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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1394-h.zip b/1394-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee520ae --- /dev/null +++ b/1394-h.zip 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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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*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of "Christmas Stories" +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE HOLLY-TREE--THREE BRANCHES + + +FIRST BRANCH--MYSELF + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +"The Holly-Tree, sir," said he. + +"Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard and +coachman, "that I must stop here." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other +men of similar character in _themselves_; 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. + +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_ +to do with Gretna Green? I was not going _that_ way to the Devil, but by +the American route, I remarked in my bitterness. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Book of +Roads_, 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 +_Peregrine Pickle_, and the _Sentimental Journey_. 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. + +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 _Raymond and Agnes, or the +Bleeding Nun_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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 goitre 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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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'hote 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, _will_ +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +SECOND BRANCH--THE BOOTS + + +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! + +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. + +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 _him_ 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 _that_ 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. + +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 _was_ a child, and it's to be +wished more of 'em was! + +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. + +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 _you_." "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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am going +into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here." + +"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?" + +"No, sir. I haven't got such a thing." + +"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?" + +"No, sir." + +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." + +"You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, "with your beautiful +sweetheart by your side." + +"Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing, "I never let anybody joke about it, +when I can prevent them." + +"It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs, with humility,--"wasn't so meant." + +"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going +to live with us.--Cobbs!" + +"Sir." + +"What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there?" + +"I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." + +"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." + +"Whew!" says Cobbs, "that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry." + +"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that,--couldn't +a person, Cobbs?" + +"I believe you, sir!" + +"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!" + +"Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." + +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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss," says Cobbs, "for your good +opinion. _Did_ you bring any luggage with you, sir?" + +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. + +"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?" says Cobbs. + +"To go on," replied the boy,--which the courage of that boy was something +wonderful!--"in the morning, and be married to-morrow." + +"Just so, sir," says Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to +accompany you?" + +When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, "Oh, +yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!" + +"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." + +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. + +"Is there anything you want just at present, sir?" says Cobbs, mortally +ashamed of himself. + +"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." + +"It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs; and away he went. + +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. + +The way in which the women of that house--without exception--every one of +'em--married _and_ 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. + +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. + +"Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?" says Cobbs. + +"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?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. "What was it you--?" + +"I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of +them." + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +"Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love Lane." + +"Get out with you, Cobbs!"--that was that there boy's expression,--"you're +joking." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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!" + +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. + +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 _you_! I +understood you was here!" And Cobbs says, "Yes, sir. Your most +obedient, sir." + +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. + +But Mr. Walmers only says, "No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!" +And, the door being opened, goes in. + +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. + +"Harry, my dear boy! Harry!" + +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. + +"I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come +home." + +"Yes, pa." + +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. + +"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?" + +"You may, my child." + +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. + +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. + + + + +THIRD BRANCH--THE BILL + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +"Charley!" said he, recoiling. "Gracious powers, what do you do here?" + +"Edwin," said I, recoiling, "gracious powers, what do _you_ do here?" I +struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light +seemed to shoot before my eyes. + +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: + +"Charley, forgive me!" + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +He and his dear girl! It steeled me. + +"You have observed it for my sake, sir?" said I, wondering how his frank +face could face it out so. + +"Yes!--and Angela's," said he. + +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. + +"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!" + +Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with +her. Was her father's ward. Had property. + +"Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!" said I, embracing him with +the greatest affection. + +"My good fellow!" said he, "do you suppose I should be going to Gretna +Green without her?" + +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. + +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! + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLLY-TREE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1394.txt or 1394.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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 road- +side 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +"The Holly-Tree, sir," said he. + +"Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard and +coachman, "that I must stop here." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some +other men of similar character in themselves; 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. + +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 to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to the +Devil, but by the American route, I remarked in my bitterness. + +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. + +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. + +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 +Book of Roads, 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 Peregrine Pickle, and the Sentimental +Journey. 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. + +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 Raymond and Agnes, or the +Bleeding Nun. 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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 goitre 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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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'hote 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, will 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. + +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. + +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. + + + +SECOND BRANCH--THE BOOTS + + + +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! + +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. + +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 him 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 that 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. + +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 was a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em +was! + +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. + +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 you." "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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am +going into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here." + +"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?" + +"No, sir. I haven't got such a thing." + +"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?" + +"No, sir." + +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." + +"You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, "with your beautiful +sweetheart by your side." + +"Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing, "I never let anybody joke about +it, when I can prevent them." + +"It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs, with humility,--"wasn't so +meant." + +"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're +going to live with us.--Cobbs!" + +"Sir." + +"What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there?" + +"I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." + +"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." + +"Whew!" says Cobbs, "that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry." + +"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that,-- +couldn't a person, Cobbs?" + +"I believe you, sir!" + +"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!" + +"Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." + +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." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss," says Cobbs, "for your good +opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?" + +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. + +"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?" says Cobbs. + +"To go on," replied the boy,--which the courage of that boy was +something wonderful!--"in the morning, and be married to-morrow." + +"Just so, sir," says Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if I +was to accompany you?" + +When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, +"Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!" + +"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." + +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. + +"Is there anything you want just at present, sir?" says Cobbs, +mortally ashamed of himself. + +"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." + +"It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs; and away he went. + +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. + +The way in which the women of that house--without exception--every +one of 'em--married and 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. + +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. + +"Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?" says Cobbs. + +"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?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. "What was it you--?" + +"I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond +of them." + +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. + +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, over- +night) 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. + +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?" + +"Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love Lane." + +"Get out with you, Cobbs!"--that was that there boy's expression,-- +"you're joking." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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! + +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!" + +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. + +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 you! I understood you was here!" And Cobbs says, "Yes, sir. +Your most obedient, sir." + +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. + +But Mr. Walmers only says, "No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank +you!" And, the door being opened, goes in. + +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. + +"Harry, my dear boy! Harry!" + +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. + +"I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and +come home." + +"Yes, pa." + +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. + +"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?" + +"You may, my child." + +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. + +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. + + + +THIRD BRANCH--THE BILL + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +"Charley!" said he, recoiling. "Gracious powers, what do you do +here?" + +"Edwin," said I, recoiling, "gracious powers, what do you do here?" +I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of +light seemed to shoot before my eyes. + +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: + +"Charley, forgive me!" + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +He and his dear girl! It steeled me. + +"You have observed it for my sake, sir?" said I, wondering how his +frank face could face it out so. + +"Yes!--and Angela's," said he. + +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. + +"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!" + +Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up +with her. Was her father's ward. Had property. + +"Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!" said I, embracing him +with the greatest affection. + +"My good fellow!" said he, "do you suppose I should be going to +Gretna Green without her?" + +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. + +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! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText The Holly-Tree by Charles Dickens + diff --git a/old/hlytr10.zip b/old/hlytr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1bba4f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hlytr10.zip |