Pondering on his unhappy lot, Joe sat and listened for a long time,
expecting every moment to hear their creaking footsteps on the stairs,
or to be greeted by his worthy father with a summons to capitulate
unconditionally, and deliver himself up straightway. But neither voice
nor footstep came; and though some distant echoes, as of closing doors
and people hurrying in and out of rooms, resounding from time to time
through the great passages, and penetrating to his remote seclusion,
gave note of unusual commotion downstairs, no nearer sound disturbed his
place of retreat, which seemed the quieter for these far-off noises, and
was as dull and full of gloom as any hermit’s cell.
It came on darker and darker. The old-fashioned furniture of the
chamber, which was a kind of hospital for all the invalided movables in
the house, grew indistinct and shadowy in its many shapes; chairs and
tables, which by day were as honest cripples as need be, assumed a
doubtful and mysterious character; and one old leprous screen of faded
India leather and gold binding, which had kept out many a cold breath of
air in days of yore and shut in many a jolly face, frowned on him with
a spectral aspect, and stood at full height in its allotted corner, like
some gaunt ghost who waited to be questioned. A portrait opposite the
window--a queer, old grey-eyed general, in an oval frame--seemed to
wink and doze as the light decayed, and at length, when the last faint
glimmering speck of day went out, to shut its eyes in good earnest, and
fall sound asleep. There was such a hush and mystery about everything,
that Joe could not help following its example; and so went off into
a slumber likewise, and dreamed of Dolly, till the clock of Chigwell
church struck two.
Still nobody came. The distant noises in the house had ceased, and
out of doors all was quiet; save for the occasional barking of some
deep-mouthed dog, and the shaking of the branches by the night wind.
He gazed mournfully out of window at each well-known object as it lay
sleeping in the dim light of the moon; and creeping back to his former
seat, thought about the late uproar, until, with long thinking of, it
seemed to have occurred a month ago. Thus, between dozing, and thinking,
and walking to the window and looking out, the night wore away; the grim
old screen, and the kindred chairs and tables, began slowly to reveal
themselves in their accustomed forms; the grey-eyed general seemed to
wink and yawn and rouse himself; and at last he was broad awake again,
and very uncomfortable and cold and haggard he looked, in the dull grey
light of morning.
The sun had begun to peep above the forest trees, and already flung
across the curling mist bright bars of gold, when Joe dropped from his
window on the ground below, a little bundle and his trusty stick, and
prepared to descend himself.
It was not a very difficult task; for there were so many projections and
gable ends in the way, that they formed a series of clumsy steps, with
no greater obstacle than a jump of some few feet at last. Joe, with his
stick and bundle on his shoulder, quickly stood on the firm earth, and
looked up at the old Maypole, it might be for the last time.
He didn’t apostrophise it, for he was no great scholar. He didn’t curse
it, for he had little ill-will to give to anything on earth. He felt
more affectionate and kind to it than ever he had done in all his life
before, so said with all his heart, ‘God bless you!’ as a parting wish,
and turned away.
He walked along at a brisk pace, big with great thoughts of going for
a soldier and dying in some foreign country where it was very hot and
sandy, and leaving God knows what unheard-of wealth in prize-money to
Dolly, who would be very much affected when she came to know of it;
and full of such youthful visions, which were sometimes sanguine and
sometimes melancholy, but always had her for their main point and
centre, pushed on vigorously until the noise of London sounded in his
ears, and the Black Lion hove in sight.
It was only eight o’clock then, and very much astonished the Black Lion
was, to see him come walking in with dust upon his feet at that early
hour, with no grey mare to bear him company. But as he ordered breakfast
to be got ready with all speed, and on its being set before him gave
indisputable tokens of a hearty appetite, the Lion received him, as
usual, with a hospitable welcome; and treated him with those marks
of distinction, which, as a regular customer, and one within the
freemasonry of the trade, he had a right to claim.
This Lion or landlord,--for he was called both man and beast, by reason
of his having instructed the artist who painted his sign, to convey
into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore, as near a
counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass and devise,--was
a gentleman almost as quick of apprehension, and of almost as subtle a
wit, as the mighty John himself. But the difference between them lay in
this: that whereas Mr Willet’s extreme sagacity and acuteness were
the efforts of unassisted nature, the Lion stood indebted, in no small
amount, to beer; of which he swigged such copious draughts, that most of
his faculties were utterly drowned and washed away, except the one
great faculty of sleep, which he retained in surprising perfection.
The creaking Lion over the house-door was, therefore, to say the
truth, rather a drowsy, tame, and feeble lion; and as these social
representatives of a savage class are usually of a conventional
character (being depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes
and of unearthly colours), he was frequently supposed by the more
ignorant and uninformed among the neighbours, to be the veritable
portrait of the host as he appeared on the occasion of some great
funeral ceremony or public mourning.
‘What noisy fellow is that in the next room?’ said Joe, when he had
disposed of his breakfast, and had washed and brushed himself.
‘A recruiting serjeant,’ replied the Lion.
Joe started involuntarily. Here was the very thing he had been dreaming
of, all the way along.
‘And I wish,’ said the Lion, ‘he was anywhere else but here. The party
make noise enough, but don’t call for much. There’s great cry there, Mr
Willet, but very little wool. Your father wouldn’t like ‘em, I know.’
Perhaps not much under any circumstances. Perhaps if he could have known
what was passing at that moment in Joe’s mind, he would have liked them
still less.
‘Is he recruiting for a--for a fine regiment?’ said Joe, glancing at a
little round mirror that hung in the bar.
‘I believe he is,’ replied the host. ‘It’s much the same thing, whatever
regiment he’s recruiting for. I’m told there an’t a deal of difference
between a fine man and another one, when they’re shot through and
through.’
‘They’re not all shot,’ said Joe.
‘No,’ the Lion answered, ‘not all. Those that are--supposing it’s done
easy--are the best off in my opinion.’
‘Ah!’ retorted Joe, ‘but you don’t care for glory.’
‘For what?’ said the Lion.
‘Glory.’
‘No,’ returned the Lion, with supreme indifference. ‘I don’t. You’re
right in that, Mr Willet. When Glory comes here, and calls for anything
to drink and changes a guinea to pay for it, I’ll give it him for
nothing. It’s my belief, sir, that the Glory’s arms wouldn’t do a very
strong business.’
These remarks were not at all comforting. Joe walked out, stopped at
the door of the next room, and listened. The serjeant was describing
a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were
frequent intervals of eating and love-making. A battle was the finest
thing in the world--when your side won it--and Englishmen always did
that. ‘Supposing you should be killed, sir?’ said a timid voice in one
corner. ‘Well, sir, supposing you should be,’ said the serjeant, ‘what
then? Your country loves you, sir; his Majesty King George the Third
loves you; your memory is honoured, revered, respected; everybody’s fond
of you, and grateful to you; your name’s wrote down at full length in a
book in the War Office. Damme, gentlemen, we must all die some time, or
another, eh?’
The voice coughed, and said no more.
Joe walked into the room. A group of half-a-dozen fellows had gathered
together in the taproom, and were listening with greedy ears. One of
them, a carter in a smockfrock, seemed wavering and disposed to enlist.
The rest, who were by no means disposed, strongly urged him to do so
(according to the custom of mankind), backed the serjeant’s arguments,
and grinned among themselves. ‘I say nothing, boys,’ said the serjeant,
who sat a little apart, drinking his liquor. ‘For lads of spirit’--here
he cast an eye on Joe--‘this is the time. I don’t want to inveigle you.
The king’s not come to that, I hope. Brisk young blood is what we
want; not milk and water. We won’t take five men out of six. We want
top-sawyers, we do. I’m not a-going to tell tales out of school, but,
damme, if every gentleman’s son that carries arms in our corps, through
being under a cloud and having little differences with his relations,
was counted up’--here his eye fell on Joe again, and so good-naturedly,
that Joe beckoned him out. He came directly.
‘You’re a gentleman, by G--!’ was his first remark, as he slapped him
on the back. ‘You’re a gentleman in disguise. So am I. Let’s swear a
friendship.’
Joe didn’t exactly do that, but he shook hands with him, and thanked him
for his good opinion.
‘You want to serve,’ said his new friend. ‘You shall. You were made for
it. You’re one of us by nature. What’ll you take to drink?’
‘Nothing just now,’ replied Joe, smiling faintly. ‘I haven’t quite made
up my mind.’
‘A mettlesome fellow like you, and not made up his mind!’ cried the
serjeant. ‘Here--let me give the bell a pull, and you’ll make up your
mind in half a minute, I know.’
‘You’re right so far’--answered Joe, ‘for if you pull the bell here,
where I’m known, there’ll be an end of my soldiering inclinations in no
time. Look in my face. You see me, do you?’
‘I do,’ replied the serjeant with an oath, ‘and a finer young fellow or
one better qualified to serve his king and country, I never set my--’ he
used an adjective in this place--‘eyes on.’
‘Thank you,’ said Joe, ‘I didn’t ask you for want of a compliment, but
thank you all the same. Do I look like a sneaking fellow or a liar?’
The serjeant rejoined with many choice asseverations that he didn’t; and
that if his (the serjeant’s) own father were to say he did, he would
run the old gentleman through the body cheerfully, and consider it a
meritorious action.
Joe expressed his obligations, and continued, ‘You can trust me then,
and credit what I say. I believe I shall enlist in your regiment
to-night. The reason I don’t do so now is, because I don’t want until
to-night, to do what I can’t recall. Where shall I find you, this
evening?’
His friend replied with some unwillingness, and after much ineffectual
entreaty having for its object the immediate settlement of the business,
that his quarters would be at the Crooked Billet in Tower Street; where
he would be found waking until midnight, and sleeping until breakfast
time to-morrow.
‘And if I do come--which it’s a million to one, I shall--when will you
take me out of London?’ demanded Joe.
‘To-morrow morning, at half after eight o’clock,’ replied the serjeant.
‘You’ll go abroad--a country where it’s all sunshine and plunder--the
finest climate in the world.’
‘To go abroad,’ said Joe, shaking hands with him, ‘is the very thing I
want. You may expect me.’
‘You’re the kind of lad for us,’ cried the serjeant, holding Joe’s hand
in his, in the excess of his admiration. ‘You’re the boy to push your
fortune. I don’t say it because I bear you any envy, or would take away
from the credit of the rise you’ll make, but if I had been bred and
taught like you, I’d have been a colonel by this time.’
‘Tush, man!’ said Joe, ‘I’m not so young as that. Needs must when the
devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket and an
unhappy home. For the present, good-bye.’
‘For king and country!’ cried the serjeant, flourishing his cap.
‘For bread and meat!’ cried Joe, snapping his fingers. And so they
parted.
He had very little money in his pocket; so little indeed, that after
paying for his breakfast (which he was too honest and perhaps too proud
to score up to his father’s charge) he had but a penny left. He had
courage, notwithstanding, to resist all the affectionate importunities
of the serjeant, who waylaid him at the door with many protestations of
eternal friendship, and did in particular request that he would do him
the favour to accept of only one shilling as a temporary accommodation.
Rejecting his offers both of cash and credit, Joe walked away with
stick and bundle as before, bent upon getting through the day as he best
could, and going down to the locksmith’s in the dusk of the evening;
for it should go hard, he had resolved, but he would have a parting word
with charming Dolly Varden.
He went out by Islington and so on to Highgate, and sat on many stones
and gates, but there were no voices in the bells to bid him turn. Since
the time of noble Whittington, fair flower of merchants, bells have come
to have less sympathy with humankind. They only ring for money and on
state occasions. Wanderers have increased in number; ships leave the
Thames for distant regions, carrying from stem to stern no other cargo;
the bells are silent; they ring out no entreaties or regrets; they are
used to it and have grown worldly.
Joe bought a roll, and reduced his purse to the condition (with a
difference) of that celebrated purse of Fortunatus, which, whatever were
its favoured owner’s necessities, had one unvarying amount in it. In
these real times, when all the Fairies are dead and buried, there are
still a great many purses which possess that quality. The sum-total they
contain is expressed in arithmetic by a circle, and whether it be added
to or multiplied by its own amount, the result of the problem is more
easily stated than any known in figures.
Evening drew on at last. With the desolate and solitary feeling of one
who had no home or shelter, and was alone utterly in the world for the
first time, he bent his steps towards the locksmith’s house. He had
delayed till now, knowing that Mrs Varden sometimes went out alone,
or with Miggs for her sole attendant, to lectures in the evening; and
devoutly hoping that this might be one of her nights of moral culture.
He had walked up and down before the house, on the opposite side of the
way, two or three times, when as he returned to it again, he caught a
glimpse of a fluttering skirt at the door. It was Dolly’s--to whom else
could it belong? no dress but hers had such a flow as that. He plucked
up his spirits, and followed it into the workshop of the Golden Key.
His darkening the door caused her to look round. Oh that face! ‘If it
hadn’t been for that,’ thought Joe, ‘I should never have walked into
poor Tom Cobb. She’s twenty times handsomer than ever. She might marry a
Lord!’
He didn’t say this. He only thought it--perhaps looked it also. Dolly
was glad to see him, and was SO sorry her father and mother were away
from home. Joe begged she wouldn’t mention it on any account.
Dolly hesitated to lead the way into the parlour, for there it was
nearly dark; at the same time she hesitated to stand talking in the
workshop, which was yet light and open to the street. They had got by
some means, too, before the little forge; and Joe having her hand in his
(which he had no right to have, for Dolly only gave it him to shake), it
was so like standing before some homely altar being married, that it was
the most embarrassing state of things in the world.
‘I have come,’ said Joe, ‘to say good-bye--to say good-bye for I don’t
know how many years; perhaps for ever. I am going abroad.’
Now this was exactly what he should not have said. Here he was, talking
like a gentleman at large who was free to come and go and roam about the
world at pleasure, when that gallant coachmaker had vowed but the night
before that Miss Varden held him bound in adamantine chains; and had
positively stated in so many words that she was killing him by inches,
and that in a fortnight more or thereabouts he expected to make a decent
end and leave the business to his mother.
Dolly released her hand and said ‘Indeed!’ She remarked in the same
breath that it was a fine night, and in short, betrayed no more emotion
than the forge itself.
‘I couldn’t go,’ said Joe, ‘without coming to see you. I hadn’t the
heart to.’
Dolly was more sorry than she could tell, that he should have taken so
much trouble. It was such a long way, and he must have such a deal to
do. And how WAS Mr Willet--that dear old gentleman--
‘Is this all you say!’ cried Joe.
All! Good gracious, what did the man expect! She was obliged to take her
apron in her hand and run her eyes along the hem from corner to corner,
to keep herself from laughing in his face;--not because his gaze
confused her--not at all.
Joe had small experience in love affairs, and had no notion how
different young ladies are at different times; he had expected to
take Dolly up again at the very point where he had left her after that
delicious evening ride, and was no more prepared for such an alteration
than to see the sun and moon change places. He had buoyed himself up all
day with an indistinct idea that she would certainly say ‘Don’t go,’ or
‘Don’t leave us,’ or ‘Why do you go?’ or ‘Why do you leave us?’ or would
give him some little encouragement of that sort; he had even entertained
the possibility of her bursting into tears, of her throwing herself into
his arms, of her falling down in a fainting fit without previous word
or sign; but any approach to such a line of conduct as this, had been so
far from his thoughts that he could only look at her in silent wonder.
Dolly in the meanwhile, turned to the corners of her apron, and measured
the sides, and smoothed out the wrinkles, and was as silent as he. At
last after a long pause, Joe said good-bye. ‘Good-bye’--said Dolly--with
as pleasant a smile as if he were going into the next street, and were
coming back to supper; ‘good-bye.’
‘Come,’ said Joe, putting out both hands, ‘Dolly, dear Dolly, don’t let
us part like this. I love you dearly, with all my heart and soul; with
as much truth and earnestness as ever man loved woman in this world, I
do believe. I am a poor fellow, as you know--poorer now than ever, for
I have fled from home, not being able to bear it any longer, and must
fight my own way without help. You are beautiful, admired, are loved by
everybody, are well off and happy; and may you ever be so! Heaven forbid
I should ever make you otherwise; but give me a word of comfort. Say
something kind to me. I have no right to expect it of you, I know, but
I ask it because I love you, and shall treasure the slightest word from
you all through my life. Dolly, dearest, have you nothing to say to me?’
No. Nothing. Dolly was a coquette by nature, and a spoilt child. She had
no notion of being carried by storm in this way. The coachmaker would
have been dissolved in tears, and would have knelt down, and called
himself names, and clasped his hands, and beat his breast, and tugged
wildly at his cravat, and done all kinds of poetry. Joe had no business
to be going abroad. He had no right to be able to do it. If he was in
adamantine chains, he couldn’t.
‘I have said good-bye,’ said Dolly, ‘twice. Take your arm away directly,
Mr Joseph, or I’ll call Miggs.’
‘I’ll not reproach you,’ answered Joe, ‘it’s my fault, no doubt. I have
thought sometimes that you didn’t quite despise me, but I was a fool to
think so. Every one must, who has seen the life I have led--you most of
all. God bless you!’
He was gone, actually gone. Dolly waited a little while, thinking he
would return, peeped out at the door, looked up the street and down as
well as the increasing darkness would allow, came in again, waited a
little longer, went upstairs humming a tune, bolted herself in, laid
her head down on her bed, and cried as if her heart would break. And yet
such natures are made up of so many contradictions, that if Joe Willet
had come back that night, next day, next week, next month, the odds are
a hundred to one she would have treated him in the very same manner, and
have wept for it afterwards with the very same distress.
She had no sooner left the workshop than there cautiously peered out
from behind the chimney of the forge, a face which had already emerged
from the same concealment twice or thrice, unseen, and which, after
satisfying itself that it was now alone, was followed by a leg, a
shoulder, and so on by degrees, until the form of Mr Tappertit stood
confessed, with a brown-paper cap stuck negligently on one side of its
head, and its arms very much a-kimbo.
‘Have my ears deceived me,’ said the ‘prentice, ‘or do I dream! am I to
thank thee, Fortun’, or to cus thee--which?’
He gravely descended from his elevation, took down his piece of
looking-glass, planted it against the wall upon the usual bench, twisted
his head round, and looked closely at his legs.
‘If they’re a dream,’ said Sim, ‘let sculptures have such wisions, and
chisel ‘em out when they wake. This is reality. Sleep has no such limbs
as them. Tremble, Willet, and despair. She’s mine! She’s mine!’
With these triumphant expressions, he seized a hammer and dealt a heavy
blow at a vice, which in his mind’s eye represented the sconce or head
of Joseph Willet. That done, he burst into a peal of laughter which
startled Miss Miggs even in her distant kitchen, and dipping his head
into a bowl of water, had recourse to a jack-towel inside the closet
door, which served the double purpose of smothering his feelings and
drying his face.
Joe, disconsolate and down-hearted, but full of courage too, on leaving
the locksmith’s house made the best of his way to the Crooked Billet,
and there inquired for his friend the serjeant, who, expecting no man
less, received him with open arms. In the course of five minutes after
his arrival at that house of entertainment, he was enrolled among the
gallant defenders of his native land; and within half an hour, was
regaled with a steaming supper of boiled tripe and onions, prepared,
as his friend assured him more than once, at the express command of his
most Sacred Majesty the King. To this meal, which tasted very savoury
after his long fasting, he did ample justice; and when he had followed
it up, or down, with a variety of loyal and patriotic toasts, he was
conducted to a straw mattress in a loft over the stable, and locked in
there for the night.
The next morning, he found that the obliging care of his martial friend
had decorated his hat with sundry particoloured streamers, which made
a very lively appearance; and in company with that officer, and three
other military gentlemen newly enrolled, who were under a cloud so dense
that it only left three shoes, a boot, and a coat and a half visible
among them, repaired to the riverside. Here they were joined by a
corporal and four more heroes, of whom two were drunk and daring, and
two sober and penitent, but each of whom, like Joe, had his dusty stick
and bundle. The party embarked in a passage-boat bound for Gravesend,
whence they were to proceed on foot to Chatham; the wind was in their
favour, and they soon left London behind them, a mere dark mist--a giant
phantom in the air.