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diff --git a/old/mgjnc10.txt b/old/mgjnc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cc6674 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mgjnc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2656 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mugby Junction by Charles Dickens +#44 in our series by Charles Dickens + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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What place is this?" + +"Mugby Junction, sir." + +"A windy place!" + +"Yes, it mostly is, sir." + +"And looks comfortless indeed!" + +"Yes, it generally does, sir." + +"Is it a rainy night still?" + +"Pours, sir." + +"Open the door. I'll get out." + +"You'll have, sir," said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, +and looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his +lantern as the traveller descended, "three minutes here." + +"More, I think.--For I am not going on." + +"Thought you had a through ticket, sir?" + +"So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it. I want my +luggage." + +"Please to come to the van and point it out, sir. Be good enough to +look very sharp, sir. Not a moment to spare." + +The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried +after him. The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it. + +"Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your light +shines. Those are mine." + +"Name upon 'em, sir?" + +"Barbox Brothers." + +"Stand clear, sir, if you please. One. Two. Right!" + +Lamp waved. Signal lights ahead already changing. Shriek from +engine. Train gone. + +"Mugby Junction!" said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler +round his throat with both hands. "At past three o'clock of a +tempestuous morning! So!" + +He spoke to himself. There was no one else to speak to. Perhaps, +though there had been any one else to speak to, he would have +preferred to speak to himself. Speaking to himself he spoke to a +man within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey too +soon, like a neglected fire; a man of pondering habit, brooding +carriage of the head, and suppressed internal voice; a man with many +indications on him of having been much alone. + +He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and by +the wind. Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. "Very +well," said he, yielding. "It signifies nothing to me to what +quarter I turn my face." + +Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuous +morning, the traveller went where the weather drove him. + +Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, +coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable +extent at Mugby Junction), and looking out upon the dark night, with +a yet darker spirit-wing of storm beating its wild way through it, +he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in the difficult +direction as he had held it in the easier one. Thus, with a steady +step, the traveller went up and down, up and down, up and down, +seeking nothing and finding it. + +A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the +black hours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains, +covered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, +conveying themselves guiltily away from the presence of the few +lighted lamps, as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawful +end. Half-miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, following +when they lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back. +Red-hot embers showering out upon the ground, down this dark avenue, +and down the other, as if torturing fires were being raked clear; +concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds invading the ear, as if +the tortured were at the height of their suffering. Iron-barred +cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beasts with +horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too: at least +they have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips. +Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white +characters. An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning, +going up express to London. Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and +rain in possession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead and +indistinct, with its robe drawn over its head, like Caesar. + +Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shadowy +train went by him in the gloom which was no other than the train of +a life. From whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark tunnel it +emerged, here it came, unsummoned and unannounced, stealing upon +him, and passing away into obscurity. Here mournfully went by a +child who had never had a childhood or known a parent, inseparable +from a youth with a bitter sense of his namelessness, coupled to a +man the enforced business of whose best years had been distasteful +and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, dragging after him a +woman once beloved. Attendant, with many a clank and wrench, were +lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments, +monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitary +and unhappy existence. + +"--Yours, sir?" + +The traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they had +been staring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, and +perhaps the chance appropriateness, of the question. + +"Oh! My thoughts were not here for the moment. Yes. Yes. Those +two portmanteaus are mine. Are you a Porter?" + +"On Porter's wages, sir. But I am Lamps." + +The traveller looked a little confused. + +"Who did you say you are?" + +"Lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as farther +explanation. + +"Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here?" + +"Not exactly here, sir. There is a Refreshment Room here, but--" +Lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll that +plainly added--"but it's a blessed circumstance for you that it's +not open." + +"You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available?" + +"Ask your pardon, sir. If it was -?" + +"Open?" + +"It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give my +opinion on any of the company's toepics,"--he pronounced it more +like toothpicks,--"beyond lamp-ile and cottons," returned Lamps in a +confidential tone; "but, speaking as a man, I wouldn't recommend my +father (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd be +treated at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking as a man, no, I would +NOT." + +The traveller nodded conviction. "I suppose I can put up in the +town? There is a town here?" For the traveller (though a stay-at- +home compared with most travellers) had been, like many others, +carried on the steam winds and the iron tides through that Junction +before, without having ever, as one might say, gone ashore there. + +"Oh yes, there's a town, sir! Anyways, there's town enough to put +up in. But," following the glance of the other at his luggage, +"this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir. The deadest +time. I might a'most call it our deadest and buriedest time." + +"No porters about?" + +"Well, sir, you see," returned Lamps, confidential again, "they in +general goes off with the gas. That's how it is. And they seem to +have overlooked you, through your walking to the furder end of the +platform. But, in about twelve minutes or so, she may be up." + +"Who may be up?" + +"The three forty-two, sir. She goes off in a sidin' till the Up X +passes, and then she"--here an air of hopeful vagueness pervaded +Lamps--"does all as lays in her power." + +"I doubt if I comprehend the arrangement." + +"I doubt if anybody do, sir. She's a Parliamentary, sir. And, you +see, a Parliamentary, or a Skirmishun--" + +"Do you mean an Excursion?" + +"That's it, sir.--A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she mostly DOES +go off into a sidin'. But, when she CAN get a chance, she's +whistled out of it, and she's whistled up into doin' all as,"--Lamps +again wore the air of a highly sanguine man who hoped for the best,- +-"all as lays in her power." + +He then explained that the porters on duty, being required to be in +attendance on the Parliamentary matron in question, would doubtless +turn up with the gas. In the meantime, if the gentleman would not +very much object to the smell of lamp-oil, and would accept the +warmth of his little room - The gentleman, being by this time very +cold, instantly closed with the proposal. + +A greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell, of +a cabin in a Whaler. But there was a bright fire burning in its +rusty grate, and on the floor there stood a wooden stand of newly +trimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage service. They made a +bright show, and their light, and the warmth, accounted for the +popularity of the room, as borne witness to by many impressions of +velveteen trousers on a form by the fire, and many rounded smears +and smudges of stooping velveteen shoulders on the adjacent wall. +Various untidy shelves accommodated a quantity of lamps and oil- +cans, and also a fragrant collection of what looked like the pocket- +handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family. + +As Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of his +luggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now ungloved +hands at the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, much +blotched with ink, which his elbow touched. Upon it were some +scraps of coarse paper, and a superannuated steel pen in very +reduced and gritty circumstances. + +From glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to his +host, and said, with some roughness: + +"Why, you are never a poet, man?" + +Lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as he +stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so +exceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistaking +himself for one of his charges. He was a spare man of about the +Barbox Brothers time of life, with his features whimsically drawn +upward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. He had a +peculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned by +constant oleaginous application; and his attractive hair, being cut +short, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on end as if it +in its turn were attracted by some invisible magnet above it, the +top of his head was not very unlike a lamp-wick. + +"But, to be sure, it's no business of mine," said Barbox Brothers. +"That was an impertinent observation on my part. Be what you like." + +"Some people, sir," remarked Lamps in a tone of apology, "are +sometimes what they don't like." + +"Nobody knows that better than I do," sighed the other. "I have +been what I don't like, all my life." + +"When I first took, sir," resumed Lamps, "to composing little Comic- +Songs--like--" + +Barbox Brothers eyed him with great disfavour. + +"--To composing little Comic-Songs-like--and what was more hard--to +singing 'em afterwards," said Lamps, "it went against the grain at +that time, it did indeed." + +Something that was not all oil here shining in Lamps's eye, Barbox +Brothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at the fire, +and put a foot on the top bar. "Why did you do it, then?" he asked +after a short pause; abruptly enough, but in a softer tone. "If you +didn't want to do it, why did you do it? Where did you sing them? +Public-house?" + +To which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply: "Bedside." + +At this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucidation, +Mugby Junction started suddenly, trembled violently, and opened its +gas eyes. "She's got up!" Lamps announced, excited. "What lays in +her power is sometimes more, and sometimes less; but it's laid in +her power to get up to-night, by George!" + +The legend "Barbox Brothers," in large white letters on two black +surfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck through a +silent street, and, when the owner of the legend had shivered on the +pavement half an hour, what time the porter's knocks at the Inn Door +knocked up the whole town first, and the Inn last, he groped his way +into the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between the +sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expressly +refrigerated for him when last made. + + +II + + +"You remember me, Young Jackson?" + +"What do I remember if not you? You are my first remembrance. It +was you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me that +on every twentieth of December my life had a penitential anniversary +in it called a birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer +than the first!" + +"What am I like, Young Jackson?" + +"You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard-lined, +thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on. You +are like the Devil to me; most of all when you teach me religious +things, for you make me abhor them." + +"You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In another voice from another +quarter. + +"Most gratefully, sir. You were the ray of hope and prospering +ambition in my life. When I attended your course, I believed that I +should come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy--even +though I was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible +mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask +before me, every day. As I had done every, every, every day, +through my school-time and from my earliest recollection." + +"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?" + +"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginning +to reveal herself to me. I hear you again, as one of the hushed +crowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence and +knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that +ever stood in them." + +"You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In a grating voice from quite +another quarter. + +"Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and +announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. +You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox +Brothers. (When THEY were, if they ever were, is unknown to me; +there was nothing of them but the name when I bent to the oar.) You +told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told me +afterwards, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm, +when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of +it, or of myself." + +"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?" + +"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough and +cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. I see your +scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but +you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chance +remove it--it never by a chance falls off--and I know no more of +you." + +Throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at his +window in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at the Junction +overnight. And as he had then looked in the darkness, a man who had +turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire: so he now looked in +the sun-light, an ashier grey, like a fire which the brightness of +the sun put out. + +The firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or irregular +branch of the Public Notary and bill-broking tree. It had gained +for itself a griping reputation before the days of Young Jackson, +and the reputation had stuck to it and to him. As he had +imperceptibly come into possession of the dim den up in the corner +of a court off Lombard Street, on whose grimy windows the +inscription Barbox Brothers had for many long years daily interposed +itself between him and the sky, so he had insensibly found himself a +personage held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screw +tight to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was never +to be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers with openly +set up guards and wards against. This character had come upon him +through no act of his own. It was as if the original Barbox had +stretched himself down upon the office floor, and had thither caused +to be conveyed Young Jackson in his sleep, and had there effected a +metempsychosis and exchange of persons with him. The discovery-- +aided in its turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved, +and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made: who eloped from +him to be married together--the discovery, so followed up, completed +what his earliest rearing had begun. He shrank, abashed, within the +form of Barbox, and lifted up his head and heart no more. + +But he did at last effect one great release in his condition. He +broke the oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the +galley. He prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional +business from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it. +With enough to live on (though, after all, with not too much), he +obliterated the firm of Barbox Brothers from the pages of the Post- +Office Directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it +but its name on two portmanteaus. + +"For one must have some name in going about, for people to pick up," +he explained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn window, "and that +name at least was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson!--Not to +mention its being a sadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson." + +He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing +along on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his +day's dinner in a small bundle that might have been larger without +suspicion of gluttony, and pelting away towards the Junction at a +great pace. + +"There's Lamps!" said Barbox Brothers. "And by the bye--" + +Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and +not yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should +stand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic +Songs. + +"Bedside?" said Barbox Brothers testily. "Sings them at the +bedside? Why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? Does, I +shouldn't wonder. But it's no business of mine. Let me see. Mugby +Junction, Mugby Junction. Where shall I go next? As it came into +my head last night when I woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriage +and found myself here, I can go anywhere from here. Where shall I +go? I'll go and look at the Junction by daylight. There's no +hurry, and I may like the look of one Line better than another." + +But there were so many Lines. Gazing down upon them from a bridge +at the Junction, it was as if the concentrating Companies formed a +great Industrial Exhibition of the works of extraordinary ground +spiders that spun iron. And then so many of the Lines went such +wonderful ways, so crossing and curving among one another, that the +eye lost them. And then some of them appeared to start with the +fixed intention of going five hundred miles, and all of a sudden +gave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off into a +workshop. And then others, like intoxicated men, went a little way +very straight, and surprisingly slued round and came back again. +And then others were so chock-full of trucks of coal, others were so +blocked with trucks of casks, others were so gorged with trucks of +ballast, others were so set apart for wheeled objects like immense +iron cotton-reels: while others were so bright and clear, and +others were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idle +wheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking much +like their masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, +or end to the bewilderment. + +Barbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right hand +across the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he looked +down, as if the railway Lines were getting themselves photographed +on that sensitive plate. Then was heard a distant ringing of bells +and blowing of whistles. Then, puppet-looking heads of men popped +out of boxes in perspective, and popped in again. Then, prodigious +wooden razors, set up on end, began shaving the atmosphere. Then, +several locomotive engines in several directions began to scream and +be agitated. Then, along one avenue a train came in. Then, along +another two trains appeared that didn't come in, but stopped +without. Then, bits of trains broke off. Then, a struggling horse +became involved with them. Then, the locomotives shared the bits of +trains, and ran away with the whole. + +"I have not made my next move much clearer by this. No hurry. No +need to make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor yet the day after. +I'll take a walk." + +It fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walk +tended to the platform at which he had alighted, and to Lamps's +room. But Lamps was not in his room. A pair of velveteen shoulders +were adapting themselves to one of the impressions on the wall by +Lamps's fireplace, but otherwise the room was void. In passing back +to get out of the station again, he learnt the cause of this +vacancy, by catching sight of Lamps on the opposite line of railway, +skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to carriage, and +catching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a coadjutor. + +"He is busy. He has not much time for composing or singing Comic +Songs this morning, I take it." + +The direction he pursued now was into the country, keeping very near +to the side of one great Line of railway, and within easy view of +others. "I have half a mind,"' he said, glancing around, "to settle +the question from this point, by saying, 'I'll take this set of +rails, or that, or t'other, and stick to it.' They separate +themselves from the confusion, out here, and go their ways." + +Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cottages. +There, looking about him as a very reserved man might who had never +looked about him in his life before, he saw some six or eight young +children come merrily trooping and whooping from one of the +cottages, and disperse. But not until they had all turned at the +little garden-gate, and kissed their hands to a face at the upper +window: a low window enough, although the upper, for the cottage +had but a story of one room above the ground. + +Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that they +should do this to a face lying on the sill of the open window, +turned towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently only a +face, was something noticeable. He looked up at the window again. +Could only see a very fragile, though a very bright face, lying on +one cheek on the window-sill. The delicate smiling face of a girl +or woman. Framed in long bright brown hair, round which was tied a +light blue band or fillet, passing under the chin. + +He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly glanced up +again. No change. He struck off by a winding branch-road at the +top of the hill--which he must otherwise have descended--kept the +cottages in view, worked his way round at a distance so as to come +out once more into the main road, and be obliged to pass the +cottages again. The face still lay on the window-sill, but not so +much inclined towards him. And now there were a pair of delicate +hands too. They had the action of performing on some musical +instrument, and yet it produced no sound that reached his ears. + +"Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England," said Barbox +Brothers, pursuing his way down the hill. "The first thing I find +here is a Railway Porter who composes comic songs to sing at his +bedside. The second thing I find here is a face, and a pair of +hands playing a musical instrument that DON'T play!" + +The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of November, +the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in +beautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the court off Lombard +Street, London city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, when the +weather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in those +tents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt-coloured day or two, but their +atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff coloured. + +He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. He was a +little earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he could +hear the children upstairs singing to a regular measure, and +clapping out the time with their hands. + +"Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said, +listening at the corner, "and yet I saw the performing hands again +as I came by. What are the children singing? Why, good Lord, they +can never be singing the multiplication table?" + +They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysterious face +had a voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set the +children right. Its musical cheerfulness was delightful. The +measure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of young +voices, and then by a short song which he made out to be about the +current month of the year, and about what work it yielded to the +labourers in the fields and farmyards. Then there was a stir of +little feet, and the children came trooping and whooping out, as on +the previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they all +turned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands--evidently to the +face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from his retired +post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it. + +But, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler--a +brown-faced boy with flaxen hair--and said to him: + +"Come here, little one. Tell me, whose house is that?" + +The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in +shyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind the inside of +his elbow: + +"Phoebe's." + +"And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed by his +part in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, "is +Phoebe?" + +To which the child made answer: "Why, Phoebe, of course." + +The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, and +had taken his moral measure. He lowered his guard, and rather +assumed a tone with him: as having discovered him to be an +unaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation. + +"Phoebe," said the child, "can't be anybobby else but Phoebe. Can +she?" + +"No, I suppose not." + +"Well," returned the child, "then why did you ask me?" + +Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took up a +new position. + +"What do you do there? Up there in that room where the open window +is. What do you do there?" + +"Cool," said the child. + +"Eh?" + +"Co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out the +word with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say: +"What's the use of your having grown up, if you're such a donkey as +not to understand me?" + +"Ah! School, school," said Barbox Brothers. "Yes, yes, yes. And +Phoebe teaches you?" + +The child nodded. + +"Good boy." + +"Tound it out, have you?" said the child. + +"Yes, I have found it out. What would you do with twopence, if I +gave it you?" + +"Pend it." + +The knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a leg to +stand upon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence with great +lameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation. + +But, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, he +acknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod, +not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was a +diffident compromise between or struggle with all three. The eyes +in the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips +modestly said: "Good-day to you, sir." + +"I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction," said Barbox +Brothers with much gravity, after once more stopping on his return +road to look at the Lines where they went their several ways so +quietly. "I can't make up my mind yet which iron road to take. In +fact, I must get a little accustomed to the Junction before I can +decide." + +So, he announced at the Inn that he was "going to stay on for the +present," and improved his acquaintance with the Junction that +night, and again next morning, and again next night and morning: +going down to the station, mingling with the people there, looking +about him down all the avenues of railway, and beginning to take an +interest in the incomings and outgoings of the trains. At first, he +often put his head into Lamps's little room, but he never found +Lamps there. A pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually found +there, stooping over the fire, sometimes in connection with a +clasped knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to his +inquiry, "Where's Lamps?" was, either that he was "t'other side the +line," or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter case) his own +personal introduction to another Lamps who was not his Lamps. +However, he was not so desperately set upon seeing Lamps now, but he +bore the disappointment. Nor did he so wholly devote himself to his +severe application to the study of Mugby Junction as to neglect +exercise. On the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always the +same walk. But the weather turned cold and wet again, and the +window was never open. + + +III + + +At length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak of +fine bright hardy autumn weather. It was a Saturday. The window +was open, and the children were gone. Not surprising, this, for he +had patiently watched and waited at the corner until they WERE gone. + +"Good-day," he said to the face; absolutely getting his hat clear +off his head this time. + +"Good-day to you, sir." + +"I am glad you have a fine sky again to look at." + +"Thank you, sir. It is kind if you." + +"You are an invalid, I fear?" + +"No, sir. I have very good health." + +"But are you not always lying down?" + +"Oh yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit up! But I am +not an invalid." + +The laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake. + +"Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir? There is a +beautiful view from this window. And you would see that I am not at +all ill--being so good as to care." + +It was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently +desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the +garden-gate. It did help him, and he went in. + +The room up-stairs was a very clean white room with a low roof. Its +only inmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level with the +window. The couch was white too; and her simple dress or wrapper +being light blue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereal +look, and a fanciful appearance of lying among clouds. He felt that +she instinctively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturn +man; it was another help to him to have established that +understanding so easily, and got it over. + +There was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as he +touched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her couch. + +"I see now," he began, not at all fluently, "how you occupy your +hand. Only seeing you from the path outside, I thought you were +playing upon something." + +She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. A lace- +pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick movements and changes of +her hands upon it, as she worked, had given them the action he had +misinterpreted. + +"That is curious," she answered with a bright smile. "For I often +fancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am at work." + +"Have you any musical knowledge?" + +She shook her head. + +"I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument, which +could be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. But I dare say I +deceive myself. At all events, I shall never know." + +"You have a musical voice. Excuse me; I have heard you sing." + +"With the children?" she answered, slightly colouring. "Oh yes. I +sing with the dear children, if it can be called singing." + +Barbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, and +hazarded the speculation that she was fond of children, and that she +was learned in new systems of teaching them? + +"Very fond of them," she said, shaking her head again; "but I know +nothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and the +pleasure it gives me when they learn. Perhaps your overhearing my +little scholars sing some of their lessons has led you so far astray +as to think me a grand teacher? Ah! I thought so! No, I have only +read and been told about that system. It seemed so pretty and +pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry Robins they are, that +I took up with it in my little way. You don't need to be told what +a very little way mine is, sir," she added with a glance at the +small forms and round the room. + +All this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. As they still +continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conversation +in the click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took the +opportunity of observing her. He guessed her to be thirty. The +charm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes was, not +that they were passively resigned, but that they were actively and +thoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their own +thinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task with +a gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumption +of superiority, and an impertinence. + +He saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directed +his towards the prospect, saying: "Beautiful, indeed!" + +"Most beautiful, sir. I have sometimes had a fancy that I would +like to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect head. +But what a foolish fancy that would be to encourage! It cannot look +more lovely to any one than it does to me." + +Her eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most delighted +admiration and enjoyment. There was not a trace in it of any sense +of deprivation. + +"And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and steam +changing places so fast, make it so lively for me," she went on. "I +think of the number of people who can go where they wish, on their +business, or their pleasure; I remember that the puffs make signs to +me that they are actually going while I look; and that enlivens the +prospect with abundance of company, if I want company. There is the +great Junction, too. I don't see it under the foot of the hill, but +I can very often hear it, and I always know it is there. It seems +to join me, in a way, to I don't know how many places and things +that I shall never see." + +With an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joined +himself to something he had never seen, he said constrainedly: +"Just so." + +"And so you see, sir," pursued Phoebe, "I am not the invalid you +thought me, and I am very well off indeed." + +"You have a happy disposition," said Barbox Brothers: perhaps with +a slight excusatory touch for his own disposition. + +"Ah! But you should know my father," she replied. "His is the +happy disposition!--Don't mind, sir!" For his reserve took the +alarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted that he would be +set down for a troublesome intruder. "This is my father coming." + +The door opened, and the father paused there. + +"Why, Lamps!" exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from his chair. +"How do you do, Lamps?" + +To which Lamps responded: "The gentleman for Nowhere! How do you +DO, sir?" + +And they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise of +Lamp's daughter. + +"I have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night," said +Barbox Brothers, "but have never found you." + +"So I've heerd on, sir, so I've heerd on," returned Lamps. "It's +your being noticed so often down at the Junction, without taking any +train, that has begun to get you the name among us of the gentleman +for Nowhere. No offence in my having called you by it when took by +surprise, I hope, sir?" + +"None at all. It's as good a name for me as any other you could +call me by. But may I ask you a question in the corner here?" + +Lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's couch by +one of the buttons of his velveteen jacket. + +"Is this the bedside where you sing your songs?" + +Lamps nodded. + +The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and they +faced about again. + +"Upon my word, my dear," said Lamps then to his daughter, looking +from her to her visitor, "it is such an amaze to me, to find you +brought acquainted with this gentleman, that I must (if this +gentleman will excuse me) take a rounder." + +Mr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling out his +oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving +himself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek, +across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his left +ear. After this operation he shone exceedingly. + +"It's according to my custom when particular warmed up by any +agitation, sir," he offered by way of apology. "And really, I am +throwed into that state of amaze by finding you brought acquainted +with Phoebe, that I--that I think I will, if you'll excuse me, take +another rounder." Which he did, seeming to be greatly restored by +it. + +They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was +working at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said Barbox +Brothers, still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she never +sits up." + +"No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died when +she was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and +as she had never mentioned to me that she WAS subject to fits, they +couldn't be guarded against. Consequently, she dropped the baby +when took, and this happened." + +"It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with a knitted +brow, "to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity.' + +"Well, sir!" pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased. "You +see, Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord bless +us! Such a number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and +what with misfits, of one sort and another, that if we confessed to +'em all before we got married, most of us might never get married." + +"Might not that be for the better?" + +"Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father. + +"No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between his +own. + +"You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers with a blush; "and I must +look so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superfluous in +me to confess to THAT infirmity. I wish you would tell me a little +more about yourselves. I hardly knew how to ask it of you, for I am +conscious that I have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging way +with me, but I wish you would." + +"With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps gaily for both. "And +first of all, that you may know my name--" + +"Stay!" interposed the visitor with a slight flush. "What signifies +your name? Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. It is bright +and expressive. What do I want more?" + +"Why, to be sure, sir," returned Lamps. "I have in general no other +name down at the Junction; but I thought, on account of your being +here as a first-class single, in a private character, that you +might--" + +The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps +acknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another rounder. + +"You are hard-worked, I take for granted?" said Barbox Brothers, +when the subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than be +went into it. + +Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so"--when his daughter took him +up. + +"Oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen +hours a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time." + +"And you," said Barbox Brothers, "what with your school, Phoebe, and +what with your lace-making--" + +"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening her +brown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I began +it when I was but a child, because it brought me and other children +into company, don't you see? THAT was not work. I carry it on +still, because it keeps children about me. THAT is not work. I do +it as love, not as work. Then my lace-pillow;" her busy hands had +stopped, as if her argument required all her cheerful earnestness, +but now went on again at the name; "it goes with my thoughts when I +think, and it goes with my tunes when I hum any, and THAT'S not +work. Why, you yourself thought it was music, you know, sir. And +so it is to me." + +"Everything is!" cried Lamps radiantly. "Everything is music to +her, sir." + +"My father is, at any rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her +thin forefinger at him. "There is more music in my father than +there is in a brass band." + +"I say! My dear! It's very fillyillially done, you know; but you +are flattering your father," he protested, sparkling. + +"No, I am not, sir, I assure you. No, I am not. If you could hear +my father sing, you would know I am not. But you never will hear +him sing, because he never sings to any one but me. However tired +he is, he always sings to me when he comes home. When I lay here +long ago, quite a poor little broken doll, he used to sing to me. +More than that, he used to make songs, bringing in whatever little +jokes we had between us. More than that, he often does so to this +day. Oh! I'll tell of you, father, as the gentleman has asked +about you. He is a poet, sir." + +"I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed Lamps, for the +moment turning grave, "to carry away that opinion of your father, +because it might look as if I was given to asking the stars in a +molloncolly manner what they was up to. Which I wouldn't at once +waste the time, and take the liberty, my dear." + +"My father," resumed Phoebe, amending her text, "is always on the +bright side, and the good side. You told me, just now, I had a +happy disposition. How can I help it?" + +"Well; but, my dear," returned Lamps argumentatively, "how can I +help it? Put it to yourself sir. Look at her. Always as you see +her now. Always working--and after all, sir, for but a very few +shillings a week--always contented, always lively, always interested +in others, of all sorts. I said, this moment, she was always as you +see her now. So she is, with a difference that comes to much the +same. For, when it is my Sunday off and the morning bells have done +ringing, I hear the prayers and thanks read in the touchingest way, +and I have the hymns sung to me--so soft, sir, that you couldn't +hear 'em out of this room--in notes that seem to me, I am sure, to +come from Heaven and go back to it." + +It might have been merely through the association of these words +with their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through the +larger association of the words with the Redeemer's presence beside +the bedridden; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the +lace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down. +There was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, the +visitor could easily see; but each made it, for the other's sake, +retiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or +acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a very +few moments Lamps was taking another rounder with his comical +features beaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes (just a glistening +speck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by turns to him, +and to her work, and to Barbox Brothers. + +"When my father, sir," she said brightly, "tells you about my being +interested in other people, even though they know nothing about me-- +which, by the bye, I told you myself--you ought to know how that +comes about. That's my father's doing." + +"No, it isn't!" he protested. + +"Don't you believe him, sir; yes, it is. He tells me of everything +he sees down at his work. You would be surprised what a quantity he +gets together for me every day. He looks into the carriages, and +tells me how the ladies are dressed--so that I know all the +fashions! He looks into the carriages, and tells me what pairs of +lovers he sees, and what new-married couples on their wedding trip-- +so that I know all about that! He collects chance newspapers and +books--so that I have plenty to read! He tells me about the sick +people who are travelling to try to get better--so that I know all +about them! In short, as I began by saying, he tells me everything +he sees and makes out down at his work, and you can't think what a +quantity he does see and make out." + +"As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear," said Lamps, "it's +clear I can have no merit in that, because they're not my +perquisites. You see, sir, it's this way: A Guard, he'll say to +me, 'Hallo, here you are, Lamps. I've saved this paper for your +daughter. How is she a-going on?' A Head-Porter, he'll say to me, +'Here! Catch hold, Lamps. Here's a couple of wollumes for your +daughter. Is she pretty much where she were?' And that's what +makes it double welcome, you see. If she had a thousand pound in a +box, they wouldn't trouble themselves about her; but being what she +is--that is, you understand," Lamps added, somewhat hurriedly, "not +having a thousand pound in a box--they take thought for her. And as +concerning the young pairs, married and unmarried, it's only natural +I should bring home what little I can about THEM, seeing that +there's not a Couple of either sort in the neighbourhood that don't +come of their own accord to confide in Phoebe." + +She raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers as she said: + +"Indeed, sir, that is true. If I could have got up and gone to +church, I don't know how often I should have been a bridesmaid. +But, if I could have done that, some girls in love might have been +jealous of me, and, as it is, no girl is jealous of me. And my +pillow would not have been half as ready to put the piece of cake +under, as I always find it," she added, turning her face on it with +a light sigh, and a smile at her father. + +The arrival of a little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now led +to an understanding on the part of Barbox Brothers, that she was the +domestic of the cottage, and had come to take active measures in it, +attended by a pail that might have extinguished her, and a broom +three times her height. He therefore rose to take his leave, and +took it; saying that, if Phoebe had no objection, he would come +again. + +He had muttered that he would come "in the course of his walks." +The course of his walks must have been highly favourable to his +return, for he returned after an interval of a single day. + +"You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose?" he said to +Phoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her couch. + +"Why should I think so?" was her surprised rejoinder. + +"I took it for granted you would mistrust me." + +"For granted, sir? Have you been so much mistrusted?" + +"I think I am justified in answering yes. But I may have +mistrusted, too, on my part. No matter just now. We were speaking +of the Junction last time. I have passed hours there since the day +before yesterday." + +"Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere?" she asked with a smile. + +"Certainly for Somewhere; but I don't yet know Where. You would +never guess what I am travelling from. Shall I tell you? I am +travelling from my birthday." + +Her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him with +incredulous astonishment. + +"Yes," said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his chair, "from my +birthday. I am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the earlier +chapters all torn out, and thrown away. My childhood had no grace +of childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can be +expected from such a lost beginning?" His eyes meeting hers as they +were addressed intently to him, something seemed to stir within his +breast, whispering: "Was this bed a place for the graces of +childhood and the charms of youth to take to kindly? Oh, shame, +shame!" + +"It is a disease with me," said Barbox Brothers, checking himself, +and making as though he had a difficulty in swallowing something, +"to go wrong about that. I don't know how I came to speak of that. +I hope it is because of an old misplaced confidence in one of your +sex involving an old bitter treachery. I don't know. I am all +wrong together." + +Her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. Glancing at her, +he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them. + +"I am travelling from my birthday," he resumed, "because it has +always been a dreary day to me. My first free birthday coming round +some five or six weeks hence, I am travelling to put its +predecessors far behind me, and to try to crush the day--or, at all +events, put it out of my sight--by heaping new objects on it." + +As he paused, she looked at him; but only shook her head as being +quite at a loss. + +"This is unintelligible to your happy disposition," he pursued, +abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue +of self-defence in it. "I knew it would be, and am glad it is. +However, on this travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest of +my days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, +as you have heard from your father, at the Junction here. The +extent of its ramifications quite confused me as to whither I should +go, FROM here. I have not yet settled, being still perplexed among +so many roads. What do you think I mean to do? How many of the +branching roads can you see from your window?" + +Looking out, full of interest, she answered, "Seven." + +"Seven," said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave smile. +"Well! I propose to myself at once to reduce the gross number to +those very seven, and gradually to fine them down to one--the most +promising for me--and to take that." + +"But how will you know, sir, which IS the most promising?" she +asked, with her brightened eyes roving over the view. + +"Ah!" said Barbox Brothers with another grave smile, and +considerably improving in his ease of speech. "To be sure. In this +way. Where your father can pick up so much every day for a good +purpose, I may once and again pick up a little for an indifferent +purpose. The gentleman for Nowhere must become still better known +at the Junction. He shall continue to explore it, until he attaches +something that he has seen, heard, or found out, at the head of each +of the seven roads, to the road itself. And so his choice of a road +shall be determined by his choice among his discoveries." + +Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it +comprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed +as if it yielded her new pleasure. + +"But I must not forget," said Barbox Brothers, "(having got so far) +to ask a favour. I want your help in this expedient of mine. I +want to bring you what I pick up at the heads of the seven roads +that you lie here looking out at, and to compare notes with you +about it. May I? They say two heads are better than one. I should +say myself that probably depends upon the heads concerned. But I am +quite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your head and +your father's have found out better things, Phoebe, than ever mine +of itself discovered." + +She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with his +proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him. + +"That's well!" said Barbox Brothers. "Again I must not forget +(having got so far) to ask a favour. Will you shut your eyes?" + +Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so. + +"Keep them shut," said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door, +and coming back. "You are on your honour, mind, not to open you +eyes until I tell you that you may?" + +"Yes! On my honour." + +"Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute?" + +Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and he +put it aside. + +"Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by the +morning fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here?" + +"Behind the elm-trees and the spire?" + +"That's the road," said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towards +it. + +"Yes. I watched them melt away." + +"Anything unusual in what they expressed?" + +"No!" she answered merrily. + +"Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train. I went--don't +open your eyes--to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town. +It is not half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and +lightly in its place. These little keys are like the keys of a +miniature piano, and you supply the air required with your left +hand. May you pick out delightful music from it, my dear! For the +present--you can open your eyes now--good-bye!" + +In his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and only +saw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the present to her +bosom and caressed it. The glimpse gladdened his heart, and yet +saddened it; for so might she, if her youth had flourished in its +natural course, having taken to her breast that day the slumbering +music of her own child's voice. + + + +CHAPTER II--BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO. + + + +With good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began, +on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven +roads. The results of his researches, as he and Phoebe afterwards +set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this +veracious chronicle. But they occupied a much longer time in the +getting together than they ever will in the perusal. And this is +probably the case with most reading matter, except when it is of +that highly beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is "thrown off in +a few moments of leisure" by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn +to take prose pains. + +It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurried +himself. His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in +it. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimes +sitting by, listening to Phoebe as she picked out more and more +discourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural taste and +ear refined daily upon her first discoveries. Besides being a +pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it +consumed hours. It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close +upon him before he had troubled himself any more about it. + +The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance +that the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most +brilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the road +to be selected were, after all, in nowise assisted by his +investigations. For, he had connected this interest with this road, +or that interest with the other, but could deduce no reason from it +for giving any road the preference. Consequently, when the last +council was holden, that part of the business stood, in the end, +exactly where it had stood in the beginning. + +"But, sir," remarked Phoebe, "we have only six roads after all. Is +the seventh road dumb?" + +"The seventh road? Oh!" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his chin. +"That is the road I took, you know, when I went to get your little +present. That is ITS story. Phoebe." + +"Would you mind taking that road again, sir?" she asked with +hesitation. + +"Not in the least; it is a great high-road after all." + +"I should like you to take it," returned Phoebe with a persuasive +smile, "for the love of that little present which must ever be so +dear to me. I should like you to take it, because that road can +never be again like any other road to me. I should like you to take +it, in remembrance of your having done me so much good: of your +having made me so much happier! If you leave me by the road you +travelled when you went to do me this great kindness," sounding a +faint chord as she spoke, "I shall feel, lying here watching at my +window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and bring you +back some day." + +"It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done." + +So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Somewhere, +and his destination was the great ingenious town. + +He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the +eighteenth of December when he left it. "High time," he reflected, +as he seated himself in the train, "that I started in earnest! Only +one clear day remains between me and the day I am running away from. +I'll push onward for the hill-country to-morrow. I'll go to Wales." + +It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniable +advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his +senses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild +seashore, and rugged roads. And yet he scarcely made them out as +distinctly as he could have wished. Whether the poor girl, in spite +of her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of loneliness +upon her now--just at first--that she had not had before; whether +she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he sat +in the train thinking of her; whether her face would have any +pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from her +window; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, she +had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of his +station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a great +healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor; these and other +similar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture. There +was within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows +separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant +pursuit; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless. +Further, in losing Mugby Junction, he had found himself again; and +he was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately passed +his time in better company. + +But surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town. +This crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this +coupling on to it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothing +less than approach to the great station. It did mean nothing less. +After some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swift +revelations of red brick blocks of houses, high red brick chimney- +shafts, vistas of red brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blocks +of smoke, valleys of canal, and hills if coal, there came the +thundering in at the journey's end. + +Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose, +and having appointed his dinner hour, Barbox Brothers went out for a +walk in the busy streets. And now it began to be suspected by him +that Mugby Junction was a Junction of many branches, invisible as +well as visible, and had joined him to an endless number of by-ways. +For, whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked these +streets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a new +external world. How the many toiling people lived, and loved, and +died; how wonderful it was to consider the various trainings of eye +and hand, the nice distinctions of sight and touch, that separated +them into classes of workers, and even into classes of workers at +subdivisions of one complete whole which combined their many +intelligences and forces, though of itself but some cheap object of +use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that such +assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution of +their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not +deteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious Mayflies +of humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect, +and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first +evinced in their well-balanced bearing and manner of speech when he +stopped to ask a question; the second, in the announcements of their +popular studies and amusements on the public walls); these +considerations, and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one. +"I too am but a little part of a great whole," he began to think; +"and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy, I must +cast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common stock." + +Although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day by noon, he +had since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that +the lamp-lighters were now at their work in the streets, and the +shops were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus reminded to turn towards +his quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little hand +crept into his, and a very little voice said: + +"Oh! if you please, I am lost!" + +He looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl. + +"Yes," she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. "I am +indeed. I am lost!" + +Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried +none, and said, bending low. + +"Where do you live, my child?" + +"I don't know where I live," she returned. "I am lost." + +"What is your name?" + +"Polly." + +"What is your other name?" + +The reply was prompt, but unintelligible. + +Imitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, +"Trivits." + +"Oh no!" said the child, shaking her head. "Nothing like that." + +"Say it again, little one." + +An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a different +sound. + +He made the venture, " Paddens?" + +"Oh no!" said the child. "Nothing like that." + +"Once more. Let us try it again, dear." + +A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four syllables. +"It can't be Tappitarver?" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head +with his hat in discomfiture. + +"No! It ain't," the child quietly assented. + +On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary +efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least. + +"Ah! I think," said Barbox Brothers with a desperate air of +resignation, "that we had better give it up." + +"But I am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand more +closely in his, "and you'll take care of me, won't you?" + +If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on +the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, +here the man was. "Lost!" he repeated, looking down at the child. +"I am sure I am. What is to be done?" + +"Where do you live?" asked the child, looking up at him wistfully. + +"Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his +hotel. + +"Hadn't we better go there?" said the child. + +"Really," he replied, "I don't know but what we had." + +So they set off, hand-in-hand. He, through comparison of himself +against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he +had just developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly elevated in +her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his +embarrassment. + +"We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?" said +Polly. + +"Well," he rejoined, "I--Yes, I suppose we are." + +"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child. + +"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, "yes, I think I do." + +"I do mine," said Polly. "Have you any brothers and sisters?" + +"No. Have you?" + +"Mine are dead." + +"Oh!" said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of unwieldiness +of mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to +pursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the +child was always ready for him. + +"What," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, "are you +going to do to amuse me after dinner?" + +"Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a +loss, "I have not the slightest idea!" + +"Then I tell you what," said Polly. "Have you got any cards at your +house?" + +"Plenty," said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein. + +"Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me. You +mustn't blow, you know." + +"Oh no," said Barbox Brothers. "No, no, no. No blowing. Blowing's +not fair." + +He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an +idiotic monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness +of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his +hopeful opinion of himself by saying compassionately: "What a funny +man you are!" + +Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew +bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gave +himself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly to be +led in triumph by all-conquering Jack than he to be bound in slavery +to Polly. + +"Do you know any stories?" she asked him. + +He was reduced to the humiliating confession: "No." + +"What a dunce you must be, mustn't you?" said Polly. + +He was reduced to the humiliating confession: "Yes." + +"Would you like me to teach you a story? But you must remember it, +you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards." + +He professed that it would afford him the highest mental +gratification to be taught a story, and that he would humbly +endeavour to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving her +hand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down for +enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every relishing clause +began with the words: "So this," or, "And so this." As, "So this +boy;" or, "So this fairy;" or, "And so this pie was four yards +round, and two yards and a quarter deep." The interest of the +romance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish +this boy for having a greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose, +this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his +cheeks swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributary +circumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total +consumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. Truly he was +a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious attentive face, and ear +bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but +afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be +examined in it by-and-by, and found deficient. + +Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he had to say at the bar, +and said awkwardly enough; "I have found a little girl!" + +The whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl. +Nobody knew her; nobody could make out her name, as she set it +forth--except one chamber-maid, who said it was Constantinople-- +which it wasn't. + +"I will dine with my young friend in a private room," said Barbox +Brothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps you will be so good +as to let the police know that the pretty baby is here. I suppose +she is sure to be inquired for soon, if she has not been already. +Come along, Polly." + +Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the +stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. The +dinner was a most transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepishness, +under Polly's directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to +diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was +another fine sight. + +"And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, and +tell me that story I taught you." + +With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and very +uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared +in history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable +fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under +encouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadth +observable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, +of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable +to an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as the +first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed +muster. + +"I told you to be good," said Polly, "and you are good, ain't you?" + +"I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers. + +Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa +cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or +two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a +gracious kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, however, to +give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, and +caused him to exclaim, as he effected her rescue: "Gracious Angels! +Whew! I thought we were in the fire, Polly!" + +"What a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly when replaced. + +"Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied. "Whew! Don't, Polly! +Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways. Don't tilt +up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards. +Whew! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing +to despair, "we are environed with dangers!" + +Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were +yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit +upon a low stool. "I will, if you will," said Polly. So, as peace +of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside +the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a +screen, and close in Polly and himself before the fire, as it were +in a snug room within the room. Then, finest sight of all, was +Barbox Brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, +contemplating Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in +the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house +down. + +"How you stare, don't you?" said Polly in a houseless pause. + +Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, +apologetically: + +"I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly." + +"Why do you stare?" asked Polly. + +"I cannot," he murmured to himself, "recall why.--I don't know, +Polly." + +"You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn't +you?" said Polly. + +In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, as +she bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading +her face. "It is impossible," he thought, "that I can ever have +seen this pretty baby before. Can I have dreamed of her? In some +sorrowful dream?" + +He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building trade as +a journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four +stories high; even five. + +"I say! Who do you think is coming?" asked Polly, rubbing her eyes +after tea. + +He guessed: "The waiter?" + +"No," said Polly, "the dustman. I am getting sleepy." + +A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers! + +"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said Polly. +"What do you think?" + +He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the +dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was +had to the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertook +that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, +which she herself would share. + +"And I know you will be careful, won't you," said Barbox Brothers, +as a new fear dawned upon him, "that she don't fall out of bed?" + +Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the +necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat +on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, +with her dimpled chin on his shoulder. + +"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly. "Do you fall +out of bed?" + +"N--not generally, Polly." + +"No more do I." + +With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, +and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be +swallowed up in the hand of the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid, +trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety. + +He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs +replaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for half an +hour. "A most engaging little creature, but it's not that. A most +winning little voice, but it's not that. That has much to do with +it, but there is something more. How can it be that I seem to know +this child? What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt +her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking +up at me?" + +"Mr. Jackson!" + +With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and +saw his answer standing at the door. + +"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me! Speak a word of +encouragement to me, I beseech you." + +"You are Polly's mother." + +"Yes." + +Yes. Polly herself might come to this, one day. As you see what +the rose was in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growth +of the woods was in their wintry branches; so Polly might be traced, +one day, in a careworn woman like this, with her hair turned grey. +Before him were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burned +bright. This was the woman he had loved. This was the woman he had +lost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had +Time spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughly +the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity +and amazement. + +He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chimney- +piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted. + +"Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?" + +"I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, 'We have lost our way, +and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to that gentleman, and +tell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by-and-by.' Perhaps +you have not thought how very young she is?" + +"She is very self-reliant." + +"Perhaps because she is so young." + +He asked, after a short pause, "Why did you do this?" + +"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do you ask me? In the hope that you might see +something in my innocent child to soften your heart towards me. Not +only towards me, but towards my husband." + +He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the +room. He came back again with a slower step, and resumed his former +attitude, saying: + +"I thought you had emigrated to America?" + +"We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came back." + +"Do you live in this town?" + +"Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband is a book- +keeper." + +"Are you--forgive my asking--poor?" + +"We earn enough for our wants. That is not our distress. My +husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. He will never +recover--" + +"You check yourself. If it is for want of the encouraging word you +spoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice." + +"God bless you!" she replied with a burst of tears, and gave him her +trembling hand. + +"Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not, for to see +you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak freely to me. +Trust me." + +She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke +calmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly's. + +"It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his bodily +suffering, for I assure you that is not the case. But in his +weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot +overcome the ascendancy of one idea. It preys upon him, embitters +every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it." + +She stopping, he said again: "Speak freely to me. Trust me." + +"We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in +their little graves. He believes that they have withered away under +a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest." + +"Under what curse?" + +"Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very +heavily, and I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, I might +suffer in my mind as he does. This is the constant burden:- 'I +believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared +to make, though I was so much his junior. The more influence he +acquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, and I was alone +in his private confidence. I came between him and you, and I took +you from him. We were both secret, and the blow fell when he was +wholly unprepared. The anguish it caused a man so compressed must +have been terrible; the wrath it awakened inappeasable. So, a curse +came to be invoked on our poor, pretty little flowers, and they +fall.'" + +"And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and +there had been a silence afterwards, "how say you?" + +"Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed +that you would never, never forgive." + +"Until within these few weeks," he repeated. "Have you changed your +opinion of me within these few weeks?" + +"Yes." + +"For what reason?" + +"I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to +my terror, you came in. As I veiled my face and stood in the dark +end of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musical +instrument for a bedridden girl. Your voice and manner were so +softened, you showed such interest in its selection, you took it +away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that I +knew you were a man with a most gentle heart. Oh, Mr. Jackson, Mr. +Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears that +followed for me!" + +Was Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch? He seemed +to hear her. + +"I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no +information. As I had heard you say that you were going back by the +next train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit the +station at about that time of day, as often as I could, between my +lessons, on the chance of seeing you again. I have been there very +often, but saw you no more until to-day. You were meditating as you +walked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldened +me to send my child to you. And when I saw you bend your head to +speak tenderly to her, I prayed to GOD to forgive me for having ever +brought a sorrow on it. I now pray to you to forgive me, and to +forgive my husband. I was very young, he was young too, and, in the +ignorant hardihood of such a time of life, we don't know what we do +to those who have undergone more discipline. You generous man! You +good man! So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against +you!"--for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a +kind father might have soothed an erring daughter--"thank you, bless +you, thank you!" + +When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window +curtain and looked out awhile. Then he only said: + +"Is Polly asleep?" + +"Yes. As I came in, I met her going away upstairs, and put her to +bed myself." + +"Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your +address on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening I will bring +her home to you--and to her father." + +* * * + +"Hallo!" cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door +next morning when breakfast was ready: "I thought I was fetched +last night?" + +"So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day, +and to take you home in the evening." + +"Upon my word!" said Polly. "You are very cool, ain't you?" + +However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added: "I +suppose I must give you a kiss, though you ARE cool." + +The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly +conversational tone. + +"Of course, you are going to amuse me?" said Polly. + +"Oh, of course!" said Barbox Brothers. + +In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it +indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her +little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand +down into her left hand with a business-like slap. After this +gathering of herself together, Polly, by that time a mere heap of +dimples, asked in a wheedling manner: + +"What are we going to do, you dear old thing?" + +"Why, I was thinking," said Barbox Brothers, "--but are you fond of +horses, Polly?" + +"Ponies, I am," said Polly, "especially when their tails are long. +But horses--n-no--too big, you know." + +"Well," pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious +confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, "I did see +yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, +speckled all over--" + +"No, no, NO!" cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the +charming details. "Not speckled all over!" + +"Speckled all over. Which ponies jump through hoops--" + +"No, no, NO!" cried Polly as before. "They never jump through +hoops!" + +"Yes, they do. Oh, I assure you they do! And eat pie in pinafores- +-" + +"Ponies eating pie in pinafores!" said Polly. "What a story-teller +you are, ain't you?" + +"Upon my honour.--And fire off guns." + +(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to +fire-arms.) + +"And I was thinking," pursued the exemplary Barbox, "that if you and +I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our +constitutions good." + +"Does that mean amuse us?" inquired Polly. "What long words you do +use, don't you?" + +Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied: + +"That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There are +many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all. +Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions +and tigers." + +Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose +indicating some uneasiness of mind. + +"They never get out, of course," she remarked as a mere truism. + +"The elephants and lions and tigers? Oh, dear no!" + +"Oh, dear no!" said Polly. "And of course nobody's afraid of the +ponies shooting anybody." + +"Not the least in the world." + +"No, no, not the least in the world," said Polly. + +"I was also thinking," proceeded Barbox, "that if we were to look in +at the toy-shop, to choose a doll--" + +"Not dressed!" cried Polly with a clap of her hands. "No, no, NO, +not dressed!" + +"Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary for +housekeeping--" + +Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a +swoon of bliss. + +"What a darling you are!" she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in +her chair. "Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you." + +This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the +utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchase +of the doll its first feature--or that lady would have lost the +ponies--the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the magic +warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a +neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did +indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with +unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely +specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, +was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as +was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining a +sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black +velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would +seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent. +The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath +the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's authority) Miss +Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from +the Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her +silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the +proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. Miss +Melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of +the Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponies were speckled, and +brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild +beasts appeared to be mere smoke--which article, in fact, they did +produce in large quantities from their insides. The Barbox +absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of +these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to +behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in a +chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an +unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying +out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. To wind up, +there came the agreeable fever of getting Miss Melluka and all her +wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with Polly, to be taken +home. But, by that time, Polly had become unable to look upon such +accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her +consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep. +"Sleep, Polly, sleep," said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on +his shoulder; "you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any +rate!" + +What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully +folded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. He +said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. They +drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at +the fore-court of a small house. "Do not wake the child," said +Barbox Brothers softly to the driver; "I will carry her in as she +is." + +Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly's +mother, Polly's bearer passed on with mother and child in to a +ground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, +sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hand. + +"Tresham," said Barbox in a kindly voice, "I have brought you back +your Polly, fast asleep. Give me your hand, and tell me you are +better." + +The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over +the hand into which it was taken, and kissed it. "Thank you, thank +you! I may say that I am well and happy." + +"That's brave," said Barbox. "Tresham, I have a fancy--Can you make +room for me beside you here?" + +He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump +peachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder. + +"I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, you +know, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes), +to give up Polly, having found her, to no one but you. Will you +take her from me?" + +As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men +looked steadily at the other. + +"She is very dear to you, Tresham?" + +"Unutterably dear." + +"God bless her! It is not much, Polly," he continued, turning his +eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophized her, "it is not +much, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on +something so far better than himself as a little child is; but it +would be much--much upon his cruel head, and much upon his guilty +soul--if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse. He had better +have a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea. +Live and thrive, my pretty baby!" Here he kissed her. "Live and +prosper, and become in time the mother of other little children, +like the Angels who behold The Father's face!" + +He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and +went out. + +But he went not to Wales. No, he never went to Wales. He went +straightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in upon +the people at their work, and at their play, here, there, every- +there, and where not. For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. now, and +had taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm. + +He had at length got back to his hotel room, and was standing before +his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he had +stood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks +striking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have so +slipped away, that they were striking twelve. As he put up his +watch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney- +glass. + +"Why, it's your birthday already," he said, smiling. "You are +looking very well. I wish you many happy returns of the day." + +He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. "By Jupiter!" +he discovered, "it alters the whole case of running away from one's +birthday! It's a thing to explain to Phoebe. Besides, here is +quite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road with +no story. I'll go back, instead of going on. I'll go back by my +friend Lamps's Up X presently." + +He went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact, he +established himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient place +to live in, for brightening Phoebe's life. It was the convenient +place to live in, for having her taught music by Beatrice. It was +the convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing Polly. +It was the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will to +all sorts of agreeable places and persons. So, he became settled +there, and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it is +noteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (not +irreverently) have put it: + + +"There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill, +And if he ain't gone, he lives there still." + + +Here follows the substance of what was seen, heard, or otherwise +picked up, by the gentleman for Nowhere, in his careful study of the +Junction. + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BOY AT MUGBY + + + +I am the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am. + +You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I +think you must. Look here. I am the boy at what is called The +Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, +that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. + +Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in +the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em +while they brush the First-Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the +bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, +stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at times +the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature of +the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same +groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale +sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed +sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye--you ask a Boy so +sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to +drink; you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear +you, that he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through +a transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he +won't serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That's me. + +What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are, at +Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up +to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies, +when they're new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! Our +Missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why, I originally come into +the business meek myself. But Our Missis, she soon took that out of +ME. + +What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters as +ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There's +Papers, for instance,--my honourable friend, if he will allow me to +call him so,--him as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no more +dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games than he dares to jump a +top of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut away +upon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. Papers, +he'd get his head punched at every compartment, first, second, and +third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitate +my demeanour. It's the same with the porters, the same with the +guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up +to the secretary, traffic-manager, or very chairman. There ain't a +one among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever +catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system +of surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of your +head and body? I should hope not. + +You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It's led to +by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands +ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies +Bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, +Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the +combat. When you're telegraphed, you should see their noses all a- +going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same +Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear Our +Missis give the word, "Here comes the Beast to be Fed!" and then you +should see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the Up to +the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into +the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, +and get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the sherry,--O my eye, my eye!--for +your Refreshment. + +It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, +of course, I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so +effective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. +There was a Foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, +beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel gloss host +prarndee," and having had the Line surveyed through him by all and +no other acknowledgment, was a-proceeding at last to help himself, +as seems to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis, with +her hair almost a-coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyes +omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, +and said, "Put it down! I won't allow that!" The foreigner turned +pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his +hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: "Ah! Is it +possible, this! That these disdaineous females and this ferocious +old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to +empoison the voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How +arrives it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?" +Another time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust +and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had +tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had +been rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the +bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and +good-tempered: "I tell Yew what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer! I +la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha' seen most things, for I hail from the +Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive travelled right +slick over the Limited, head on through Jeerusalemm and the East, +and likeways France and Italy, Europe Old World, and am now upon the +track to the Chief Europian Village; but such an Institution as Yew, +and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, afore +the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain't found the +eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew and Yewer +young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid, +established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo- +naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the +innermostest grit! Wheerfur--Theer!--I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I +la'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the +platform all the way to his own compartment. + +I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv' Our Missis +the idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt +Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting +as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by +which, of course, I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, +Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her +going; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well +beknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except Britain +has a idea of anythink, but above all of business. Why then should +you tire yourself to prove what is already proved? Our Missis, +however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obstinate, and +got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to go right through, if +such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles. + +Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. +He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is +sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter +with a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour +towards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever +come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don't know; but I +suppose he does, and I should think he wished he didn't, for he +leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much harder with him if +he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone +of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he IS let in with a +corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his +servility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they snap +him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a-going to +answer a public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes +than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the +sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once, when Sniff had the +repulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for a +baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders, +and spin him out into the Bandolining Room. + +But Mrs. Sniff,--how different! She's the one! She's the one as +you'll notice to be always looking another way from you, when you +look at her. She's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in +front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the +edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while the +public foams. This smoothing the cuffs and looking another way +while the public foams is the last accomplishment taught to the +young ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis; and it's +always taught by Mrs. Sniff. + +When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in +charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful! In all my +time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to +people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk +given to people as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs. +Sniff would say: "Then you'd better settle it among yourselves, and +change with one another." It was a most highly delicious lark. I +enjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, and was so glad +I had took to it when young. + +Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, and +it as it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the +Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so +contemptible could be dignified with the name. Agitation become +awakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a- +tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on our slacked evening in +the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains, +Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in the +Bandolining Room. + +It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table and +glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing- +case for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no +sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, the +season being autumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, ornamented +the wall with three devices in those flowers. On one might be read, +"MAY ALBION NEVER LEARN;" on another "KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN;" on +another, "OUR REFRESHMENTING CHARTER." The whole had a beautiful +appearance, with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded. + +On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal +platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and Miss +Piff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have +been perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the +pupils was accommodated. Behind them a very close observer might +have discerned a Boy. Myself. + +"Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, "is Sniff?" + +"I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should not be +let to come in. He is such an Ass." + +"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it not +desirable to improve his mind?" + +"Oh, nothing will ever improve HIM," said Mrs. Sniff. + +"However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel." + +I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed +with disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought +his corkscrew with him. He pleaded "the force of habit." + +"The force!" said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you talking about +force, for Gracious' sake. There! Do stand still where you are, +with your back against the wall." + +He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in +which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language +can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with +the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for +somebody to come and measure his heighth for the Army. + +"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revolting +disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they +will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the +power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to +the constitutional motto which I see before me,"--it was behind her, +but the words sounded better so,--"'May Albion never learn!'" + +Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, "Hear! +Hear! Hear!" Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got +himself frowned down by every brow. + +"The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, "as displayed in +the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not +surpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the +celebrated Bonaparte." + +Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to +saying, "We thought as much!" Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to +object to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored another to +aggravate 'em. + +"Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, "when I +tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous +shore--" + +Here Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a +low voice: "Feet. Plural, you know." + +The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, +added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a +cove so grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered more +impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, +Our Missis went on: + +"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I landed," +this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacherous shore, +than I was ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were--I do +not exaggerate--actually eatable things to eat?" + +A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honour of +jining, but also of lengthening it out. + +"Where there were," Our Missis added, "not only eatable things to +eat, but also drinkable things to drink?" + +A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, trembling +with indignation, called out, "Name?" + +"I WILL name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot and +cold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; +there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing +bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a +variety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there +was--mark me! FRESH pastry, and that of a light construction; there +was a luscious show of fruit; there was bottles and decanters of +sound small wine, of every size, and adapted to every pocket; the +same odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set out +upon the counter so that all could help themselves." + +Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less +convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them. + +"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutional +experience. Well would it have been if it had been my last and +worst. But no. As I proceeded farther into that enslaved and +ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain +to this assembly the ingredients and formation of the British +Refreshment sangwich?" + +Universal laughter,--except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, +shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with +it agin the wall. + +"Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh, +crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. +Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely +fitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle +of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper of +clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal French +Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision." + +A cry of "Shame!" from all--except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach +with a soothing hand. + +"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the usual +formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?" + +No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits +agin the wall. + +"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general decoration +of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet +furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little +seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading +cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public, and +making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains?" + +Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff looking +as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everbody else looking as +if they'd rayther not. + +"Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly +terrimenjious state,--"three times did I see these shameful things, +only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at +Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, what +would you call a person who should propose in England that there +should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, +each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at a +certain fixed price, and each within a passenger's power to take +away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at +another station fifty or a hundred miles farther on?" + +There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whether +revolutionise, atheist, Bright (I said him), or Un-English. Miss +Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: "A malignant +maniac!" + +"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a person by the +righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac. +Know, then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial +soil of France, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked +action on this same part of my journey." + +I noticed that Sniff was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff +had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particular +notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was, +and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl. + +"On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep tone, +"I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancy +this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to +inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward the +number of dinners. Fancy every one expected, and the table +elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charming dinner, in +a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of +every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. Fancy +the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and with +great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be done +for it!" + +A spirited chorus of "The Beast!" + +I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothing +hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't take +particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulate +public feeling. It being a lark besides. + +"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "French +Refreshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total! +First: eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink." + +A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. + +"Second: convenience, and even elegance." + +Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. + +"Third: moderate charges." + +This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies. + +"Fourth:- and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angriest +sympathy,--attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!" + +Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together. + +"And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis, with her spitefullest +sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after +what I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our +constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a +single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put +another system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, +for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us +twice." + +The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by +his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a +higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew +over his head. It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' +her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. +Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in the +sawdust department. + +You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making +believe you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my right thumb +over my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff, and +which is Miss Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a +chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night. Whether he +perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say; but his corkscrew alone +remains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mugby Junction by Charles Dickens + diff --git a/old/mgjnc10.zip b/old/mgjnc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fb240b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mgjnc10.zip |