[Illustration: TOMMY TRADDLES.]
Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like
German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, and with his hair standing
upright, giving him the expression of a fretful porcupine, he was the
merriest and most miserable of all the boys at Mr. Creakle's school,
called Salem House. I never think of him without a strange disposition to
laugh, and yet with tears in my eyes.
He was always being caned--I think he was caned every day in the half-year
I spent at Salem House, except one holiday Monday when he was only ruler'd
on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and
never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would
cheer up somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his
slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first to wonder what comfort
Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as
a sort of a hermit, who reminded himself by those symbols of mortality
that caning couldn't last for ever. But I believe he only did it because
they were easy, and didn't want any features.
He was very honourable, Traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in the
boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this code of honour on
several occasions. One evening we had a great spread up in our room after
time for lights to be down, and we all got happily out of it but Traddles.
He was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. He
was taken ill in the night--quite prostrate he was--in consequence of
Crab; and after being drugged to an extent which Demple (whose father was
a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received a
caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing to confess.
At another time, when Steerforth (who was the only parlour-boarder and the
lion of the school) laughed in church, the Beadle, who thought the
offender was Traddles, took _him_ out. I see him now, going away in
custody, despised by the congregation. He never said who was the real
offender, although he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many
hours that he came forth with a whole churchyardful of skeletons swarming
all over his Latin dictionary. But he had his reward. Steerforth said
there was nothing of the sneak in Traddles, and we all felt that to be the
highest praise.
On still a third occasion during my half-year at Salem House I have a
vivid recollection of Traddles in distress; that time for siding with the
down-trodden under-teacher, Mr. Mell, in a heated discussion between that
gentleman and Steerforth.
The discussion took place on a Saturday which should have properly been a
half-holiday, but as Mr. Creakle was indisposed, and the noise in the
playground would have disturbed him; and the weather was not favourable
for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the afternoon, and
set some lighter tasks than usual; and Mr. Mell, a pale, delicately-built,
little man, was detailed to keep us in order, which he tried in vain to
accomplish.
Boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss-in-the-corner
with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys,
dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled
about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and
before his eyes: mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother,
every thing belonging to him that they should have had consideration for.
"Silence!" cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk with
the book. "What does this mean! It's impossible to bear it. It's
maddening. How can you do it to me, boys?"
The boys all stopped, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some
sorry perhaps.
Steerforth alone remained in his lounging position, hands in his pockets,
and looked at Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were whistling,
when Mr. Mell looked at him.
"Silence, Mr. Steerforth!" said Mr. Mell.
"Silence yourself," said Steerforth, turning red. "Whom are you talking
to?"
"Sit down!" said Mr. Mell.
"Sit down yourself!" said Steerforth, "and mind your business."
There was a titter and some applause; but Mr. Mell was so white, that
silence immediately succeeded.
"When you make use of your position of favouritism, here, sir," pursued
Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, "to insult a gentleman----"
"A what?--where is he?" said Steerforth.
Here somebody cried out, "Shame, J. Steerforth! Too bad!" It was Traddles;
whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited by bidding him to hold his tongue,----
"--to insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never gave you
the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting whom you are old
enough and wise enough to understand," said Mr. Mell, with his lip
trembling more and more, "you commit a mean and base action. You can sit
down or stand up as you please, sir."
"I tell you what, Mr. Mell," said Steerforth, coming forward, "once for
all. When you take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of
that sort, you are an impudent beggar. You are always a beggar, you know;
but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar."
Had Mr. Creakle not entered the room at that moment, there is no knowing
what might have happened, for the highest pitch of excitement had been
reached by combatants and lookers-on.
Both Steerforth and the under-teacher at once turned to Mr. Creakle,
pouring out in his attentive ear the story of the burning wrong to which
each had subjected the other, and the end of the whole affair was that Mr.
Mell--having discovered that Mr. Creakle's veneration for money, and fear
of offending his head-pupil, far outweighed any consideration for the
teacher's feelings,--taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and
leaving the key in it for his successor, went out of the school, with his
property under his arm.
Mr. Creakle then made a speech, in which he thanked Steerforth for
asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability
of Salem House; and which he wound up by shaking hands with Steerforth;
while we gave three cheers--I did not quite know what for, but I supposed
for Steerforth, and joined in them, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle
then caned Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of
cheers, and went away leaving us to ourselves.
Steerforth was very angry with Traddles, and said he was glad he had
caught it. Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head
upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of
skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used.
"Who has ill-used him, you girl?" said Steerforth.
"Why, you have," returned Traddles.
"What have I done?" said Steerforth.
"What have you done?" retorted Traddles. "Hurt his feelings and lost him
his situation."
"His feelings!" repeated Steerforth, disdainfully. "His feelings will soon
get the better of it, I'll be bound. His feelings are not like yours, Miss
Traddles! As to his situation--which was a precious one, wasn't it?--do
you suppose I am not going to write home and take care that he gets some
money?"
We all thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose mother was a
rich widow, and, it was said, would do anything he asked her. We were all
very glad to see Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to the
skies, and none of us appreciated at that time that our hero, J.
Steerforth was very, very small indeed, as to character, in comparison to
funny, unfortunate Tommy Traddles.
Years later, when Salem House was only a memory, and we were both men,
Traddles and I met again. He had the same simple character and good temper
as of old, and had, too, some of his old unlucky fortune, which clung to
him always; yet notwithstanding that--as all of his trouble came from
good-natured meddling with other people's affairs, for their benefit, I am
not at all certain that I would not risk my chance of success--in the
broadest meaning of that word--in the next world surely, if not in this,
against all the Steerforths living, if I were Tommy Traddles.
Poor Traddles?--No, happy Traddles!
"DEPUTY"
[Illustration: "DEPUTY".]
They were certainly the very oddest pair that ever the moon shone
on,--Stony Durdles and the boy "Deputy."
Durdles was a stone-mason, from which occupation, undoubtedly, came his
nickname "Stony," and Deputy was a hideous small boy hired by Durdles to
pelt him home if he found him out too late at night, which duty the boy
faithfully performed. In all the length and breadth of Cloisterham there
was no more noted man than the stone-mason, Durdles, not, I regret to say,
on account of his virtues, but rather because of his talent for remaining
out late at night, and not being able to guide his steps homeward. There
is a coarser term which might have been applied to this talent of Durdles,
but we have nothing to do with that, here and now; what we desire is an
introduction to the small boy who is Durdles's shadow.
One night, John Jasper, choir-master in Cloisterham Cathedral, on his way
home through the Close, is brought to a standstill by the spectacle of
Stony Durdles, dinner-bundle and all, leaning against the iron railing of
the burial-ground, while a hideous small boy in rags flings stones at him,
in the moonlight. Sometimes the stones hit him, and sometimes they miss
him, but Durdles seems indifferent to either fortune. The hideous small
boy, on the contrary, whenever he hits Durdles, blows a whistle of triumph
through a jagged gap in the front of his mouth, where half his teeth are
wanting; and whenever he misses him, yelps out, "Mulled agin!" and tries
to atone for the failure by taking a more correct and vicious aim.
"What are you doing to the man?" demands Jasper.
"Makin' a cock-shy of him," replies the hideous small boy.
"Give me those stones in your hand."
"Yes, I'll give 'em you down your throat, if you come a ketchin' hold of
me," says the small boy, shaking himself loose from Jasper's touch, and
backing. "I'll smash your eye if you don't look out!"
"What has the man done to you?"
"He won't go home."
"What is that to you?"
"He gives me a 'apenny to pelt him home if I ketches him out too late,"
says the boy. And then chants, like a little savage, half stumbling, and
half dancing, among the rags and laces of his dilapidated boots,----
_Widdy widdy wen!
I--ke--ches--'im out--ar--ter ten,
Widdy widdy wy!
Then--'E--don't--go--then--I shy,
Widdy widdy Wakecock warning!_
--with a sweeping emphasis on the last word, and one more shot at Durdles.
The bit of doggerel is evidently a sign which Durdles understands to mean
either that he must prove himself able to stand clear of the shots, or
betake himself immediately homeward, but he does not stir.
John Jasper crosses over to the railing where the Stony One is still
profoundly meditating.
"Do you know this thing, this child?" he asks.
"Deputy," says Durdles, with a nod.
"Is that its--his--name?"
"Deputy," assents Durdles, whereupon the small boy feels called upon to
speak for himself.
"I'm man-servant up at the Travellers Twopenny in Gas Works Garding," he
explains. "All us man-servants at Travellers Lodgings is named Deputy, but
I never pleads to no name, mind yer. When they says to me in the Lockup,
'What's your name?' I says to 'em 'find out.' Likewise when they says,
'What's your religion?' I says, 'find out'!" After delivering himself of
this speech, he withdraws into the road and taking aim, he resumes:----
_Widdy widdy wen!
I--ket--ches--'im--out--ar--ter--_
"Hold your hand!" cries Jasper, "and don't throw while I stand so near
him, or I'll kill you! Come Durdles, let me walk home with you to-night.
Shall I carry your bundle?"
"Not on any account," replies Durdles, adjusting it, and continuing to
talk in a rambling way, as he and Jasper walk on together.
"This creature, Deputy, is behind us," says Jasper, looking back. "Is he
to follow us?"
The relations between Durdles and Deputy seem to be of a capricious kind,
for on Durdles turning to look at the boy, Deputy makes a wide circuit
into the road and stands on the defensive.
"You never cried Widdy Warning before you begun tonight," cries Durdles,
unexpectedly reminded of, or imagining an injury.
"Yer lie; I did," says Deputy, in his only polite form of contradiction,
whereupon Durdles turns back again and forgets the offence as unexpectedly
as he had recalled it, and says to Jasper, in reference to Deputy.
"Own brother, sir, to Peter, the Wild Boy! But I gave him an object in
life."
"At which he takes aim?" Mr. Jasper suggests.
"That is it, sir," returns Durdles; "at which he takes aim. I took him in
hand and gave him an object. What was he before? A destroyer. What work
did he do? Nothing but destruction. What did he earn by it? Short terms in
Cloisterham jail. Not a person, not a piece of property, not a winder, not
a horse, nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a fowl, nor a pig, but that
he stoned for want of an enlightened object. I put that enlightened object
before him, and now he can turn his honest halfpenny by the three pennorth
a week."
"I wonder he has no competitors."
"He has plenty, Mr. Jasper, but he stones 'em all away."
"He still keeps behind us," repeats Jasper, looking back, "is he to follow
us?"
"We can't help going round by the Travellers Twopenny, if we go the short
way, which is the back way," Durdles answers, "and we'll drop him there."
So they go on; Deputy attentive to every movement of the Stony One, until
at length nearly at their destination Durdles whistles, and
calls--"Holloa, you Deputy!"
"Widdy!" is Deputy's shrill response, standing off again.
"Catch that ha'penny. And don't let me see any more of you to-night, after
we come to the Travellers Twopenny."
"Warning!" returns Deputy, having caught the halfpenny, and appearing by
this mystic word to express his assent to the arrangement, then off he
darts.
Such was the occupation of the small boy, Deputy, night after night, week
after week, month after month, during the year when we catch a glimpse of
him, and it is reasonable to suppose that the remainder of his life, after
we lose sight of him was spent, in making a cock-shy of everything that
came in his way, whether Durdles or inanimate objects. When he had nothing
living to stone, I believe that he used to stone the dead, through the
railing of the churchyard. He found this a relishing and piquing pursuit;
firstly, because their resting place is supposed to be sacred, and,
secondly, because the tall headstones are sufficiently like themselves to
justify the delicious fancy that they are hurt when hit.
We have nothing told us to support the theory that Deputy's life ever
changed in its routine of work, and I am sure you agree with me that there
were never an odder pair than the two: Durdles, the stone-mason, and
Deputy, his servant.
Perhaps you will be in Cloisterham at some not far distant time; if so,
wander out at night in the old graveyard, when the moon is up, and in
among the cathedral crypts, if you can gain access to them; and see if
from some shadowy corner of lane or building does not start out before you
the wraith of the hideous small boy, Deputy, eluding your touch, and
chanting as he dances in front of you the old song which was the badge of
his office as the keeper of Durdles,----
_Widdy widdy wen!
I--ket--ches--'im--out--ar--ter--ten,
Widdy widdy wy!
Then--'E--don't--go--then--I--shy,
Widdy widdy Wakecock Warning!_