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diff --git a/1394-h/1394-h.htm b/1394-h/1394-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4993bdc --- /dev/null +++ b/1394-h/1394-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1623 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Holly-Tree</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Holly-Tree, by Charles Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Holly-Tree, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Holly-Tree + + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 3, 2005 [eBook #1394] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLLY-TREE*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of “Christmas +Stories” by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>THE HOLLY-TREE—THREE BRANCHES</h1> +<h2>FIRST BRANCH—MYSELF</h2> +<p>I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful +man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody +ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man. This is +the secret which I have never breathed until now.</p> +<p>I might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable +places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called +upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty +of, solely because I am by original constitution and character a bashful +man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the +object before me.</p> +<p>That object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries +in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man +and beast I was once snowed up.</p> +<p>It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela +Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that +she preferred my bosom friend. From our school-days I had freely +admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though +I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, +and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances +that I resolved to go to America—on my way to the Devil.</p> +<p>Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving +to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and +forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post +when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall,—I +say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I +could with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held +dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.</p> +<p>The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers +for ever, at five o’clock in the morning. I had shaved by +candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that +general all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which I have +usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances.</p> +<p>How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came +out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east +wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped +houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early +stragglers, trotting to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable +light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were +open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air +was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and +which lashed my face like a steel whip.</p> +<p>It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. +The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, +weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the +intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, +and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not +name) on the farther borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to +me by my having first seen Angela at a farmhouse in that place, and +my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of +it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that, to avoid +being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable +by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, +in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business, of which she should +know all particulars by-and-by—took me unexpectedly away from +her for a week or ten days.</p> +<p>There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there +were stage-coaches; which I occasionally find myself, in common with +some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded +as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on +the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was to get into +a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock +at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But when one of +our Temple watchmen, who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for +me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past +been floating in the river, having closed up in the night, and made +a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to +ask myself the question, whether the box-seat would not be likely to +put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness. I was heart-broken, +it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen +to death.</p> +<p>When I got up to the Peacock,—where I found everybody drinking +hot purl, in self-preservation,—I asked if there were an inside +seat to spare. I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the +only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great +inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly +well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncommonly +good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, they built me +up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous +appearance, I began my journey.</p> +<p>It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, +pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and +then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their +fires; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarified air; and +we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have +ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, +everything seemed to have grown old and gray. The roads, the trees, +thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers’ +yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside +inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close +shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires inside, and children +(even turnpike people have children, and seem to like them) rubbed the +frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their +bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. +I don’t know when the snow begin to set in; but I know that we +were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, “That +the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day.” +Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick.</p> +<p>The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely traveller +does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking,—particularly +after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. I was always +bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. +The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus Auld Lang Syne, without +a moment’s intermission. They kept the time and tune with +the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of +the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While +we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down +the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid +consolation into themselves without being any the worse for it, that +I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white +casks standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, +and we got them up,—which was the pleasantest variety <i>I</i> +had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it +snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long we went on +in this manner. Thus we came round the clock, upon the Great North +Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it +snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.</p> +<p>I forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where we +ought to have been; but I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, +and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was +becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road +and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedge-rows +to guide us, we went crunching on over an unbroken surface of ghastly +white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole +hillside. Still the coachman and guard—who kept together +on the box, always in council, and looking well about them—made +out the track with astonishing sagacity.</p> +<p>When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large +drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches +and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a +town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked +with snow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole +place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was +a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us +to the town’s end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging +our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude to +which they at last dismissed us was a snowy Sahara. One would +have thought this enough: notwithstanding which, I pledge my word that +it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.</p> +<p>We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of +towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes +of birds. At nine o’clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, +a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with +a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy +state. I found that we were going to change.</p> +<p>They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became +as white as King Lear’s in a single minute, “What Inn is +this?”</p> +<p>“The Holly-Tree, sir,” said he.</p> +<p>“Upon my word, I believe,” said I, apologetically, to +the guard and coachman, “that I must stop here.”</p> +<p>Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, +and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the +wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant +to go on. The coachman had already replied, “Yes, he’d +take her through it,”—meaning by Her the coach,—“if +so be as George would stand by him.” George was the guard, +and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So the helpers +were already getting the horses out.</p> +<p>My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement +without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement +being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately +bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it +was, it received the approval even of the guard and coachman. +Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks +from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for’ard +by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and +where was the good of a gentleman being froze—ah, let alone buried +alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke +at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau +got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard +and coachman; wished them good-night and a prosperous journey; and, +a little ashamed of myself, after all, for leaving them to fight it +out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree +up-stairs.</p> +<p>I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they +showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would +have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications +of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the +wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, +and they told me there was no smaller room.</p> +<p>They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought +a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose) engaged +in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me roasting whole +before an immense fire.</p> +<p>My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase at +the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to +a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. +It was the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the +furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candle-sticks, +was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, +if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; +if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a +new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad +glass—what I may call a wavy glass—above it, which, when +I stood up, just showed me my anterior phrenological developments,—and +these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. +If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above +and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, +the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and +creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms.</p> +<p>I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some +other men of similar character in <i>themselves</i>; therefore I am +emboldened to mention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place +but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished +my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the +waiter in detail my arrangements for departure in the morning. +Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, +if needful, even four.</p> +<p>Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In +cases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than +ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. +What had <i>I</i> to do with Gretna Green? I was not going <i>that</i> +way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked in my bitterness.</p> +<p>In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed +all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of +that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been +cut out by labourers from the market-town. When they might cut +their way to the Holly-Tree nobody could tell me.</p> +<p>It was now Christmas-eve. I should have had a dismal Christmas-time +of it anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter; still, +being snowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained +for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed +to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I +should have liked it—very much) than I could have asked them to +present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real +bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful +men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides +being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a +delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting +to them.</p> +<p>Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all +asked what books there were in the house. The waiter brought me +a <i>Book of Roads</i>, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-Book, +terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, +an odd volume of <i>Peregrine Pickle</i>, and the <i>Sentimental Journey</i>. +I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again, +then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went +entirely through the jokes,—in which I found a fund of melancholy +adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all +the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing +in them but stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and +a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this +supply hold out until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being +then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in considering +what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which +I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would +endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it +lasted me. I stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one +side of the screen,—not daring to go far, for I knew the wind +was waiting to make a rush at me, I could hear it growling,—and +began.</p> +<p>My first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery; consequently +I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at +the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a +green gown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by +the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, +until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert +them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch +of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the +bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this +wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife +in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for +which purpose he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling; +and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he +was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to +sleep without being heard to mutter, “Too much pepper!” +which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. +I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another +of the same period, whose profession was originally house-breaking; +in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one +night, as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and +lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all +answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). +After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married +to the landlord of a country Inn; which landlord had this remarkable +characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would +on any consideration take it off. At last, one night, when he +was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap +on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which she +sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had +married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately +heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was taken +to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty +on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had +a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to +the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within +her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon <i>Raymond and Agnes, +or the Bleeding Nun</i>. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, +who was immensely rich,—which my father was not; and immensely +tall,—which my father was not. It was always a point with +this Ghoul to present my clearest relations and friends to my youthful +mind under circumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law +was riding once through a forest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent +horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland +dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an +Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could +have a bed there. She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, +and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While +he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, “Blood, +blood! Wipe up the blood!” Upon which one of the dark +men wrung the parrot’s neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, +and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After +eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich, tall brother-in-law +went up to bed; but he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog +in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. +He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, +just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. +He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog +came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in the +corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, +and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment +the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink +in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with +a dagger that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, +a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this +adventure, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with +terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within +me for some quarter of an hour.</p> +<p>These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree +hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book +with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval +form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments +four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated,—coloured +with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan’s +complexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, +and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. +Then I remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller’s +bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how +he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation that +he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, +but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how +the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had +made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood +with my back to it as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the +darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and +creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the +Fair Imogene.</p> +<p>There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which +had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took +it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where +we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. +It had an ecclesiastical sign,—the Mitre,—and a bar that +seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. +I loved the landlord’s youngest daughter to distraction,—but +let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my +rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. +And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year +where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet.</p> +<p>“To be continued to-morrow,” said I, when I took my candle +to go to bed. But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train +of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted +carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting +from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done +some years before, I repeated in my sleep a curious experience I had +really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in +the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and +dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from +home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes as still living; sometimes +as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always as being +beautiful, placid, and happy, never in association with any approach +to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland +place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from +my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, +I sat down by my fire to write a letter. I had always, until that +hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the +dear lost one. But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the circumstance, +and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject +of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that +remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision +in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it +since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or +seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing +with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up +to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked +touching the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards +it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and +a voice in the deep stillness of the night calling on all good Christians +to pray for the souls of the dead; it being All Souls’ Eve.</p> +<p>To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was +freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast +cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire +getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, +resumed my Inn remembrances.</p> +<p>That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the +days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. +It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that +rattled my lattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge. +There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally preserved +Druid I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white +hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off; who claimed to +have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, +on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had +been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in +him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make +the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three +times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said, “I dare!” +would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He +pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar +with the dodo), in manner following: He was out upon the plain at the +close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before +him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to +be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what +he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. +Having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, +and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he +pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he +discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated into +a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture +him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but the bustard, +who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw +him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. This +weird main, at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker +or an enthusiast or a robber; but I awoke one night to find him in the +dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. +I paid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible +precipitation.</p> +<p>That was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little +Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely +place, in a village of one narrow zigzag street, among mountains, and +you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules +and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase +to the rooms; which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or +papering,—like rough packing-cases. Outside there was nothing +but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured +steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. +A young man belonging to this Inn had disappeared eight weeks before +(it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered +love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in +the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which +he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion +and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the +morning, and they said, “Louis, where is Henri?” They +looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside +this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the +village, a stack of firewood; but the stack belonging to the Inn was +higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house, +and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were +looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock of +the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of +this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, +until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went +on,—six weeks,—and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting +his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing +the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that +Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible +Bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her +goître at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough +billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing +on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon the woman, +with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, +and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon +was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, +and crying, “Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church +bell! Here is the body!” I saw the murderer that day, +and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him +now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild +eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by +the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal,—the +dullest animal in the stables,—with a stupid head, and a lumpish +face devoid of any trace of insensibility, who had been, within the +knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys +belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting +a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next +day, like a sulky wretch who couldn’t be troubled any more, now +that they had got hold of him, and meant to make an end of him. +I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. +In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and +I came upon this murderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, +on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that instant, a great +sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade) swept +round him like a gust of wind or fire, and there was no such creature +in the world. My wonder was, not that he was so suddenly dispatched, +but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards +of that tremendous sickle.</p> +<p>That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the +honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where +one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so +accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger’s +hind legs and tail, while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks, and the +bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a +leopard. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all +called Mont Blanc Mount Blank,—except one good-humoured gentleman, +of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it +that he spoke of it familiarly as “Blank;” observing, at +breakfast, “Blank looks pretty tall this morning;” or considerably +doubting in the courtyard in the evening, whether there warn’t +some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top +of Blank in a couple of hours from first start—now!</p> +<p>Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where +I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire +pie, like a fort,—an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the +waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal +to put the pie on the table. After some days I tried to hint, +in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for +example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates +and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, +as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned +out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful +whether I was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my +health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary +pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument +of that name in a powerful orchestra. Human provision could not +have foreseen the result—but the waiter mended the pie. +With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle +in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled.</p> +<p>The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland +expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. +Here I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter-quarters +once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn.</p> +<p>It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners’ +Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions +presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing +before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, +on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honour of leading one +of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman, on perusal +of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces +hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into +the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady +or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the +extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor’s +toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred +people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with +his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect +on his conductor’s part. With such little drawbacks on my +usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable +wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, +and nobody could be received but the post-horse,—though to get +rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers +and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next +day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright +would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, +an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor +of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We +joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where +we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But +the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chair-maker, +and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without +bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches. +Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, +and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of +his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up +into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken +out of my frame, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into +a tub, five times by the taper’s light during the eggs and bacon.</p> +<p>The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. +I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until +I was dug out. I might be a week here,—weeks!</p> +<p>There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn +I once passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the Welsh border. +In a large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been a suicide committed +by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in +the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but +the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room +empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story +ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, +from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning +with an impression that he smelt Laudanum, and that his mind always +turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he +might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with +any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the +landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it,—bed, +hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story) +now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The +occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would +come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had +had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, +would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of which, as he +very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord +suggested “Poison,” the traveller started, and cried, “Yes!” +He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any +more of the dream.</p> +<p>This reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me; with +the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards +(venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while +I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, +with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout +from the loch, the whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly +at hand) the Athol brose. Once was I coming south from the Scottish +Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the +bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification +see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect +for the horses; which horses were away picking up their own living, +and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of +the loch-trout, I was taken by quick association to the Anglers’ +Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling by +lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with +the greatest perseverance; which I have generally found to be as effectual +towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science), +and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those +inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the +church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the pearless Emma with +the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a +natural grace that would have converted Blue-Beard. Casting my +eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals +the pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns +which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, +and which were such monuments of British submission to rapacity and +extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him +walk from Basingstoke, or even Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, +and moralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; +unsettled labourers and wanderers bivouacking in the outhouses; grass +growing in the yards; the rooms, where erst so many hundred beds of +down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteenpence a week; +a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, +burning coach-house gates for firewood, having one of its two windows +bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; +a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway. +What could I next see in my fire so naturally as the new railway-house +of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular +on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder +but new mortar, and no business doing beyond a conceited affectation +of luggage in the hall? Then I came to the Inns of Paris, with +the pretty apartment of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five +waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without +influencing anybody’s mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, +considering the price. Next to the provincial Inns of France, +with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells +jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all +descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at +the precise minute when, by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or +too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to +the lesser roadside Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the +house (not in wear) are always lying in your anteroom; where the mosquitoes +make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it +blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can’t: +where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief +dumpling, for want of a teapot. So to the old palace Inns and +old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; +with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you may look from +among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven; with their +stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths +of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that +have no appearance of reality or possibility. So to the close +little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and +their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So to the immense +fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he +skims the corner; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little +bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay +there); and the great bell of St. Mark’s Cathedral tolling midnight. +Next I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where +your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin +for everybody else’s getting up; and where, in the table-d’hôte +room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it +at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, +entirely dressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, +<i>will</i> remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the +river that flows, and the grape that grows, and Rhine wine that beguiles, +and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink +drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as +a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are +soddened down to the same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by +the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, +at awfully unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of +sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition +through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, +I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds +apiece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner +every day. Again I stood in the bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening +cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again I listened to my friend +the General,—whom I had known for five minutes, in the course +of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who +again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had +made me brother to twenty-two civilians,—again, I say, I listened +to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the resources of the +establishment, as to gentlemen’s morning-room, sir; ladies’ +morning-room, sir; gentlemen’s evening-room, sir; ladies’ +evening-room, sir; ladies’ and gentlemen’s evening reuniting-room, +sir; music-room, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, +sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months +from the first clearing off of the old encumbrances on the plot, at +a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as +to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, +and the more dollarous the establishment was, the less desirable it +was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or +cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends +the Majors, Colonels, and civilians all; full well knowing that, whatever +little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong +to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people.</p> +<p>I had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude out +of my mind; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. +What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremity +was I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, +I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment +by training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the +future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut +through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and +beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the +Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, +and the sinuous drapery.</p> +<p>A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances +I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held +it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which +withheld me from the landlord’s table and the company I might +find there, as to call up the Boots, and ask him to take a chair,—and +something in a liquid form,—and talk to me? I could, I would, +I did.</p> +<h2>SECOND BRANCH—THE BOOTS</h2> +<p>Where had he been in his time? he repeated, when I asked him the +question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he +been? Bless you, he had been everything you could mention a’most!</p> +<p>Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say +so, he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what +had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, +to tell what he hadn’t seen than what he had. Ah! +A deal, it would.</p> +<p>What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn’t +know. He couldn’t momently name what was the curiousest +thing he had seen—unless it was a Unicorn, and he see <i>him</i> +once at a Fair. But supposing a young gentleman not eight year +old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think +<i>that</i> a queer start? Certainly. Then that was a start +as he himself had had his blessed eyes on, and he had cleaned the shoes +they run away in—and they was so little that he couldn’t +get his hand into ’em.</p> +<p>Master Harry Walmers’ father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, +down away by Shooter’s Hill there, six or seven miles from Lunnon. +He was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up +when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote +poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and +he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon +proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn’t spoil +him neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and +a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though +he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted +to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of +hearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about +Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left +but the name, and that; still he kept the command over the child, and +the child <i>was</i> a child, and it’s to be wished more of ’em +was!</p> +<p>How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being under-gardener. +Of course he couldn’t be under-gardener, and be always about, +in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, +and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted +with the ways of the family. Even supposing Master Harry hadn’t +come to him one morning early, and said, “Cobbs, how should you +spell Norah, if you was asked?” and then began cutting it in print +all over the fence.</p> +<p>He couldn’t say he had taken particular notice of children +before that; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a going +about the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the +boy! Bless your soul, he’d have throwed off his little hat, +and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if +they had happened to meet one, and she had been frightened of him. +One day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the +gravel, and says, speaking up, “Cobbs,” he says, “I +like <i>you</i>.” “Do you, sir? I’m proud +to hear it.” “Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like +you, do you think, Cobbs?” “Don’t know, Master +Harry, I am sure.” “Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.” +“Indeed, sir? That’s very gratifying.” +“Gratifying, Cobbs? It’s better than millions of the +brightest diamonds to be liked by Norah.” “Certainly, +sir.” “You’re going away, ain’t you, Cobbs?” +“Yes, sir.” “Would you like another situation, +Cobbs?” “Well, sir, I shouldn’t object, if it +was a good Inn.” “Then, Cobbs,” says he, “you +shall be our Head Gardener when we are married.” And he +tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away.</p> +<p>Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal +to a play, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, +their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about +the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds +believed they was birds, and kept up with ’em, singing to please +’em. Sometimes they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and +would sit there with their arms round one another’s necks, and +their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince and the Dragon, +and the good and bad enchanters, and the king’s fair daughter. +Sometimes he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, +keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. +Once he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, “Adorable +Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I’ll jump +in head-foremost.” And Boots made no question he would have +done it if she hadn’t complied. On the whole, Boots said +it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself—only +he didn’t exactly know who with.</p> +<p>“Cobbs,” said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was +watering the flowers, “I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, +to my grandmamma’s at York.”</p> +<p>“Are you indeed, sir? I hope you’ll have a pleasant +time. I am going into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here.”</p> +<p>“Are you going to your grandmamma’s, Cobbs?”</p> +<p>“No, sir. I haven’t got such a thing.”</p> +<p>“Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?”</p> +<p>“No, sir.”</p> +<p>The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while, +and then said, “I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs,—Norah’s +going.”</p> +<p>“You’ll be all right then, sir,” says Cobbs, “with +your beautiful sweetheart by your side.”</p> +<p>“Cobbs,” returned the boy, flushing, “I never let +anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them.”</p> +<p>“It wasn’t a joke, sir,” says Cobbs, with humility,—“wasn’t +so meant.”</p> +<p>“I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and +you’re going to live with us.—Cobbs!”</p> +<p>“Sir.”</p> +<p>“What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there?”</p> +<p>“I couldn’t so much as make a guess, sir.”</p> +<p>“A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.”</p> +<p>“Whew!” says Cobbs, “that’s a spanking sum +of money, Master Harry.”</p> +<p>“A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as +that,—couldn’t a person, Cobbs?”</p> +<p>“I believe you, sir!”</p> +<p>“Cobbs,” said the boy, “I’ll tell you a secret. +At Norah’s house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending +to laugh at our being engaged,—pretending to make game of it, +Cobbs!”</p> +<p>“Such, sir,” says Cobbs, “is the depravity of human +natur.”</p> +<p>The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes +with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with, “Good-night, +Cobbs. I’m going in.”</p> +<p>If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a-going to leave +that place just at that present time, well, he couldn’t rightly +answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now +if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger +then, and he wanted change. That’s what he wanted,—change. +Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he gave him notice of his intentions +to leave, “Cobbs,” he says, “have you anythink to +complain of? I make the inquiry because if I find that any of +my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right +if I can.” “No, sir,” says Cobbs; “thanking +you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be +anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I’m a-going to seek my +fortun’.” “O, indeed, Cobbs!” he says; +“I hope you may find it.” And Boots could assure me—which +he did, touching his hair with his bootjack, as a salute in the way +of his present calling—that he hadn’t found it yet.</p> +<p>Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and +Master Harry, he went down to the old lady’s at York, which old +lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had +had any), she was so wrapped up in him. What does that Infant +do,—for Infant you may call him and be within the mark,—but +cut away from that old lady’s with his Norah, on a expedition +to go to Gretna Green and be married!</p> +<p>Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several +times since to better himself, but always come back through one thing +or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out +of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor, +“I don’t quite make out these little passengers, but the +young gentleman’s words was, that they was to be brought here.” +The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something +for himself; says to our Governor, “We’re to stop here to-night, +please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required. +Chops and cherry-pudding for two!” and tucks her, in her sky-blue +mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass.</p> +<p>Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment +was, when these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched +into the Angel,—much more so, when he, who had seen them without +their seeing him, give the Governor his views of the expedition they +was upon. “Cobbs,” says the Governor, “if this +is so, I must set off myself to York, and quiet their friends’ +minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon ’em, and +humour ’em, till I come back. But before I take these measures, +Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinion +is correct.” “Sir, to you,” says Cobbs, “that +shall be done directly.”</p> +<p>So Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry +on a e-normous sofa,—immense at any time, but looking like the +Great Bed of Ware, compared with him,—a drying the eyes of Miss +Norah with his pocket-hankecher. Their little legs was entirely +off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots to +express to me how small them children looked.</p> +<p>“It’s Cobbs! It’s Cobbs!” cries Master +Harry, and comes running to him, and catching hold of his hand. +Miss Norah comes running to him on t’other side and catching hold +of his t’other hand, and they both jump for joy.</p> +<p>“I see you a getting out, sir,” says Cobbs. “I +thought it was you. I thought I couldn’t be mistaken in +your height and figure. What’s the object of your journey, +sir?—Matrimonial?”</p> +<p>“We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,” +returned the boy. “We have run away on purpose. Norah +has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she’ll be happy, now +we have found you to be our friend.”</p> +<p>“Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,” says Cobbs, “for +your good opinion. <i>Did</i> you bring any luggage with you, +sir?”</p> +<p>If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon +it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half +of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush,—seemingly +a doll’s. The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards +of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up +surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it.</p> +<p>“What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?” says +Cobbs.</p> +<p>“To go on,” replied the boy,—which the courage +of that boy was something wonderful!—“in the morning, and +be married to-morrow.”</p> +<p>“Just so, sir,” says Cobbs. “Would it meet +your views, sir, if I was to accompany you?”</p> +<p>When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, +“Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!”</p> +<p>“Well, sir,” says Cobbs. “If you will excuse +my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would +be this. I’m acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in +a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, +Junior, (myself driving, if you approved,) to the end of your journey +in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, +that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to +wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As +to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running +at all short, that don’t signify; because I’m a part proprietor +of this inn, and it could stand over.”</p> +<p>Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for +joy again, and called him “Good Cobbs!” and “Dear +Cobbs!” and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight +of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving +’em that ever was born.</p> +<p>“Is there anything you want just at present, sir?” says +Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself.</p> +<p>“We should like some cakes after dinner,” answered Master +Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at +him, “and two apples,—and jam. With dinner we should +like to have toast-and-water. But Norah has always been accustomed +to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I.”</p> +<p>“It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,” says Cobbs; and +away he went.</p> +<p>Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking +as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen +rounds with the Governor than have combined with him; and that he wished +with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies +could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. +However, as it couldn’t be, he went into the Governor’s +plans, and the Governor set off for York in half an hour.</p> +<p>The way in which the women of that house—without exception—every +one of ’em—married <i>and</i> single—took to that +boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It +was as much as he could do to keep ’em from dashing into the room +and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk +of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was +seven deep at the keyhole. They was out of their minds about him +and his bold spirit.</p> +<p>In the evening, Boots went into the room to see how the runaway couple +was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting +the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, +very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?” says Cobbs.</p> +<p>“Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from +home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think +you could bring a biffin, please?”</p> +<p>“I ask your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs. “What +was it you—?”</p> +<p>“I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She +is very fond of them.”</p> +<p>Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and when he +brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with +a spoon, and took a little himself; the lady being heavy with sleep, +and rather cross. “What should you think, sir,” says +Cobbs, “of a chamber candlestick?” The gentleman approved; +the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her +sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the +gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, +where Boots softly locked him up.</p> +<p>Boots couldn’t but feel with increased acuteness what a base +deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered +sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight) about +the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don’t +mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and +think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. +Howsomever, he went on a lying like a Trojan about the pony. He +told ’em that it did so unfortunately happen that the pony was +half clipped, you see, and that he couldn’t be taken out in that +state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But that he’d +be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning +at eight o’clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots’s +view of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs. +Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn’t +had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn’t seem +quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her +out. But nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his +breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own +father.</p> +<p>After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers,—at +least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place, all on horseback. +In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell,—it was +surprising how that there boy did carry on,—and said, in a sprightly +way, “Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” says Cobbs. “There’s Love +Lane.”</p> +<p>“Get out with you, Cobbs!”—that was that there +boy’s expression,—“you’re joking.”</p> +<p>“Begging your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs, “there +really is Love Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall +I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior.”</p> +<p>“Norah, dear,” said Master Harry, “this is curious. +We really ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest +darling, and we will go there with Cobbs.”</p> +<p>Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when +that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that +they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year +as head-gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to ’em. +Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened +and swallowed him up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking +at him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation +as well as he could, and he took ’em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, +and there Master Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, +a getting out a water-lily for her,—but nothing daunted that boy. +Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to +’em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down +on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, +and fell asleep.</p> +<p>Boots don’t know—perhaps I do,—but never mind, +it don’t signify either way—why it made a man fit to make +a fool of himself to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the +clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep +as they done when they was awake. But, Lord! when you come to +think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever +since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you +are, and how it’s always either Yesterday with you, or else To-morrow, +and never To-day, that’s where it is!</p> +<p>Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty +clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior’s, temper +was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she +said he “teased her so;” and when he says, “Norah, +my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?” she tells him, “Yes; +and I want to go home!”</p> +<p>A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers +up a little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, +to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning +of herself to currants. However, Master Harry, he kept up, and +his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very +sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went +off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated.</p> +<p>About eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a chaise, +along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused +and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, “We are +much indebted to you, ma’am, for your kind care of our little +children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray, ma’am, +where is my boy?” Our missis says, “Cobbs has the +dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty!” Then +he says to Cobbs, “Ah, Cobbs, I am glad to see <i>you</i>! +I understood you was here!” And Cobbs says, “Yes, +sir. Your most obedient, sir.”</p> +<p>I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but Boots assures +me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. “I +beg your pardon, sir,” says he, while unlocking the door; “I +hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is +a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour.” And +Boots signifies to me, that, if the fine boy’s father had contradicted +him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should +have “fetched him a crack,” and taken the consequences.</p> +<p>But Mr. Walmers only says, “No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. +Thank you!” And, the door being opened, goes in.</p> +<p>Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go +up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. +Then he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like +it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes +the little shoulder.</p> +<p>“Harry, my dear boy! Harry!”</p> +<p>Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs too. +Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether +he has brought him into trouble.</p> +<p>“I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself +and come home.”</p> +<p>“Yes, pa.”</p> +<p>Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to +swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he +stands, at last, a looking at his father: his father standing a looking +at him, the quiet image of him.</p> +<p>“Please may I”—the spirit of that little creatur, +and the way he kept his rising tears down!—“please, dear +pa—may I—kiss Norah before I go?”</p> +<p>“You may, my child.”</p> +<p>So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with +the candle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady +is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is +fast asleep. There the father lifts the child up to the pillow, +and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face +of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws +it to him,—a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping +through the door, that one of them calls out, “It’s a shame +to part ’em!” But this chambermaid was always, as +Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm +in that girl. Far from it.</p> +<p>Finally, Boots says, that’s all about it. Mr. Walmers +drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry’s hand. +The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, that was never to be +(she married a Captain long afterwards, and died in India), went off +next day. In conclusion, Boots put it to me whether I hold with +him in two opinions: firstly, that there are not many couples on their +way to be married who are half as innocent of guile as those two children; +secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples +on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time, and +brought back separately.</p> +<h2>THIRD BRANCH—THE BILL</h2> +<p>I had been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly +on my hands, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but +for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table.</p> +<p>The road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and the +document in question was my bill. It testified emphatically to +my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among the sheltering +branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights.</p> +<p>I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself, +finding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion +of my task. I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a +chaise to be at the door, “at eight o’clock to-morrow evening.” +It was eight o’clock to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling +writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats +and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travelling +on to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging +plentifully about the farmhouse where I had first seen Angela. +What I had to do was to get across to Liverpool by the shortest open +road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. It was quite +enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do it in.</p> +<p>I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends—almost, for +the time being, of my bashfulness too—and was standing for half +a minute at the Inn door watching the ostler as he took another turn +at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps +coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with +snow that no wheels were audible; but all of us who were standing at +the Inn door saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between +the walls of snow that had been heaped up on either side of the track. +The chambermaid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to +the ostler, “Tom, this is a Gretna job!” The ostler, +knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage, or anything in +that direction, rushed up the yard bawling, “Next four out!” +and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion.</p> +<p>I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and +was beloved; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained +at the Inn door when the fugitives drove up. A bright-eyed fellow, +muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew +me. He turned to apologise, and, by heaven, it was Edwin!</p> +<p>“Charley!” said he, recoiling. “Gracious +powers, what do you do here?”</p> +<p>“Edwin,” said I, recoiling, “gracious powers, what +do <i>you</i> do here?” I struck my forehead as I said it, +and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes.</p> +<p>He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire +in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses +were putting to, and, shutting the door, said:</p> +<p>“Charley, forgive me!”</p> +<p>“Edwin!” I returned. “Was this well? +When I loved her so dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so +long!” I could say no more.</p> +<p>He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, +that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart.</p> +<p>I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked +at him. “My dear, dear Charley,” said he, “don’t +think ill of me, I beseech you! I know you have a right to my +utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. +I abhor secrecy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But +I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake.”</p> +<p>He and his dear girl! It steeled me.</p> +<p>“You have observed it for my sake, sir?” said I, wondering +how his frank face could face it out so.</p> +<p>“Yes!—and Angela’s,” said he.</p> +<p>I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring, +humming-top. “Explain yourself,” said I, holding on +by one hand to an arm-chair.</p> +<p>“Dear old darling Charley!” returned Edwin, in his cordial +manner, “consider! When you were going on so happily with +Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making +you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) +to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should +be able honourably to say, ‘He never took counsel with me, never +told me, never breathed a word of it.’ If Angela suspected +it, and showed me all the favour and support she could—God bless +her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!—I couldn’t +help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than +we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, +for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!”</p> +<p>Emmeline was Angela’s cousin. Lived with her. Had +been brought up with her. Was her father’s ward. Had +property.</p> +<p>“Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!” said I, embracing +him with the greatest affection.</p> +<p>“My good fellow!” said he, “do you suppose I should +be going to Gretna Green without her?”</p> +<p>I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in +my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white +fur, like the snowy landscape: but was warm, and young, and lovely. +I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound +note apiece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way +myself as hard as I could pelt.</p> +<p>I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight +back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this +time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust +and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, +and our eight children and their seven—I mean Edwin and Emmeline’s, +whose oldest girl is old enough now to wear white for herself, and to +look very like her mother in it—come to read these pages, as of +course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. +Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by +idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, +and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by +whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse +for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. +And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep +into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried +by the birds of Heaven all over the world!</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLLY-TREE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1394-h.htm or 1394-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/1394 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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