, about the whole man, that was worth a mine of gold.
This figure was the first to perceive that Mr. Pickwick was looking on;
upon which he winked to the Zephyr, and entreated him, with mock
gravity, not to wake the gentleman.
‘Why, bless the gentleman’s honest heart and soul!’ said the Zephyr,
turning round and affecting the extremity of surprise; ‘the gentleman is
awake. Hem, Shakespeare! How do you do, Sir? How is Mary and Sarah, sir?
and the dear old lady at home, Sir? Will you have the kindness to put my
compliments into the first little parcel you’re sending that way, sir,
and say that I would have sent ‘em before, only I was afraid they might
be broken in the wagon, sir?’
‘Don’t overwhelm the gentlemen with ordinary civilities when you see
he’s anxious to have something to drink,’ said the gentleman with the
whiskers, with a jocose air. ‘Why don’t you ask the gentleman what he’ll
take?’
‘Dear me, I quite forgot,’ replied the other. ‘What will you take, sir?
Will you take port wine, sir, or sherry wine, sir? I can recommend the
ale, sir; or perhaps you’d like to taste the porter, sir? Allow me to
have the felicity of hanging up your nightcap, Sir.’
With this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from Mr.
Pickwick’s head, and fixed it in a twinkling on that of the drunken man,
who, firmly impressed with the belief that he was delighting a numerous
assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most
melancholy strains imaginable.
Taking a man’s nightcap from his brow by violent means, and adjusting it
on the head of an unknown gentleman, of dirty exterior, however
ingenious a witticism in itself, is unquestionably one of those which
come under the denomination of practical jokes. Viewing the matter
precisely in this light, Mr. Pickwick, without the slightest intimation
of his purpose, sprang vigorously out of bed, struck the Zephyr so smart
a blow in the chest as to deprive him of a considerable portion of the
commodity which sometimes bears his name, and then, recapturing his
nightcap, boldly placed himself in an attitude of defence.
‘Now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, gasping no less from excitement than from the
expenditure of so much energy, ‘come on--both of you--both of you!’ With
this liberal invitation the worthy gentleman communicated a revolving
motion to his clenched fists, by way of appalling his antagonists with a
display of science.
It might have been Mr. Pickwick’s very unexpected gallantry, or it might
have been the complicated manner in which he had got himself out of bed,
and fallen all in a mass upon the hornpipe man, that touched his
adversaries. Touched they were; for, instead of then and there making an
attempt to commit man-slaughter, as Mr. Pickwick implicitly believed
they would have done, they paused, stared at each other a short time,
and finally laughed outright.
‘Well, you’re a trump, and I like you all the better for it,’ said the
Zephyr. ‘Now jump into bed again, or you’ll catch the rheumatics. No
malice, I hope?’ said the man, extending a hand the size of the yellow
clump of fingers which sometimes swings over a glover’s door.
‘Certainly not,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with great alacrity; for, now that
the excitement was over, he began to feel rather cool about the legs.
‘Allow me the H-onour,’ said the gentleman with the whiskers, presenting
his dexter hand, and aspirating the h.
‘With much pleasure, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; and having executed a very
long and solemn shake, he got into bed again.
‘My name is Smangle, sir,’ said the man with the whiskers.
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Mine is Mivins,’ said the man in the stockings.
‘I am delighted to hear it, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Hem,’ coughed Mr. Smangle.
‘Did you speak, sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘No, I did not, sir,’ said Mr. Smangle.
All this was very genteel and pleasant; and, to make matters still more
comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many more times
that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman;
which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no
wise supposed to understand them.
‘Are you going through the court, sir?’ inquired Mr. Smangle.
‘Through the what?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Through the court--Portugal Street--the Court for Relief of--you know.’
‘Oh, no,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘No, I am not.’
‘Going out, perhaps?’ suggested Mr. Mivins.
‘I fear not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘I refuse to pay some damages, and
am here in consequence.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr. Smangle, ‘paper has been my ruin.’
‘A stationer, I presume, Sir?’ said Mr. Pickwick innocently.
‘Stationer! No, no; confound and curse me! Not so low as that. No trade.
When I say paper, I mean bills.’
‘Oh, you use the word in that sense. I see,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Damme! A gentleman must expect reverses,’ said Smangle. ‘What of that?
Here am I in the Fleet Prison. Well; good. What then? I’m none the worse
for that, am I?’
‘Not a bit,’ replied Mr. Mivins. And he was quite right; for, so far
from Mr. Smangle being any the worse for it, he was something the
better, inasmuch as to qualify himself for the place, he had attained
gratuitous possession of certain articles of jewellery, which, long
before that, had found their way to the pawnbroker’s.
‘Well; but come,’ said Mr. Smangle; ‘this is dry work. Let’s rinse our
mouths with a drop of burnt sherry; the last-comer shall stand it,
Mivins shall fetch it, and I’ll help to drink it. That’s a fair and
gentlemanlike division of labour, anyhow. Curse me!’
Unwilling to hazard another quarrel, Mr. Pickwick gladly assented to the
proposition, and consigned the money to Mr. Mivins, who, as it was
nearly eleven o’clock, lost no time in repairing to the coffee-room on
his errand.
‘I say,’ whispered Smangle, the moment his friend had left the room;
‘what did you give him?’
‘Half a sovereign,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘He’s a devilish pleasant gentlemanly dog,’ said Mr. Smangle;--‘infernal
pleasant. I don’t know anybody more so; but--’ Here Mr. Smangle stopped
short, and shook his head dubiously.
‘You don’t think there is any probability of his appropriating the money
to his own use?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Oh, no! Mind, I don’t say that; I expressly say that he’s a devilish
gentlemanly fellow,’ said Mr. Smangle. ‘But I think, perhaps, if
somebody went down, just to see that he didn’t dip his beak into the jug
by accident, or make some confounded mistake in losing the money as he
came upstairs, it would be as well. Here, you sir, just run downstairs,
and look after that gentleman, will you?’
This request was addressed to a little timid-looking, nervous man, whose
appearance bespoke great poverty, and who had been crouching on his
bedstead all this while, apparently stupefied by the novelty of his
situation.
‘You know where the coffee-room is,’ said Smangle; ‘just run down, and
tell that gentleman you’ve come to help him up with the jug. Or--stop--
I’ll tell you what--I’ll tell you how we’ll do him,’ said Smangle, with
a cunning look.
‘How?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Send down word that he’s to spend the change in cigars. Capital
thought. Run and tell him that; d’ye hear? They shan’t be wasted,’
continued Smangle, turning to Mr. Pickwick. ‘_I’ll_ smoke ‘em.’
This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious and, withal, performed
with such immovable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pickwick would have
had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. In a short time
Mr. Mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed in
two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference to
himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such
circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out
of the jug. In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the
company in a draught which half emptied it.
An excellent understanding having been by these means promoted, Mr.
Smangle proceeded to entertain his hearers with a relation of divers
romantic adventures in which he had been from time to time engaged,
involving various interesting anecdotes of a thoroughbred horse, and a
magnificent Jewess, both of surpassing beauty, and much coveted by the
nobility and gentry of these kingdoms.
Long before these elegant extracts from the biography of a gentleman
were concluded, Mr. Mivins had betaken himself to bed, and had set in
snoring for the night, leaving the timid stranger and Mr. Pickwick to
the full benefit of Mr. Smangle’s experiences.
Nor were the two last-named gentlemen as much edified as they might have
been by the moving passages narrated. Mr. Pickwick had been in a state
of slumber for some time, when he had a faint perception of the drunken
man bursting out afresh with the comic song, and receiving from Mr.
Smangle a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water-jug, that
his audience was not musically disposed. Mr. Pickwick then once again
dropped off to sleep, with a confused consciousness that Mr. Smangle was
still engaged in relating a long story, the chief point of which
appeared to be that, on some occasion particularly stated and set forth,
he had ‘done’ a bill and a gentleman at the same time.
CHAPTER XLII. ILLUSTRATIVE, LIKE THE PRECEDING ONE, OF THE OLD PROVERB,
THAT ADVERSITY BRINGS A MAN ACQUAINTED WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS--
LIKEWISE CONTAINING MR. PICKWICK’S EXTRAORDINARY AND STARTLING
ANNOUNCEMENT TO MR. SAMUEL WELLER
When Mr. Pickwick opened his eyes next morning, the first object upon
which they rested was Samuel Weller, seated upon a small black
portmanteau, intently regarding, apparently in a condition of profound
abstraction, the stately figure of the dashing Mr. Smangle; while Mr.
Smangle himself, who was already partially dressed, was seated on his
bedstead, occupied in the desperately hopeless attempt of staring Mr.
Weller out of countenance. We say desperately hopeless, because Sam,
with a comprehensive gaze which took in Mr. Smangle’s cap, feet, head,
face, legs, and whiskers, all at the same time, continued to look
steadily on, with every demonstration of lively satisfaction, but with
no more regard to Mr. Smangle’s personal sentiments on the subject than
he would have displayed had he been inspecting a wooden statue, or a
straw-embowelled Guy Fawkes.
‘Well; will you know me again?’ said Mr. Smangle, with a frown.
‘I’d svear to you anyveres, Sir,’ replied Sam cheerfully.
‘Don’t be impertinent to a gentleman, Sir,’ said Mr. Smangle.
‘Not on no account,’ replied Sam. ‘If you’ll tell me wen he wakes, I’ll
be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!’ This observation, having a
remote tendency to imply that Mr. Smangle was no gentleman, kindled his
ire.
‘Mivins!’ said Mr. Smangle, with a passionate air.
‘What’s the office?’ replied that gentleman from his couch.
‘Who the devil is this fellow?’
‘’Gad,’ said Mr. Mivins, looking lazily out from under the bed-clothes,
‘I ought to ask _you _that. Hasn’t he any business here?’
‘No,’ replied Mr. Smangle.
‘Then knock him downstairs, and tell him not to presume to get up till I
come and kick him,’ rejoined Mr. Mivins; with this prompt advice that
excellent gentleman again betook himself to slumber.
The conversation exhibiting these unequivocal symptoms of verging on the
personal, Mr. Pickwick deemed it a fit point at which to interpose.
‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Sir,’ rejoined that gentleman.
‘Has anything new occurred since last night?’
‘Nothin’ partickler, sir,’ replied Sam, glancing at Mr. Smangle’s
whiskers; ‘the late prewailance of a close and confined atmosphere has
been rayther favourable to the growth of veeds, of an alarmin’ and
sangvinary natur; but vith that ‘ere exception things is quiet enough.’
‘I shall get up,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘give me some clean things.’
Whatever hostile intentions Mr. Smangle might have entertained, his
thoughts were speedily diverted by the unpacking of the portmanteau; the
contents of which appeared to impress him at once with a most favourable
opinion, not only of Mr. Pickwick, but of Sam also, who, he took an
early opportunity of declaring in a tone of voice loud enough for that
eccentric personage to overhear, was a regular thoroughbred original,
and consequently the very man after his own heart. As to Mr. Pickwick,
the affection he conceived for him knew no limits.
‘Now is there anything I can do for you, my dear Sir?’ said Smangle.
‘Nothing that I am aware of, I am obliged to you,’ replied Mr. Pickwick.
‘No linen that you want sent to the washerwoman’s? I know a delightful
washerwoman outside, that comes for my things twice a week; and, by
Jove!--how devilish lucky!--this is the day she calls. Shall I put any
of those little things up with mine? Don’t say anything about the
trouble. Confound and curse it! if one gentleman under a cloud is not to
put himself a little out of the way to assist another gentleman in the
same condition, what’s human nature?’
Thus spake Mr. Smangle, edging himself meanwhile as near as possible to
the portmanteau, and beaming forth looks of the most fervent and
disinterested friendship.
‘There’s nothing you want to give out for the man to brush, my dear
creature, is there?’ resumed Smangle.
‘Nothin’ whatever, my fine feller,’ rejoined Sam, taking the reply into
his own mouth. ‘P’raps if vun of us wos to brush, without troubling the
man, it ‘ud be more agreeable for all parties, as the schoolmaster said
when the young gentleman objected to being flogged by the butler.’
‘And there’s nothing I can send in my little box to the washer-woman’s,
is there?’ said Smangle, turning from Sam to Mr. Pickwick, with an air
of some discomfiture.
‘Nothin’ whatever, Sir,’ retorted Sam; ‘I’m afeered the little box must
be chock full o’ your own as it is.’
This speech was accompanied with such a very expressive look at that
particular portion of Mr. Smangle’s attire, by the appearance of which
the skill of laundresses in getting up gentlemen’s linen is generally
tested, that he was fain to turn upon his heel, and, for the present at
any rate, to give up all design on Mr. Pickwick’s purse and wardrobe. He
accordingly retired in dudgeon to the racket-ground, where he made a
light and whole-some breakfast on a couple of the cigars which had been
purchased on the previous night.
Mr. Mivins, who was no smoker, and whose account for small articles of
chandlery had also reached down to the bottom of the slate, and been
‘carried over’ to the other side, remained in bed, and, in his own
words, ‘took it out in sleep.’
After breakfasting in a small closet attached to the coffee-room, which
bore the imposing title of the Snuggery, the temporary inmate of which,
in consideration of a small additional charge, had the unspeakable
advantage of overhearing all the conversation in the coffee-room
aforesaid; and, after despatching Mr. Weller on some necessary errands,
Mr. Pickwick repaired to the lodge, to consult Mr. Roker concerning his
future accommodation.
‘Accommodation, eh?’ said that gentleman, consulting a large book.
‘Plenty of that, Mr. Pickwick. Your chummage ticket will be on twenty-
seven, in the third.’
‘Oh,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘My what, did you say?’
‘Your chummage ticket,’ replied Mr. Roker; ‘you’re up to that?’
‘Not quite,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, with a smile.
‘Why,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘it’s as plain as Salisbury. You’ll have a
chummage ticket upon twenty-seven in the third, and them as is in the
room will be your chums.’
‘Are there many of them?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick dubiously.
‘Three,’ replied Mr. Roker.
Mr. Pickwick coughed.
‘One of ‘em’s a parson,’ said Mr. Roker, filling up a little piece of
paper as he spoke; ‘another’s a butcher.’
‘Eh?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘A butcher,’ repeated Mr. Roker, giving the nib of his pen a tap on the
desk to cure it of a disinclination to mark. ‘What a thorough-paced goer
he used to be sure-ly! You remember Tom Martin, Neddy?’ said Roker,
appealing to another man in the lodge, who was paring the mud off his
shoes with a five-and-twenty-bladed pocket-knife.
‘I should think so,’ replied the party addressed, with a strong emphasis
on the personal pronoun.
‘Bless my dear eyes!’ said Mr. Roker, shaking his head slowly from side
to side, and gazing abstractedly out of the grated windows before him,
as if he were fondly recalling some peaceful scene of his early youth;
‘it seems but yesterday that he whopped the coal-heaver down Fox-under-
the-Hill by the wharf there. I think I can see him now, a-coming up the
Strand between the two street-keepers, a little sobered by the bruising,
with a patch o’ winegar and brown paper over his right eyelid, and that
‘ere lovely bulldog, as pinned the little boy arterwards, a-following at
his heels. What a rum thing time is, ain’t it, Neddy?’
The gentleman to whom these observations were addressed, who appeared of
a taciturn and thoughtful cast, merely echoed the inquiry; Mr. Roker,
shaking off the poetical and gloomy train of thought into which he had
been betrayed, descended to the common business of life, and resumed his
pen.
‘Do you know what the third gentlemen is?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, not
very much gratified by this description of his future associates.
‘What is that Simpson, Neddy?’ said Mr. Roker, turning to his companion.
‘What Simpson?’ said Neddy.
‘Why, him in twenty-seven in the third, that this gentleman’s going to
be chummed on.’
‘Oh, him!’ replied Neddy; ‘he’s nothing exactly. He _was _a horse
chaunter: he’s a leg now.’
‘Ah, so I thought,’ rejoined Mr. Roker, closing the book, and placing
the small piece of paper in Mr. Pickwick’s hands. ‘That’s the ticket,
sir.’
Very much perplexed by this summary disposition of this person, Mr.
Pickwick walked back into the prison, revolving in his mind what he had
better do. Convinced, however, that before he took any other steps it
would be advisable to see, and hold personal converse with, the three
gentlemen with whom it was proposed to quarter him, he made the best of
his way to the third flight.
After groping about in the gallery for some time, attempting in the dim
light to decipher the numbers on the different doors, he at length
appealed to a pot-boy, who happened to be pursuing his morning
occupation of gleaning for pewter.
‘Which is twenty-seven, my good fellow?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Five doors farther on,’ replied the pot-boy. ‘There’s the likeness of a
man being hung, and smoking the while, chalked outside the door.’