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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Master Humphrey's Clock, by Charles Dickens
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Master Humphrey's Clock
Author: Charles Dickens
Release Date: March 20, 2013 [eBook #588]
[This file was first posted on May 15, 1996]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK***
</pre>
<p>Transcribed from the 1914 Chapman & Hall edition of
“The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Master Humphrey’s
Clock” by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<h1>MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK</h1>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/fpb.jpg">
<img alt=
"Charles Dickens"
title=
"Charles Dickens"
src="images/fps.jpg" />
</a></p>
<h2><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
xi</span>DEDICATION OF<br />
“MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK”</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">TO<br />
<b>SAMUEL ROGERS</b>, <b>ESQUIRE</b>.</p>
<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>,</p>
<p>Let me have <i>my</i> Pleasures of Memory in connection with
this book, by dedicating it to a Poet whose writings (as all the
world knows) are replete with generous and earnest feeling; and
to a man whose daily life (as all the world does not know) is one
of active sympathy with the poorest and humblest of his kind.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">Your faithful friend,<br />
CHARLES DICKENS.</p>
<h2>ADDRESS BY CHARLES DICKENS.</h2>
<p style="text-align: right">4<i>th</i> <i>April</i>, 1840.</p>
<p>Master Humphrey earnestly hopes, (and is almost tempted to
believe,) that all degrees of readers, young or old, rich or
poor, sad or merry, easy of amusement or difficult to entertain,
may find something agreeable in the face of his old clock.
That, when they have made its acquaintance, its voice may sound
cheerfully in their ears, and be suggestive of none but pleasant
thoughts. That they may come to have favourite and familiar
associations connected with its name, and to look for it as for a
welcome friend.</p>
<p>From week to week, then, Master Humphrey will set his clock,
trusting that while it counts the hours, it will sometimes cheat
them of their heaviness, and that while it marks the thread of
Time, it will scatter a few slight flowers in the Old
Mower’s path.</p>
<p>Until the specified period arrives, and he can enter freely
upon that confidence with his readers which he is impatient to
maintain, he may only bid them a short farewell, and look forward
to their next meeting.</p>
<h2><a name="pagexiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
xiv</span>PREFACE TO THE FIRST VOLUME</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">When</span> the Author commenced this
Work, he proposed to himself three objects—</p>
<p>First. To establish a periodical, which should enable
him to present, under one general head, and not as separate and
distinct publications, certain fictions that he had it in
contemplation to write.</p>
<p>Secondly. To produce these Tales in weekly numbers,
hoping that to shorten the intervals of communication between
himself and his readers, would be to knit more closely the
pleasant relations they had held, for Forty Months.</p>
<p>Thirdly. In the execution of this weekly task, to have
as much regard as its exigencies would permit, to each story as a
whole, and to the possibility of its publication at some distant
day, apart from the machinery in which it had its origin.</p>
<p>The characters of Master Humphrey and his three friends, and
the little fancy of the clock, were the results of these
considerations. When he sought to interest his readers in
those who talked, and read, and listened, he revived Mr. Pickwick
and his humble friends; not with any intention of re-opening an
exhausted and abandoned mine, but to connect them in the thoughts
of those whose favourites they had been, with the tranquil
enjoyments of Master Humphrey.</p>
<p>It was never the intention of the Author to make the Members
of Master Humphrey’s clock, active agents in the stories
they are supposed to relate. Having brought himself in the
commencement of his undertaking to feel an interest in these
quiet creatures, and to imagine them in their chamber of <a
name="pagexv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xv</span>meeting,
eager listeners to all he had to tell, the Author hoped—as
authors will—to succeed in awakening some of his own
emotion in the bosoms of his readers. Imagining Master
Humphrey in his chimney corner, resuming night after night the
narrative,—say, of the <i>Old Curiosity
Shop</i>—picturing to himself the various sensations of his
hearers—thinking how Jack Redburn might incline to poor
Kit, and perhaps lean too favourably even towards the lighter
vices of Mr. Richard Swiveller—how the deaf gentleman would
have his favourite and Mr. Miles his—and how all these
gentle spirits would trace some faint reflexion in their past
lives in the varying currents of the tale—he has insensibly
fallen into the belief that they are present to his readers as
they are to him, and has forgotten that, like one whose vision is
disordered, he may be conjuring up bright figures when there is
nothing but empty space.</p>
<p>The short papers which are to be found at the beginning of the
volume were indispensable to the form of publication and the
limited extent of each number, as no story of length or interest
could be begun until “The Clock was wound up and fairly
going.”</p>
<p>The Author would fain hope that there are not many who would
disturb Master Humphrey and his friends in their seclusion; who
would have them forego their present enjoyments, to exchange
those confidences with each other, the absence of which is the
foundation of their mutual trust. For when their occupation
is gone, when their tales are ended, and but their personal
histories remain, the chimney corner will be growing cold, and
the clock will be about to stop for ever.</p>
<p>One other word in his own person, and he returns to the more
grateful task of speaking for those imaginary people whose little
world lies within these pages.</p>
<p>It may be some consolation to those well-disposed ladies and
gentlemen who, in the interval between the conclusion of his last
work and the commencement of this, originated a report that he
had gone raving mad, to know that it spread <a
name="pagexvi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xvi</span>as rapidly
as could be desired, and was made the subject of considerable
dispute; not as regarded the fact, for that was as thoroughly
established as the duel between Sir Peter Teazle and Charles
Surface in the <i>School for Scandal</i>; but with reference to
the unfortunate lunatic’s place of confinement; one party
insisting positively on Bedlam, another inclining favourably
towards St. Luke’s, and a third swearing strongly by the
asylum at Hanwell; while each backed its case by circumstantial
evidence of the same excellent nature as that brought to bear by
Sir Benjamin Backbite on the pistol shot which struck against the
little bronze bust of Shakespeare over the fireplace, grazed out
of the window at a right angle, and wounded the postman, who was
coming to the door with a double letter from
Northamptonshire.</p>
<p>It will be a great affliction to these ladies and gentlemen to
learn—and he is so unwilling to give pain, that he would
not whisper the circumstance on any account, did he not feel in a
manner bound to do so, in gratitude to those amongst his friends
who were at the trouble of being angry at the absurdity that
their inventions made the Author’s home unusually merry,
and gave rise to an extraordinary number of jests, of which he
will only add, in the words of the good Vicar of Wakefield,
“I cannot say whether we had more wit among us than usual;
but I am sure we had more laughing.”</p>
<p><span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <span
class="smcap">York Gate</span>, <i>September</i>, 1840.</p>
<h2><a name="pagexvii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
xvii</span>PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME</h2>
<p>“<span class="smcap">An</span> author,” says
Fielding, in his introduction to <i>Tom Jones</i>, “ought
to consider himself, not as the gentleman who gives a private or
eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public
ordinary, to which all persons are welcome for their money.
Men who pay for what they eat, will insist on gratifying their
palates, however nice and whimsical these may prove; and if
everything is not agreeable to their taste, will challenge a
right to censure, to abuse, and to damn their dinner without
control.</p>
<p>“To prevent, therefore, giving offence to their
customers by any such disappointment, it hath been usual with the
honest and well-meaning host to provide a bill of fare, which all
persons may peruse at their first entrance into the house; and
having thence acquainted themselves with the entertainment which
they may expect, may either stay and regale with what is provided
for them, or may depart to some other ordinary better
accommodated to their taste.”</p>
<p>In the present instance, the host or author, in opening his
new establishment, provided no bill of fare. Sensible of
the difficulties of such an undertaking in its infancy, he
preferred that it should make its own way, silently and
gradually, or make no way at all. It <i>has</i> made its
way, and is doing such a thriving business that nothing remains
for him but to add, in the words of the good old civic ceremony,
now that one dish has been discussed and finished, and another
smokes upon the board, that he drinks to his guests in a
loving-cup, and bids them a hearty welcome.</p>
<p><span class="smcap">Devonshire Terrace</span>, <span
class="smcap">London</span>, <i>March</i>, 1841.</p>
<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Master Humphrey’s
Chamber</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>George Cattermole</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page215">215</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Friendly Recognitions</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Phiz</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page217">217</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Gog and Magog</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page228">228</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">A Gallant Cavalier</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>George Cattermole</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page232">232</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Death of Master Graham</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page237">237</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">A Charming Fellow</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Phiz</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page240">240</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">The Two Friends</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page246">246</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Hunted Down</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>George Cattermole</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page254">254</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Mr. Pickwick introduces himself to
Master Humphrey</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Phiz</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page259">259</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Will Marks reading the News concerning
Witches</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>George Cattermole</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page266">266</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Will Marks takes up his position for
the night</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Phiz</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page270">270</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Will Marks arrives at the
Church</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>George Cattermole</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page277">277</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Tony Weller and his
Grandson</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Phiz</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page282">282</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Proceedings of the Club</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">„</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page288">288</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">The Last Will and Testament of William
Blinder</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page292">292</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">A Rival Club</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page297">297</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">A Chip of the Old Block</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page302">302</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Master Humphrey’s Visionary
Friends</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">,,</p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page311">311</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">The Deserted Chamber</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>George Cattermole</i></p>
</td>
<td><p><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page318">318</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2><a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
215</span>I</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">MASTER HUMPHREY, FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE
CHIMNEY CORNER</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p215b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Master Humphrey’s Chamber"
title=
"Master Humphrey’s Chamber"
src="images/p215s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> reader must not expect to know
where I live. At present, it is true, my abode may be a
question of little or no import to anybody; but if I should carry
my readers with me, as I hope to do, and there should spring up
between them and me feelings of homely affection and regard
attaching something of interest to matters ever so slightly
connected with my fortunes or my speculations, even my place of
residence might one day have a kind of charm for them.
Bearing this possible contingency in mind, I wish them to
understand, in the outset, that they must never expect to know
it.</p>
<p>I am not a churlish old man. Friendless I can never be,
for all mankind are my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no one
member of my great family. But for many years I have led a
lonely, solitary life;—what wound I sought to heal, what
sorrow to forget, originally, matters not now; it is sufficient
that retirement has become a habit with me, and that I am
unwilling to break the spell which for so long a time has shed
its quiet influence upon my home and heart.</p>
<p>I live in a venerable suburb of London, in an old house which
in bygone days was a famous resort for merry roysterers and
peerless ladies, long since departed. It is a silent, shady
place, with a paved courtyard so full of echoes, that sometimes I
am tempted to believe that faint responses to the noises of old
times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my
footsteps as I pace it up and down. I am the more confirmed
in this belief, because, of late years, the echoes that attend my
walks have been less loud and marked than they were wont to be;
and it is pleasanter to imagine in them the rustling of silk
brocade, and the light step of some lovely girl, than to
recognise in their altered note the failing tread of an old
man.</p>
<p>Those who like to read of brilliant rooms and gorgeous
furniture would derive but little pleasure from a minute
description of my simple dwelling. It is dear to me for the
same reason that they would hold it in slight regard. Its
worm-eaten doors, and low ceilings crossed by clumsy beams; its
walls of wainscot, dark stairs, and gaping closets; its small
chambers, communicating with each other by winding passages or
narrow steps; its many nooks, scarce larger than its
corner-cupboards; its very dust and dulness, are all dear to
me. The moth and spider are my constant tenants; for in my
house the one basks in his long sleep, and the other plies his
busy loom secure and undisturbed. I have a pleasure in
thinking on a summer’s day how many butterflies have sprung
for the first time into light and sunshine from some dark corner
of these old walls.</p>
<p>When I first came to live here, which was many years ago, the
neighbours were curious to know who I was, and whence I came, and
why I lived so much alone. As time went on, and they still
remained unsatisfied on these points, I became the centre of a
popular ferment, extending for half a mile round, and in one
direction for a full mile. Various rumours were circulated
to my prejudice. I was a spy, an infidel, a conjurer, a
kidnapper of children, a refugee, a priest, a monster.
Mothers caught up their infants and ran into their houses as I
passed; men eyed me spitefully, and muttered threats and
curses. I was the object of suspicion and
distrust—ay, of downright hatred too.</p>
<p>But when in course of time they found I did no harm, but, on
the contrary, inclined towards them despite their unjust usage,
they began to relent. I found my footsteps <a
name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 217</span>no longer
dogged, as they had often been before, and observed that the
women and children no longer retreated, but would stand and gaze
at me as I passed their doors. I took this for a good omen,
and waited patiently for better times. By degrees I began
to make friends among these humble folks; and though they were
yet shy of speaking, would give them ‘good day,’ and
so pass on. In a little time, those whom I had thus
accosted would make a point of coming to their doors and windows
at the usual hour, and nod or courtesy to me; children, too, came
timidly within my reach, and ran away quite scared when I patted
their heads and bade them be good at school. These little
people soon grew more familiar. From exchanging mere words
of course with my older neighbours, I gradually became their
friend and adviser, the depositary of their cares and sorrows,
and sometimes, it may be, the reliever, in my small way, of their
distresses. And now I never walk abroad but pleasant
recognitions and smiling faces wait on Master Humphrey.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p217b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Friendly recognitions"
title=
"Friendly recognitions"
src="images/p217s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>It was a whim of mine, perhaps as a whet to the curiosity of
my neighbours, and a kind of retaliation upon them for their
suspicions—it was, I say, a whim of mine, when I first took
up my abode in this place, to acknowledge no other name than
Humphrey. With my detractors, I was Ugly Humphrey.
When I began to convert them into friends, I was Mr. Humphrey and
Old Mr. Humphrey. At length I settled down into plain
Master Humphrey, which was understood to be the title most
pleasant to my ear; and so completely a matter of course has it
become, that sometimes when I am taking my morning walk in my
little courtyard, I overhear my barber—who has a profound
respect for me, and would not, I am sure, abridge my honours for
the world—holding forth on the other side of the wall,
touching the state of ‘Master Humphrey’s’
health, and communicating to some friend the substance of the
conversation that he and Master Humphrey have had together in the
course of the shaving which he has just concluded.</p>
<p>That I may not make acquaintance with my readers under false
pretences, or give them cause to complain hereafter that I have
withheld any matter which it was essential for them to have
learnt at first, I wish them to know—and I smile
sorrowfully to think that the time has been when the confession
would have given me pain—that I am a misshapen, deformed
old man.</p>
<p>I have never been made a misanthrope by this cause. I
have never been stung by any insult, nor wounded by any jest upon
my crooked figure. As a child I was melancholy and timid,
but that was because the gentle consideration paid to my
misfortune sunk deep into my spirit and made me sad, even in
those early days. I was but a very young creature when my
poor mother died, and yet I remember that often when I hung
around her neck, and oftener still when I played about the room
before her, she would catch me to her bosom, and bursting into
tears, would soothe me with every term of fondness and
affection. God knows I was a happy child at those
times,—happy to nestle in her breast,—happy to weep
when she did,—happy in not knowing why.</p>
<p>These occasions are so strongly impressed upon my memory, that
they seem to have occupied whole years. I had numbered
very, very few when they ceased for ever, but before then their
meaning had been revealed to me.</p>
<p>I do not know whether all children are imbued with a quick
perception of childish grace and beauty, and a strong love for
it, but I was. I had no thought that I remember, either
that I possessed it myself or that I lacked it, but I admired it
with an intensity that I cannot describe. A little knot of
playmates—they must have been beautiful, for I see them
now—were clustered one day round my mother’s knee in
eager admiration of some picture representing a group of infant
angels, which she held in her hand. Whose the picture was,
whether it was familiar to me or otherwise, or how all the
children came to be there, I forget; I have some dim thought it
was my birthday, but the beginning of my recollection is that we
were all together in a garden, and it was summer weather,—I
am sure of that, for one of the little girls had roses in her
sash. There were many lovely angels in this picture, and I
remember the fancy coming upon me to point out which of them
represented each child there, and that when I had gone through my
companions, I stopped and hesitated, wondering which was most
like me. I remember the children looking at each other, and
my turning red and hot, and their crowding round to kiss me,
saying that they loved me all the same; and then, and when the
old sorrow came into my dear mother’s mild and tender look,
the truth broke upon me for the first time, and I knew, while
watching my awkward and ungainly sports, how keenly she had felt
for her poor crippled boy.</p>
<p>I used frequently to dream of it afterwards, and now my heart
aches for that child as if I had never been he, when I think how
often he awoke from some fairy change to his own old form, and
sobbed himself to sleep again.</p>
<p>Well, well,—all these sorrows are past. My
glancing at them may not be without its use, for it may help in
some measure to explain why I have all my life been attached to
the inanimate objects that people my chamber, and how I have come
to look upon them rather in the light of old and constant
friends, than as mere chairs and tables which a little money
could replace at will.</p>
<p>Chief and first among all these is my Clock,—my old,
cheerful, companionable Clock. How can I ever convey to
others an idea of the comfort and consolation that this old Clock
has been for years to me!</p>
<p>It is associated with my earliest recollections. It
stood upon the staircase at home (I call it home still
mechanically), nigh sixty years ago. I like it for that;
but it is not on that account, nor because it is a quaint old
thing in a huge oaken case curiously and richly carved, that I
prize it as I do. I incline to it as if it were alive, and
could understand and give me back the love I bear it.</p>
<p>And what other thing that has not life could cheer me as it
does? what other thing that has not life (I will not say how few
things that have) could have proved the same patient, true,
untiring friend? How often have I sat in the long winter
evenings feeling such society in its cricket-voice, that raising
my eyes from my book and looking gratefully towards it, the face
reddened by the glow of the shining fire has seemed to relax from
its staid expression and to regard me kindly! how often in the
summer twilight, when my thoughts have wandered back to a
melancholy past, have its regular whisperings recalled them to
the calm and peaceful present! how often in the dead tranquillity
of night has its bell broken the oppressive silence, and seemed
to give me assurance that the old clock was still a faithful
watcher at my chamber-door! My easy-chair, my desk, my
ancient furniture, my very books, I can scarcely bring myself to
love even these last like my old clock.</p>
<p>It stands in a snug corner, midway between the fireside and a
low arched door leading to my bedroom. Its fame is diffused
so extensively throughout the neighbourhood, that I have often
the satisfaction of hearing the publican, or the baker, and
sometimes even the parish-clerk, petitioning my housekeeper (of
whom I shall have much to say by-and-by) to inform him the exact
time by Master Humphrey’s clock. My barber, to whom I
have referred, would sooner believe it than the sun. Nor
are these its only distinctions. It has acquired, I am
happy to say, another, inseparably connecting it not only with my
enjoyments and reflections, but with those of other men; as I
shall now relate.</p>
<p>I lived alone here for a long time without any friend or
acquaintance. In the course of my wanderings by night and
day, at all hours and seasons, in city streets and quiet country
parts, I came to be familiar with certain faces, and to take it
to heart as quite a heavy disappointment if they failed to
present themselves each at its accustomed spot. But these
were the only friends I knew, and beyond them I had none.</p>
<p>It happened, however, when I had gone on thus for a long time,
that I formed an acquaintance with a deaf gentleman, which
ripened into intimacy and close companionship. To this
hour, I am ignorant of his name. It is his humour to
conceal it, or he has a reason and purpose for so doing. In
either case, I feel that he has a right to require a return of
the trust he has reposed; and as he has never sought to discover
my secret, I have never sought to penetrate his. There may
have been something in this tacit confidence in each other
flattering and pleasant to us both, and it may have imparted in
the beginning an additional zest, perhaps, to our
friendship. Be this as it may, we have grown to be like
brothers, and still I only know him as the deaf gentleman.</p>
<p>I have said that retirement has become a habit with me.
When I add, that the deaf gentleman and I have two friends, I
communicate nothing which is inconsistent with that
declaration. I spend many hours of every day in solitude
and study, have no friends or change of friends but these, only
see them at stated periods, and am supposed to be of a retired
spirit by the very nature and object of our association.</p>
<p>We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud upon
our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has not
cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who
are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream,
rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are
alchemists who would extract the essence of perpetual youth from
dust and ashes, tempt coy Truth in many light and airy forms from
the bottom of her well, and discover one crumb of comfort or one
grain of good in the commonest and least-regarded matter that
passes through our crucible. Spirits of past times,
creatures of imagination, and people of to-day are alike the
objects of our seeking, and, unlike the objects of search with
most philosophers, we can insure their coming at our command.</p>
<p>The deaf gentleman and I first began to beguile our days with
these fancies, and our nights in communicating them to each
other. We are now four. But in my room there are six
old chairs, and we have decided that the two empty seats shall
always be placed at our table when we meet, to remind us that we
may yet increase our company by that number, if we should find
two men to our mind. When one among us dies, his chair will
always be set in its usual place, but never occupied again; and I
have caused my will to be so drawn out, that when we are all dead
the house shall be shut up, and the vacant chairs still left in
their accustomed places. It is pleasant to think that even
then our shades may, perhaps, assemble together as of yore we
did, and join in ghostly converse.</p>
<p>One night in every week, as the clock strikes ten, we
meet. At the second stroke of two, I am alone.</p>
<p>And now shall I tell how that my old servant, besides giving
us note of time, and ticking cheerful encouragement of our
proceedings, lends its name to our society, which for its
punctuality and my love is christened ‘Master
Humphrey’s Clock’? Now shall I tell how that in
the bottom of the old dark closet, where the steady pendulum
throbs and beats with healthy action, though the pulse of him who
made it stood still long ago, and never moved again, there are
piles of dusty papers constantly placed there by our hands, that
we may link our enjoyments with my old friend, and draw means to
beguile time from the heart of time itself? Shall I, or can
I, tell with what a secret pride I open this repository when we
meet at night, and still find new store of pleasure in my dear
old Clock?</p>
<p>Friend and companion of my solitude! mine is not a selfish
love; I would not keep your merits to myself, but disperse
something of pleasant association with your image through the
whole wide world; I would have men couple with your name cheerful
and healthy thoughts; I would have them believe that you keep
true and honest time; and how it would gladden me to know that
they recognised some hearty English work in Master
Humphrey’s clock!</p>
<h3>THE CLOCK-CASE</h3>
<p>It is my intention constantly to address my readers from the
chimney-corner, and I would fain hope that such accounts as I
shall give them of our histories and proceedings, our quiet
speculations or more busy adventures, will never be
unwelcome. Lest, however, I should grow prolix in the
outset by lingering too long upon our little association,
confounding the enthusiasm with which I regard this chief
happiness of my life with that minor degree of interest which
those to whom I address myself may be supposed to feel for it, I
have deemed it expedient to break off as they have seen.</p>
<p>But, still clinging to my old friend, and naturally desirous
that all its merits should be known, I am tempted to open
(somewhat irregularly and against our laws, I must admit) the
clock-case. The first roll of paper on which I lay my hand
is in the writing of the deaf gentleman. I shall have to
speak of him in my next paper; and how can I better approach that
welcome task than by prefacing it with a production of his own
pen, consigned to the safe keeping of my honest Clock by his own
hand?</p>
<p>The manuscript runs thus</p>
<h3>INTRODUCTION TO THE GIANT CHRONICLES</h3>
<p>Once upon a time, that is to say, in this our time,—the
exact year, month, and day are of no matter,—there dwelt in
the city of London a substantial citizen, who united in his
single person the dignities of wholesale fruiterer, alderman,
common-councilman, and member of the worshipful Company of
Patten-makers; who had superadded to these extraordinary
distinctions the important post and title of Sheriff, and who at
length, and to crown all, stood next in rotation for the high and
honourable office of Lord Mayor.</p>
<p>He was a very substantial citizen indeed. His face was
like the full moon in a fog, with two little holes punched out
for his eyes, a very ripe pear stuck on for his nose, and a wide
gash to serve for a mouth. The girth of his waistcoat was
hung up and lettered in his tailor’s shop as an
extraordinary curiosity. He breathed like a heavy snorer,
and his voice in speaking came thickly forth, as if it were
oppressed and stifled by feather-beds. He trod the ground
like an elephant, and eat and drank like—like nothing but
an alderman, as he was.</p>
<p>This worthy citizen had risen to his great eminence from small
beginnings. He had once been a very lean, weazen little
boy, never dreaming of carrying such a weight of flesh upon his
bones or of money in his pockets, and glad enough to take his
dinner at a baker’s door, and his tea at a pump. But
he had long ago forgotten all this, as it was proper that a
wholesale fruiterer, alderman, common-councilman, member of the
worshipful Company of Patten-makers, past sheriff, and, above
all, a Lord Mayor that was to be, should; and he never forgot it
more completely in all his life than on the eighth of November in
the year of his election to the great golden civic chair, which
was the day before his grand dinner at Guildhall.</p>
<p>It happened that as he sat that evening all alone in his
counting-house, looking over the bill of fare for next day, and
checking off the fat capons in fifties, and the turtle-soup by
the hundred quarts, for his private amusement,—it happened
that as he sat alone occupied in these pleasant calculations, a
strange man came in and asked him how he did, adding, ‘If I
am half as much changed as you, sir, you have no recollection of
me, I am sure.’</p>
<p>The strange man was not over and above well dressed, and was
very far from being fat or rich-looking in any sense of the word,
yet he spoke with a kind of modest confidence, and assumed an
easy, gentlemanly sort of an air, to which nobody but a rich man
can lawfully presume. Besides this, he interrupted the good
citizen just as he had reckoned three hundred and seventy-two fat
capons, and was carrying them over to the next column; and as if
that were not aggravation enough, the learned recorder for the
city of London had only ten minutes previously gone out at that
very same door, and had turned round and said, ‘Good night,
my lord.’ Yes, he had said, ‘my
lord;’—he, a man of birth and education, of the
Honourable Society of the Middle Temple,
Barrister-at-Law,—he who had an uncle in the House of
Commons, and an aunt almost but not quite in the House of Lords
(for she had married a feeble peer, and made him vote as she
liked),—he, this man, this learned recorder, had said,
‘my lord.’ ‘I’ll not wait till
to-morrow to give you your title, my Lord Mayor,’ says he,
with a bow and a smile; ‘you are Lord Mayor <i>de
facto</i>, if not <i>de jure</i>. Good night, my
lord.’</p>
<p>The Lord Mayor elect thought of this, and turning to the
stranger, and sternly bidding him ‘go out of his private
counting-house,’ brought forward the three hundred and
seventy-two fat capons, and went on with his account.</p>
<p>‘Do you remember,’ said the other, stepping
forward,—‘<i>do</i> you remember little Joe
Toddyhigh?’</p>
<p>The port wine fled for a moment from the fruiterer’s
nose as he muttered, ‘Joe Toddyhigh! What about Joe
Toddyhigh?’</p>
<p>‘<i>I</i> am Joe Toddyhigh,’ cried the
visitor. ‘Look at me, look hard at me,—harder,
harder. You know me now? You know little Joe
again? What a happiness to us both, to meet the very night
before your grandeur! O! give me your hand,
Jack,—both hands,—both, for the sake of old
times.’</p>
<p>‘You pinch me, sir. You’re a-hurting of
me,’ said the Lord Mayor elect pettishly.
‘Don’t,—suppose anybody should come,—Mr.
Toddyhigh, sir.’</p>
<p>‘Mr. Toddyhigh!’ repeated the other ruefully.</p>
<p>‘O, don’t bother,’ said the Lord Mayor
elect, scratching his head. ‘Dear me! Why, I
thought you was dead. What a fellow you are!’</p>
<p>Indeed, it was a pretty state of things, and worthy the tone
of vexation and disappointment in which the Lord Mayor
spoke. Joe Toddyhigh had been a poor boy with him at Hull,
and had oftentimes divided his last penny and parted his last
crust to relieve his wants; for though Joe was a destitute child
in those times, he was as faithful and affectionate in his
friendship as ever man of might could be. They parted one
day to seek their fortunes in different directions. Joe
went to sea, and the now wealthy citizen begged his way to
London, They separated with many tears, like foolish fellows as
they were, and agreed to remain fast friends, and if they lived,
soon to communicate again.</p>
<p>When he was an errand-boy, and even in the early days of his
apprenticeship, the citizen had many a time trudged to the
Post-office to ask if there were any letter from poor little Joe,
and had gone home again with tears in his eyes, when he found no
news of his only friend. The world is a wide place, and it
was a long time before the letter came; when it did, the writer
was forgotten. It turned from white to yellow from lying in
the Post-office with nobody to claim it, and in course of time
was torn up with five hundred others, and sold for
waste-paper. And now at last, and when it might least have
been expected, here was this Joe Toddyhigh turning up and
claiming acquaintance with a great public character, who on the
morrow would be cracking jokes with the Prime Minister of
England, and who had only, at any time during the next twelve
months, to say the word, and he could shut up Temple Bar, and
make it no thoroughfare for the king himself!</p>
<p>‘I am sure I don’t know what to say, Mr.
Toddyhigh,’ said the Lord Mayor elect; ‘I really
don’t. It’s very inconvenient. I’d
sooner have given twenty pound,—it’s very
inconvenient, really.’—A thought had come into his
mind, that perhaps his old friend might say something passionate
which would give him an excuse for being angry himself. No
such thing. Joe looked at him steadily, but very mildly, and did
not open his lips.</p>
<p>‘Of course I shall pay you what I owe you,’ said
the Lord Mayor elect, fidgeting in his chair. ‘You
lent me—I think it was a shilling or some small
coin—when we parted company, and that of course I shall pay
with good interest. I can pay my way with any man, and
always have done. If you look into the Mansion House the
day after to-morrow,—some time after dusk,—and ask
for my private clerk, you’ll find he has a draft for
you. I haven’t got time to say anything more just
now, unless,’—he hesitated, for, coupled with a
strong desire to glitter for once in all his glory in the eyes of
his former companion, was a distrust of his appearance, which
might be more shabby than he could tell by that feeble
light,—‘unless you’d like to come to the dinner
to-morrow. I don’t mind your having this ticket, if
you like to take it. A great many people would give their
ears for it, I can tell you.’</p>
<p>His old friend took the card without speaking a word, and
instantly departed. His sunburnt face and gray hair were
present to the citizen’s mind for a moment; but by the time
he reached three hundred and eighty-one fat capons, he had quite
forgotten him.</p>
<p>Joe Toddyhigh had never been in the capital of Europe before,
and he wandered up and down the streets that night amazed at the
number of churches and other public buildings, the splendour of
the shops, the riches that were heaped up on every side, the
glare of light in which they were displayed, and the concourse of
people who hurried to and fro, indifferent, apparently, to all
the wonders that surrounded them. But in all the long
streets and broad squares, there were none but strangers; it was
quite a relief to turn down a by-way and hear his own footsteps
on the pavement. He went home to his inn, thought that
London was a dreary, desolate place, and felt disposed to doubt
the existence of one true-hearted man in the whole worshipful
Company of Patten-makers. Finally, he went to bed, and
dreamed that he and the Lord Mayor elect were boys again.</p>
<p>He went next day to the dinner; and when in a burst of light
and music, and in the midst of splendid decorations and
surrounded by brilliant company, his former friend appeared at
the head of the Hall, and was hailed with shouts and cheering, he
cheered and shouted with the best, and for the moment could have
cried. The next moment he cursed his weakness in behalf of
a man so changed and selfish, and quite hated a jolly-looking old
gentleman opposite for declaring himself in the pride of his
heart a Patten-maker.</p>
<p>As the banquet proceeded, he took more and more to heart the
rich citizen’s unkindness; and that, not from any envy, but
because he felt that a man of his state and fortune could all the
better afford to recognise an old friend, even if he were poor
and obscure. The more he thought of this, the more lonely
and sad he felt. When the company dispersed and adjourned
to the ball-room, he paced the hall and passages alone,
ruminating in a very melancholy condition upon the disappointment
he had experienced.</p>
<p>It chanced, while he was lounging about in this moody state,
that he stumbled upon a flight of stairs, dark, steep, and
narrow, which he ascended without any thought about the matter,
and so came into a little music-gallery, empty and
deserted. From this elevated post, which commanded the
whole hall, he amused himself in looking down upon the attendants
who were clearing away the fragments of the feast very lazily,
and drinking out of all the bottles and glasses with most
commendable perseverance.</p>
<p>His attention gradually relaxed, and he fell fast asleep.</p>
<p>When he awoke, he thought there must be something the matter
with his eyes; but, rubbing them a little, he soon found that the
moonlight was really streaming through the east window, that the
lamps were all extinguished, and that he was alone. He
listened, but no distant murmur in the echoing passages, not even
the shutting of a door, broke the deep silence; he groped his way
down the stairs, and found that the door at the bottom was locked
on the other side. He began now to comprehend that he must
have slept a long time, that he had been overlooked, and was shut
up there for the night.</p>
<p>His first sensation, perhaps, was not altogether a comfortable
one, for it was a dark, chilly, earthy-smelling place, and
something too large, for a man so situated, to feel at home
in. However, when the momentary consternation of his
surprise was over, he made light of the accident, and resolved to
feel his way up the stairs again, and make himself as comfortable
as he could in the gallery until morning. As he turned to
execute this purpose, he heard the clocks strike three.</p>
<p>Any such invasion of a dead stillness as the striking of
distant clocks, causes it to appear the more intense and
insupportable when the sound has ceased. He listened with
strained attention in the hope that some clock, lagging behind
its fellows, had yet to strike,—looking all the time into
the profound darkness before him, until it seemed to weave itself
into a black tissue, patterned with a hundred reflections of his
own eyes. But the bells had all pealed out their warning
for that once, and the gust of wind that moaned through the place
seemed cold and heavy with their iron breath.</p>
<p>The time and circumstances were favourable to
reflection. He tried to keep his thoughts to the current,
unpleasant though it was, in which they had moved all day, and to
think with what a romantic feeling he had looked forward to
shaking his old friend by the hand before he died, and what a
wide and cruel difference there was between the meeting they had
had, and that which he had so often and so long
anticipated. Still, he was disordered by waking to such
sudden loneliness, and could not prevent his mind from running
upon odd tales of people of undoubted courage, who, being shut up
by night in vaults or churches, or other dismal places, had
scaled great heights to get out, and fled from silence as they
had never done from danger. This brought to his mind the
moonlight through the window, and bethinking himself of it, he
groped his way back up the crooked stairs,—but very
stealthily, as though he were fearful of being overheard.</p>
<p>He was very much astonished when he approached the gallery
again, to see a light in the building: still more so, on
advancing hastily and looking round, to observe no visible source
from which it could proceed. But how much greater yet was
his astonishment at the spectacle which this light revealed.</p>
<p>The statues of the two giants, Gog and Magog, each above
fourteen feet in height, those which succeeded to still older and
more barbarous figures, after the Great Fire of London, and which
stand in the Guildhall to this day, were endowed with life and
motion. These guardian genii of the City had quitted their
pedestals, and reclined in easy attitudes in the great stained
glass window. Between them was an ancient cask, which
seemed to be full of wine; for the younger Giant, clapping his
huge hand upon it, and throwing up his mighty leg, burst into an
exulting laugh, which reverberated through the hall like
thunder.</p>
<p>Joe Toddyhigh instinctively stooped down, and, more dead than
alive, felt his hair stand on end, his knees knock together, and
a cold damp break out upon his forehead. But even at that
minute curiosity prevailed over every other feeling, and somewhat
reassured by the good-humour of the Giants and their apparent
unconsciousness of his presence, he crouched in a corner of the
gallery, in as small a space as he could, and, peeping between
the rails, observed them closely.</p>
<p>It was then that the elder Giant, who had a flowing gray
beard, raised his thoughtful eyes to his companion’s face,
and in a grave and solemn voice addressed him thus:</p>
<h3>FIRST NIGHT OF THE GIANT CHRONICLES</h3>
<p>Turning towards his companion the elder Giant uttered these
words in a grave, majestic tone:</p>
<p>‘Magog, does boisterous mirth beseem the Giant Warder of
this ancient city? Is this becoming demeanour for a
watchful spirit over whose bodiless head so many years have
rolled, so many changes swept like empty air—in whose
impalpable nostrils the scent of blood and crime, pestilence,
cruelty, and horror, has been familiar as breath to
mortals—in whose sight Time has gathered in the harvest of
centuries, and garnered so many crops of human pride, affections,
hopes, and sorrows? Bethink you of our compact. The
night wanes; feasting, revelry, and music have encroached upon
our usual hours of solitude, and morning will be here
apace. Ere we are stricken mute again, bethink you of our
compact.’</p>
<p>Pronouncing these latter words with more of impatience than
quite accorded with his apparent age and gravity, the Giant
raised a long pole (which he still bears in his hand) and tapped
his brother Giant rather smartly on the head; indeed, the blow
was so smartly administered, that the latter quickly withdrew his
lips from the cask, to which they had been applied, and, catching
up his shield and halberd, assumed an attitude of defence.
His irritation was but momentary, for he laid these weapons aside
as hastily as he had assumed them, and said as he did so:</p>
<p>‘You know, Gog, old friend, that when we animate these
shapes which the Londoners of old assigned (and not unworthily)
to the guardian genii of their city, we are susceptible of some
of the sensations which belong to human kind. Thus when I
taste wine, I feel blows; when I relish the one, I disrelish the
other. Therefore, Gog, the more especially as your arm is
none of the lightest, keep your good staff by your side, else we
may chance to differ. Peace be between us!’</p>
<p>‘Amen!’ said the other, leaning his staff in the
window-corner. ‘Why did you laugh just
now?’</p>
<p><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
228</span>‘To think,’ replied the Giant Magog, laying
his hand upon the cask, ‘of him who owned this wine, and
kept it in a cellar hoarded from the light of day, for thirty
years,—“till it should be fit to drink,” quoth
he. He was twoscore and ten years old when he buried it
beneath his house, and yet never thought that he might be
scarcely “fit to drink” when the wine became
so. I wonder it never occurred to him to make himself unfit
to be eaten. There is very little of him left by this
time.’</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p228b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Gog and Magog"
title=
"Gog and Magog"
src="images/p228s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>‘The night is waning,’ said Gog mournfully.</p>
<p>‘I know it,’ replied his companion, ‘and I
see you are impatient. But look. Through the eastern
window—placed opposite to us, that the first beams of the
rising sun may every morning gild our giant faces—the
moon-rays fall upon the pavement in a stream of light that to my
fancy sinks through the cold stone and gushes into the old crypt
below. The night is scarcely past its noon, and our great
charge is sleeping heavily.’</p>
<p>They ceased to speak, and looked upward at the moon. The
sight of their large, black, rolling eyes filled Joe Toddyhigh
with such horror that he could scarcely draw his breath.
Still they took no note of him, and appeared to believe
themselves quite alone.</p>
<p>‘Our compact,’ said Magog after a pause,
‘is, if I understand it, that, instead of watching here in
silence through the dreary nights, we entertain each other with
stories of our past experience; with tales of the past, the
present, and the future; with legends of London and her sturdy
citizens from the old simple times. That every night at
midnight, when St. Paul’s bell tolls out one, and we may
move and speak, we thus discourse, nor leave such themes till the
first gray gleam of day shall strike us dumb. Is that our
bargain, brother?’</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ said the Giant Gog, ‘that is the
league between us who guard this city, by day in spirit, and by
night in body also; and never on ancient holidays have its
conduits run wine more merrily than we will pour forth our
legendary lore. We are old chroniclers from this time
hence. The crumbled walls encircle us once more, the
postern-gates are closed, the drawbridge is up, and pent in its
narrow den beneath, the water foams and struggles with the sunken
starlings. Jerkins and quarter-staves are in the streets
again, the nightly watch is set, the rebel, sad and lonely in his
Tower dungeon, tries to sleep and weeps for home and
children. Aloft upon the gates and walls are noble heads
glaring fiercely down upon the dreaming city, and vexing the
hungry dogs that scent them in the air, and tear the ground
beneath with dismal howlings. The axe, the block, the rack,
in their dark chambers give signs of recent use. The
Thames, floating past long lines of cheerful windows whence come
a burst of music and a stream of light, bears suddenly to the
Palace wall the last red stain brought on the tide from
Traitor’s Gate. But your pardon, brother. The
night wears, and I am talking idly.’</p>
<p>The other Giant appeared to be entirely of this opinion, for
during the foregoing rhapsody of his fellow-sentinel he had been
scratching his head with an air of comical uneasiness, or rather
with an air that would have been very comical if he had been a
dwarf or an ordinary-sized man. He winked too, and though
it could not be doubted for a moment that he winked to himself,
still he certainly cocked his enormous eye towards the gallery
where the listener was concealed. Nor was this all, for he
gaped; and when he gaped, Joe was horribly reminded of the
popular prejudice on the subject of giants, and of their fabled
power of smelling out Englishmen, however closely concealed.</p>
<p>His alarm was such that he nearly swooned, and it was some
little time before his power of sight or hearing was
restored. When he recovered he found that the elder Giant
was pressing the younger to commence the Chronicles, and that the
latter was endeavouring to excuse himself on the ground that the
night was far spent, and it would be better to wait until the
next. Well assured by this that he was certainly about to
begin directly, the listener collected his faculties by a great
effort, and distinctly heard Magog express himself to the
following effect:</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>In the sixteenth century and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth
of glorious memory (albeit her golden days are sadly rusted with
blood), there lived in the city of London a bold young
’prentice who loved his master’s daughter.
There were no doubt within the walls a great many
’prentices in this condition, but I speak of only one, and
his name was Hugh Graham.</p>
<p>This Hugh was apprenticed to an honest Bowyer who dwelt in the
ward of Cheype, and was rumoured to possess great wealth.
Rumour was quite as infallible in those days as at the present
time, but it happened then as now to be sometimes right by
accident. It stumbled upon the truth when it gave the old
Bowyer a mint of money. His trade had been a profitable one
in the time of King Henry the Eighth, who encouraged English
archery to the utmost, and he had been prudent and
discreet. Thus it came to pass that Mistress Alice, his
only daughter, was the richest heiress in all his wealthy
ward. Young Hugh had often maintained with staff and cudgel
that she was the handsomest. To do him justice, I believe
she was.</p>
<p>If he could have gained the heart of pretty Mistress Alice by
knocking this conviction into stubborn people’s heads, Hugh
would have had no cause to fear. But though the
Bowyer’s daughter smiled in secret to hear of his doughty
deeds for her sake, and though her little waiting-woman reported
all her smiles (and many more) to Hugh, and though he was at a
vast expense in kisses and small coin to recompense her fidelity,
he made no progress in his love. He durst not whisper it to
Mistress Alice save on sure encouragement, and that she never
gave him. A glance of her dark eye as she sat at the door
on a summer’s evening after prayer-time, while he and the
neighbouring ’prentices exercised themselves in the street
with blunted sword and buckler, would fire Hugh’s blood so
that none could stand before him; but then she glanced at others
quite as kindly as on him, and where was the use of cracking
crowns if Mistress Alice smiled upon the cracked as well as on
the cracker?</p>
<p>Still Hugh went on, and loved her more and more. He
thought of her all day, and dreamed of her all night long.
He treasured up her every word and gesture, and had a palpitation
of the heart whenever he heard her footstep on the stairs or her
voice in an adjoining room. To him, the old Bowyer’s
house was haunted by an angel; there was enchantment in the air
and space in which she moved. It would have been no miracle
to Hugh if flowers had sprung from the rush-strewn floors beneath
the tread of lovely Mistress Alice.</p>
<p>Never did ’prentice long to distinguish himself in the
eyes of his lady-love so ardently as Hugh. Sometimes he
pictured to himself the house taking fire by night, and he, when
all drew back in fear, rushing through flame and smoke, and
bearing her from the ruins in his arms. At other times he
thought of a rising of fierce rebels, an attack upon the city, a
strong assault upon the Bowyer’s house in particular, and
he falling on the threshold pierced with numberless wounds in
defence of Mistress Alice. If he could only enact some
prodigy of valour, do some wonderful deed, and let her know that
she had inspired it, he thought he could die contented.</p>
<p>Sometimes the Bowyer and his daughter would go out to supper
with a worthy citizen at the fashionable hour of six
o’clock, and on such occasions Hugh, wearing his blue
’prentice cloak as gallantly as ’prentice might,
would attend with a lantern and his trusty club to escort them
home. These were the brightest moments of his life.
To hold the light while Mistress Alice picked her steps, to touch
her hand as he helped her over broken ways, to have her leaning
on his arm,—it sometimes even came to that,—this was
happiness indeed!</p>
<p>When the nights were fair, Hugh followed in the rear, his eyes
riveted on the graceful figure of the Bowyer’s daughter as
she and the old man moved on before him. So they threaded
the narrow winding streets of the city, now passing beneath the
overhanging gables of old wooden houses whence creaking signs
projected into the street, and now emerging from some dark and
frowning gateway into the clear moonlight. At such times,
or when the shouts of straggling brawlers met her ear, the
Bowyer’s daughter would look timidly back at Hugh,
beseeching him to draw nearer; and then how he grasped his club
and longed to do battle with a dozen rufflers, for the love of
Mistress Alice!</p>
<p>The old Bowyer was in the habit of lending money on interest
to the gallants of the Court, and thus it happened that many a
richly-dressed gentleman dismounted at his door. More
waving plumes and gallant steeds, indeed, were seen at the
Bowyer’s house, <a name="page232"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 232</span>and more embroidered silks and
velvets sparkled in his dark shop and darker private closet, than
at any merchants in the city. In those times no less than
in the present it would seem that the richest-looking cavaliers
often wanted money the most.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p232b.jpg">
<img alt=
"A Gallant Cavalier"
title=
"A Gallant Cavalier"
src="images/p232s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>Of these glittering clients there was one who always came
alone. He was nobly mounted, and, having no attendant, gave
his horse in charge to Hugh while he and the Bowyer were closeted
within. Once as he sprung into the saddle Mistress Alice
was seated at an upper window, and before she could withdraw he
had doffed his jewelled cap and kissed his hand. Hugh
watched him caracoling down the street, and burnt with
indignation. But how much deeper was the glow that reddened
in his cheeks when, raising his eyes to the casement, he saw that
Alice watched the stranger too!</p>
<p>He came again and often, each time arrayed more gaily than
before, and still the little casement showed him Mistress
Alice. At length one heavy day, she fled from home.
It had cost her a hard struggle, for all her old father’s
gifts were strewn about her chamber as if she had parted from
them one by one, and knew that the time must come when these
tokens of his love would wring her heart,—yet she was
gone.</p>
<p>She left a letter commanding her poor father to the care of
Hugh, and wishing he might be happier than ever he could have
been with her, for he deserved the love of a better and a purer
heart than she had to bestow. The old man’s
forgiveness (she said) she had no power to ask, but she prayed
God to bless him,—and so ended with a blot upon the paper
where her tears had fallen.</p>
<p>At first the old man’s wrath was kindled, and he carried
his wrong to the Queen’s throne itself; but there was no
redress he learnt at Court, for his daughter had been conveyed
abroad. This afterwards appeared to be the truth, as there
came from France, after an interval of several years, a letter in
her hand. It was written in trembling characters, and
almost illegible. Little could be made out save that she
often thought of home and her old dear pleasant room,—and
that she had dreamt her father was dead and had not blessed
her,—and that her heart was breaking.</p>
<p>The poor old Bowyer lingered on, never suffering Hugh to quit
his sight, for he knew now that he had loved his daughter, and
that was the only link that bound him to earth. It broke at
length and he died,—bequeathing his old ’prentice his
trade and all his wealth, and solemnly charging him with his last
breath to revenge his child if ever he who had worked her misery
crossed his path in life again.</p>
<p>From the time of Alice’s flight, the tilting-ground, the
fields, the fencing-school, the summer-evening sports, knew Hugh
no more. His spirit was dead within him. He rose to
great eminence and repute among the citizens, but was seldom seen
to smile, and never mingled in their revelries or
rejoicings. Brave, humane, and generous, he was beloved by
all. He was pitied too by those who knew his story, and
these were so many that when he walked along the streets alone at
dusk, even the rude common people doffed their caps and mingled a
rough air of sympathy with their respect.</p>
<p>One night in May—it was her birthnight, and twenty years
since she had left her home—Hugh Graham sat in the room she
had hallowed in his boyish days. He was now a gray-haired
man, though still in the prime of life. Old thoughts had
borne him company for many hours, and the chamber had gradually
grown quite dark, when he was roused by a low knocking at the
outer door.</p>
<p>He hastened down, and opening it saw by the light of a lamp
which he had seized upon the way, a female figure crouching in
the portal. It hurried swiftly past him and glided up the
stairs. He looked for pursuers. There were none in
sight. No, not one.</p>
<p>He was inclined to think it a vision of his own brain, when
suddenly a vague suspicion of the truth flashed upon his
mind. He barred the door, and hastened wildly back.
Yes, there she was,—there, in the chamber he had
quitted,—there in her old innocent, happy home, so changed
that none but he could trace one gleam of what she had
been,—there upon her knees,—with her hands clasped in
agony and shame before her burning face.</p>
<p>‘My God, my God!’ she cried, ‘now strike me
dead! Though I have brought death and shame and sorrow on
this roof, O, let me die at home in mercy!’</p>
<p>There was no tear upon her face then, but she trembled and
glanced round the chamber. Everything was in its old
place. Her bed looked as if she had risen from it but that
morning. The sight of these familiar objects, marking the
dear remembrance in which she had been held, and the blight she
had brought upon herself, was more than the woman’s better
nature that had carried her there could bear. She wept and
fell upon the ground.</p>
<p>A rumour was spread about, in a few days’ time, that the
Bowyer’s cruel daughter had come home, and that Master
Graham had given her lodging in his house. It was rumoured
too that he had resigned her fortune, in order that she might
bestow it in acts of charity, and that he had vowed to guard her
in her solitude, but that they were never to see each other
more. These rumours greatly incensed all virtuous wives and
daughters in the ward, especially when they appeared to receive
some corroboration from the circumstance of Master Graham taking
up his abode in another tenement hard by. The estimation in
which he was held, however, forbade any questioning on the
subject; and as the Bowyer’s house was close shut up, and
nobody came forth when public shows and festivities were in
progress, or to flaunt in the public walks, or to buy new
fashions at the mercers’ booths, all the well-conducted
females agreed among themselves that there could be no woman
there.</p>
<p>These reports had scarcely died away when the wonder of every
good citizen, male and female, was utterly absorbed and swallowed
up by a Royal Proclamation, in which her Majesty, strongly
censuring the practice of wearing long Spanish rapiers of
preposterous length (as being a bullying and swaggering custom,
tending to bloodshed and public disorder), commanded that on a
particular day therein named, certain grave citizens should
repair to the city gates, and there, in public, break all rapiers
worn or carried by persons claiming admission, that exceeded,
though it were only by a quarter of an inch, three standard feet
in length.</p>
<p>Royal Proclamations usually take their course, let the public
wonder never so much. On the appointed day two citizens of
high repute took up their stations at each of the gates, attended
by a party of the city guard, the main body to enforce the
Queen’s will, and take custody of all such rebels (if any)
as might have the temerity to dispute it: and a few to bear the
standard measures and instruments for reducing all unlawful
sword-blades to the prescribed dimensions. In pursuance of
these arrangements, Master Graham and another were posted at Lud
Gate, on the hill before St. Paul’s.</p>
<p>A pretty numerous company were gathered together at this spot,
for, besides the officers in attendance to enforce the
proclamation, there was a motley crowd of lookers-on of various
degrees, who raised from time to time such shouts and cries as
the circumstances called forth. A spruce young courtier was
the first who approached: he unsheathed a weapon of burnished
steel that shone and glistened in the sun, and handed it with the
newest air to the officer, who, finding it exactly three feet
long, returned it with a bow. Thereupon the gallant raised
his hat and crying, ‘God save the Queen!’ passed on
amidst the plaudits of the mob. Then came another—a
better courtier still—who wore a blade but two feet long,
whereat the people laughed, much to the disparagement of his
honour’s dignity. Then came a third, a sturdy old
officer of the army, girded with a rapier at least a foot and a
half beyond her Majesty’s pleasure; at him they raised a
great shout, and most of the spectators (but especially those who
were armourers or cutlers) laughed very heartily at the breakage
which would ensue. But they were disappointed; for the old
campaigner, coolly unbuckling his sword and bidding his servant
carry it home again, passed through unarmed, to the great
indignation of all the beholders. They relieved themselves
in some degree by hooting a tall blustering fellow with a
prodigious weapon, who stopped short on coming in sight of the
preparations, and after a little consideration turned back
again. But all this time no rapier had been broken,
although it was high noon, and all cavaliers of any quality or
appearance were taking their way towards Saint Paul’s
churchyard.</p>
<p>During these proceedings, Master Graham had stood apart,
strictly confining himself to the duty imposed upon him, and
taking little heed of anything beyond. He stepped forward
now as a richly-dressed gentleman on foot, followed by a single
attendant, was seen advancing up the hill.</p>
<p>As this person drew nearer, the crowd stopped their clamour,
and bent forward with eager looks. Master Graham standing
alone in the gateway, and the stranger coming slowly towards him,
they seemed, as it were, set face to face. The nobleman
(for he looked one) had a haughty and disdainful air, which
bespoke the slight estimation in which he held the citizen.
The citizen, on the other hand, preserved the resolute bearing of
one who was not to be frowned down or daunted, and who cared very
little for any nobility but that of worth and manhood. It
was perhaps some consciousness on the part of each, of these
feelings in the other, that infused a more stern expression into
their regards as they came closer together.</p>
<p>‘Your rapier, worthy sir!’</p>
<p>At the instant that he pronounced these words Graham started,
and falling back some paces, laid his hand upon the dagger in his
belt.</p>
<p>‘You are the man whose horse I used to hold before the
Bowyer’s door? You are that man?
Speak!’</p>
<p>‘Out, you ’prentice hound!’ said the
other.</p>
<p>‘You are he! I know you well now!’ cried
Graham. ‘Let no man step between us two, or I shall
be his murderer.’ With that he drew his dagger, and
rushed in upon him.</p>
<p>The stranger had drawn his weapon from the scabbard ready for
the scrutiny, before a word was spoken. He made a thrust at
his assailant, but the dagger which Graham clutched in his left
hand being the dirk in use at that time for parrying such blows,
promptly turned the point aside. They closed. The
dagger fell rattling on the ground, and Graham, wresting his
adversary’s sword from his grasp, plunged it through his
heart. As he drew it out it snapped in two, leaving a
fragment in the dead man’s body.</p>
<p>All this passed so swiftly that the bystanders looked on
without an effort to interfere; but the man was no sooner down
than an uproar broke forth which rent the air. The
attendant rushing through the gate proclaimed that his master, a
nobleman, had been set upon and slain by a citizen; the word
quickly spread from mouth to mouth; Saint Paul’s Cathedral,
and every book-shop, ordinary, and smoking-house in the
churchyard poured out its stream of cavaliers and their
followers, who mingling together in a dense tumultuous body,
struggled, sword in hand, towards the spot.</p>
<p>With equal impetuosity, and stimulating each other by loud
cries and shouts, the citizens and common people took up the
quarrel on their side, and encircling Master Graham a hundred
deep, forced him from the gate. In vain he waved the broken
sword above his head, crying that he would die on London’s
threshold for their sacred homes. They bore him on, and
ever keeping him in the midst, so that no man could attack him,
fought their way into the city.</p>
<p>The clash of swords and roar of voices, the dust and heat and
pressure, the trampling under foot of men, the distracted looks
and shrieks of women at the windows above as they recognised
their relatives or lovers in the crowd, the rapid tolling of
alarm-bells, the <a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
237</span>furious rage and passion of the scene, were
fearful. Those who, being on the outskirts of each crowd,
could use their weapons with effect, fought desperately, while
those behind, maddened with baffled rage, struck at each other
over the heads of those before them, and crushed their own
fellows. Wherever the broken sword was seen above the
people’s heads, towards that spot the cavaliers made a new
rush. Every one of these charges was marked by sudden gaps
in the throng where men were trodden down, but as fast as they
were made, the tide swept over them, and still the multitude
pressed on again, a confused mass of swords, clubs, staves,
broken plumes, fragments of rich cloaks and doublets, and angry,
bleeding faces, all mixed up together in inextricable
disorder.</p>
<p>The design of the people was to force Master Graham to take
refuge in his dwelling, and to defend it until the authorities
could interfere, or they could gain time for parley. But
either from ignorance or in the confusion of the moment they
stopped at his old house, which was closely shut. Some time
was lost in beating the doors open and passing him to the
front. About a score of the boldest of the other party
threw themselves into the torrent while this was being done, and
reaching the door at the same moment with himself cut him off
from his defenders.</p>
<p>‘I never will turn in such a righteous cause, so help me
Heaven!’ cried Graham, in a voice that at last made itself
heard, and confronting them as he spoke. ‘Least of
all will I turn upon this threshold which owes its desolation to
such men as ye. I give no quarter, and I will have
none! Strike!’</p>
<p>For a moment they stood at bay. At that moment a shot
from an unseen hand, apparently fired by some person who had
gained access to one of the opposite houses, struck Graham in the
brain, and he fell dead. A low wail was heard in the
air,—many people in the concourse cried that they had seen
a spirit glide across the little casement window of the
Bowyer’s house—</p>
<p>A dead silence succeeded. After a short time some of the
flushed and heated throng laid down their arms and softly carried
the body within doors. Others fell off or slunk away in
knots of two or three, others whispered together in groups, and
before a numerous guard which then rode up could muster in the
street, it was nearly empty.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p237b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Death of Master Graham"
title=
"Death of Master Graham"
src="images/p237s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>Those who carried Master Graham to the bed up-stairs were
shocked to see a woman lying beneath the window with her hands
clasped together. After trying to recover her in vain, they
laid her near the citizen, who still retained, tightly grasped in
his right hand, the first and last sword that was broken that day
at Lud Gate.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>The Giant uttered these concluding words with sudden
precipitation; and on the instant the strange light which had
filled the hall faded away. Joe Toddyhigh glanced
involuntarily at the eastern window, and saw the first pale gleam
of morning. He turned his head again towards the other
window in which the Giants had been seated. It was
empty. The cask of wine was gone, and he could dimly make
out that the two great figures stood mute and motionless upon
their pedestals.</p>
<p>After rubbing his eyes and wondering for full half an hour,
during which time he observed morning come creeping on apace, he
yielded to the drowsiness which overpowered him and fell into a
refreshing slumber. When he awoke it was broad day; the
building was open, and workmen were busily engaged in removing
the vestiges of last night’s feast.</p>
<p>Stealing gently down the little stairs, and assuming the air
of some early lounger who had dropped in from the street, he
walked up to the foot of each pedestal in turn, and attentively
examined the figure it supported. There could be no doubt
about the features of either; he recollected the exact expression
they had worn at different passages of their conversation, and
recognised in every line and lineament the Giants of the
night. Assured that it was no vision, but that he had heard
and seen with his own proper senses, he walked forth, determining
at all hazards to conceal himself in the Guildhall again that
evening. He further resolved to sleep all day, so that he
might be very wakeful and vigilant, and above all that he might
take notice of the figures at the precise moment of their
becoming animated and subsiding into their old state, which he
greatly reproached himself for not having done already.</p>
<h3>CORRESPONDENCE<br />
<span class="GutSmall">TO MASTER HUMPHREY</span></h3>
<p>‘<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Before you
proceed any further in your account of your friends and what you
say and do when you meet together, excuse me if I proffer my
claim to be elected to one of the vacant chairs in that old room
of yours. Don’t reject me without full consideration;
for if you do, you will be sorry for it afterwards—you
will, upon my life.</p>
<p>‘I enclose my card, sir, in this letter. I never
was ashamed of my name, and I never shall be. I am
considered a devilish gentlemanly fellow, and I act up to the
character. If you want a reference, ask any of the men at
our club. Ask any fellow who goes there to write his
letters, what sort of conversation mine is. Ask him if he
thinks I have the sort of voice that will suit your deaf friend
and make him hear, if he can hear anything at all. Ask the
servants what they think of me. There’s not a rascal
among ’em, sir, but will tremble to hear my name.
That reminds me—don’t you say too much about that
housekeeper of yours; it’s a low subject, damned low.</p>
<p>‘I tell you what, sir. If you vote me into one of
those empty chairs, you’ll have among you a man with a fund
of gentlemanly information that’ll rather astonish
you. I can let you into a few anecdotes about some fine
women of title, that are quite high life, sir—the tiptop
sort of thing. I know the name of every man who has been
out on an affair of honour within the last five-and-twenty years;
I know the private particulars of every cross and squabble that
has taken place upon the turf, at the gaming-table, or elsewhere,
during the whole of that time. I have been called the
gentlemanly chronicle. You may consider yourself a lucky
dog; upon my soul, you may congratulate yourself, though I say
so.</p>
<p>‘It’s an uncommon good notion that of yours, not
letting anybody know where you live. I have tried it, but
there has always been an anxiety respecting me, which has found
me out. Your deaf friend is a cunning fellow to keep his
name so close. I have tried that too, but have always
failed. I shall be proud to make his
acquaintance—tell him so, with my compliments.</p>
<p>‘You must have been a queer fellow when you were a
child, confounded queer. It’s odd, all that about the
picture in your first paper—prosy, but told in a devilish
gentlemanly sort of way. In places like that I could come
in with great effect with a touch of life—don’t you
feel that?</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p240b.jpg">
<img alt=
"A Charming Fellow"
title=
"A Charming Fellow"
src="images/p240s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
240</span>‘I am anxiously waiting for your next paper to
know whether your friends live upon the premises, and at your
expense, which I take it for granted is the case. If I am
right in this impression, I know a charming fellow (an excellent
companion and most delightful company) who will be proud to join
you. Some years ago he seconded a great many
prize-fighters, and once fought an amateur match himself; since
then he has driven several mails, broken at different periods all
the lamps on the right-hand side of Oxford-street, and six times
carried away every bell-handle in Bloomsbury-square, besides
turning off the gas in various thoroughfares. In point of
gentlemanliness he is unrivalled, and I should say that next to
myself he is of all men the best suited to your purpose.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">‘Expecting your reply,<br />
‘I am,<br />
‘&c. &c.’</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>Master Humphrey informs this gentleman that his application,
both as it concerns himself and his friend, is rejected.</p>
<h2><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
241</span>II</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">MASTER HUMPHREY, FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE
CHIMNEY-CORNER</p>
<p><span class="smcap">My</span> old companion tells me it is
midnight. The fire glows brightly, crackling with a sharp
and cheerful sound, as if it loved to burn. The merry
cricket on the hearth (my constant visitor), this ruddy blaze, my
clock, and I, seem to share the world among us, and to be the
only things awake. The wind, high and boisterous but now,
has died away and hoarsely mutters in its sleep. I love all
times and seasons each in its turn, and am apt, perhaps, to think
the present one the best; but past or coming I always love this
peaceful time of night, when long-buried thoughts, favoured by
the gloom and silence, steal from their graves, and haunt the
scenes of faded happiness and hope.</p>
<p>The popular faith in ghosts has a remarkable affinity with the
whole current of our thoughts at such an hour as this, and seems
to be their necessary and natural consequence. For who can
wonder that man should feel a vague belief in tales of
disembodied spirits wandering through those places which they
once dearly affected, when he himself, scarcely less separated
from his old world than they, is for ever lingering upon past
emotions and bygone times, and hovering, the ghost of his former
self, about the places and people that warmed his heart of
old? It is thus that at this quiet hour I haunt the house
where I was born, the rooms I used to tread, the scenes of my
infancy, my boyhood, and my youth; it is thus that I prowl around
my buried treasure (though not of gold or silver), and mourn my
loss; it is thus that I revisit the ashes of extinguished fires,
and take my silent stand at old bedsides. If my spirit
should ever glide back to this chamber when my body is mingled
with the dust, it will but follow the course it often took in the
old man’s lifetime, and add but one more change to the
subjects of its contemplation.</p>
<p>In all my idle speculations I am greatly assisted by various
legends connected with my venerable house, which are current in
the neighbourhood, and are so numerous that there is scarce a
cupboard or corner that has not some dismal story of its
own. When I first entertained thoughts of becoming its
tenant, I was assured that it was haunted from roof to cellar,
and I believe that the bad opinion in which my neighbours once
held me, had its rise in my not being torn to pieces, or at least
distracted with terror, on the night I took possession; in either
of which cases I should doubtless have arrived by a short cut at
the very summit of popularity.</p>
<p>But traditions and rumours all taken into account, who so
abets me in every fancy and chimes with my every thought, as my
dear deaf friend? and how often have I cause to bless the day
that brought us two together! Of all days in the year I
rejoice to think that it should have been Christmas Day, with
which from childhood we associate something friendly, hearty, and
sincere.</p>
<p>I had walked out to cheer myself with the happiness of others,
and, in the little tokens of festivity and rejoicing, of which
the streets and houses present so many upon that day, had lost
some hours. Now I stopped to look at a merry party hurrying
through the snow on foot to their place of meeting, and now
turned back to see a whole coachful of children safely deposited
at the welcome house. At one time, I admired how carefully
the working man carried the baby in its gaudy hat and feathers,
and how his wife, trudging patiently on behind, forgot even her
care of her gay clothes, in exchanging greeting with the child as
it crowed and laughed over the father’s shoulder; at
another, I pleased myself with some passing scene of gallantry or
courtship, and was glad to believe that for a season half the
world of poverty was gay.</p>
<p>As the day closed in, I still rambled through the streets,
feeling a companionship in the bright fires that cast their warm
reflection on the windows as I passed, and losing all sense of my
own loneliness in imagining the sociality and kind-fellowship
that everywhere prevailed. At length I happened to stop
before a Tavern, and, encountering a Bill of Fare in the window,
it all at once brought it into my head to wonder what kind of
people dined alone in Taverns upon Christmas Day.</p>
<p>Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciously to look
upon solitude as their own peculiar property. I had sat
alone in my room on many, many anniversaries of this great
holiday, and had never regarded it but as one of universal
assemblage and rejoicing. I had excepted, and with an
aching heart, a crowd of prisoners and beggars; but <i>these</i>
were not the men for whom the Tavern doors were open. Had
they any customers, or was it a mere form?—a form, no
doubt.</p>
<p>Trying to feel quite sure of this, I walked away; but before I
had gone many paces, I stopped and looked back. There was a
provoking air of business in the lamp above the door which I
could not overcome. I began to be afraid there might be
many customers—young men, perhaps, struggling with the
world, utter strangers in this great place, whose friends lived
at a long distance off, and whose means were too slender to
enable them to make the journey. The supposition gave rise
to so many distressing little pictures, that in preference to
carrying them home with me, I determined to encounter the
realities. So I turned and walked in.</p>
<p>I was at once glad and sorry to find that there was only one
person in the dining-room; glad to know that there were not more,
and sorry that he should be there by himself. He did not
look so old as I, but like me he was advanced in life, and his
hair was nearly white. Though I made more noise in entering
and seating myself than was quite necessary, with the view of
attracting his attention and saluting him in the good old form of
that time of year, he did not raise his head, but sat with it
resting on his hand, musing over his half-finished meal.</p>
<p>I called for something which would give me an excuse for
remaining in the room (I had dined early, as my housekeeper was
engaged at night to partake of some friend’s good cheer),
and sat where I could observe without intruding on him.
After a time he looked up. He was aware that somebody had
entered, but could see very little of me, as I sat in the shade
and he in the light. He was sad and thoughtful, and I
forbore to trouble him by speaking.</p>
<p>Let me believe it was something better than curiosity which
riveted my attention and impelled me strongly towards this
gentleman. I never saw so patient and kind a face. He
should have been surrounded by friends, and yet here he sat
dejected and alone when all men had their friends about
them. As often as he roused himself from his reverie he
would fall into it again, and it was plain that, whatever were
the subject of his thoughts, they were of a melancholy kind, and
would not be controlled.</p>
<p>He was not used to solitude. I was sure of that; for I
know by myself that if he had been, his manner would have been
different, and he would have taken some slight interest in the
arrival of another. I could not fail to mark that he had no
appetite; that he tried to eat in vain; that time after time the
plate was pushed away, and he relapsed into his former
posture.</p>
<p>His mind was wandering among old Christmas days, I
thought. Many of them sprung up together, not with a long
gap between each, but in unbroken succession like days of the
week. It was a great change to find himself for the first
time (I quite settled that it <i>was</i> the first) in an empty
silent room with no soul to care for. I could not help
following him in imagination through crowds of pleasant faces,
and then coming back to that dull place with its bough of
mistletoe sickening in the gas, and sprigs of holly parched up
already by a Simoom of roast and boiled. The very waiter
had gone home; and his representative, a poor, lean, hungry man,
was keeping Christmas in his jacket.</p>
<p>I grew still more interested in my friend. His dinner
done, a decanter of wine was placed before him. It remained
untouched for a long time, but at length with a quivering hand he
filled a glass and raised it to his lips. Some tender wish
to which he had been accustomed to give utterance on that day, or
some beloved name that he had been used to pledge, trembled upon
them at the moment. He put it down very hastily—took
it up once more—again put it down—pressed his hand
upon his face—yes—and tears stole down his cheeks, I
am certain.</p>
<p>Without pausing to consider whether I did right or wrong, I
stepped across the room, and sitting down beside him laid my hand
gently on his arm.</p>
<p>‘My friend,’ I said, ‘forgive me if I
beseech you to take comfort and consolation from the lips of an
old man. I will not preach to you what I have not
practised, indeed. Whatever be your grief, be of a good
heart—be of a good heart, pray!’</p>
<p>‘I see that you speak earnestly,’ he replied,
‘and kindly I am very sure, but—’</p>
<p>I nodded my head to show that I understood what he would say;
for I had already gathered, from a certain fixed expression in
his face, and from the attention with which he watched me while I
spoke, that his sense of hearing was destroyed.
‘There should be a freemasonry between us,’ said I,
pointing from himself to me to explain my meaning; ‘if not
in our gray hairs, at least in our misfortunes. You see
that I am but a poor cripple.’</p>
<p>I never felt so happy under my affliction since the trying
moment of my first becoming conscious of it, as when he took my
hand in his with a smile that has lighted my path in life from
that day, and we sat down side by side.</p>
<p>This was the beginning of my friendship with the deaf
gentleman; and when was ever the slight and easy service of a
kind word in season repaid by such attachment and devotion as he
has shown to me!</p>
<p>He produced a little set of tablets and a pencil to facilitate
our conversation, on that our first acquaintance; and I well
remember how awkward and constrained I was in writing down my
share of the dialogue, and how easily he guessed my meaning
before I had written half of what I had to say. He told me
in a faltering voice that he had not been accustomed to be alone
on that day—that it had always been a little festival with
him; and seeing that I glanced at his dress in the expectation
that he wore mourning, he added hastily that it was not that; if
it had been he thought he could have borne it better. From
that time to the present we have never touched upon this
theme. Upon every return of the same day we have been
together; and although we make it our annual custom to drink to
each other hand in hand after dinner, and to recall with
affectionate garrulity every circumstance of our first meeting,
we always avoid this one as if by mutual consent.</p>
<p>Meantime we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and
regard and forming an attachment which, I trust and believe, will
only be interrupted by death, to be renewed in another
existence. I scarcely know how we communicate as we do; but
he has long since ceased to be deaf to me. He is frequently
my companion in my walks, and even in crowded streets replies to
my slightest look or gesture, as though he could read my
thoughts. From the vast number of objects which pass in
rapid succession before our eyes, we frequently select the same
for some particular notice or remark; and when one of these
little coincidences occurs, I cannot describe the pleasure which
animates my friend, or the beaming countenance he will preserve
for half-an-hour afterwards at least.</p>
<p>He is a great thinker from living so much within himself, and,
having a lively imagination, has a facility of conceiving and
enlarging upon odd ideas, which renders him invaluable to our
little body, and greatly astonishes our two friends. His
powers in this respect are much assisted by a large pipe, which
he assures us once belonged to a German Student. Be this as
it may, it has undoubtedly a very ancient and mysterious
appearance, and is of such capacity that it takes three hours and
a half to smoke it out. I have reason to believe that my
barber, who is the chief authority of a knot of gossips, who
congregate every evening at a small tobacconist’s hard by,
has related anecdotes of this pipe and the grim figures that are
carved upon its bowl, at which all the smokers in the
neighbourhood have stood aghast; and I know that my housekeeper,
while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious
feeling connected with it which would render her exceedingly
unwilling to be left alone in its company after dark.</p>
<p>Whatever sorrow my dear friend has known, and whatever grief
may linger in some secret corner of his heart, he is now a
cheerful, placid, happy creature. Misfortune can never have
fallen upon such a man but for some good purpose; and when I see
its traces in his gentle nature and his earnest feeling, I am the
less disposed to murmur at such trials as I may have undergone
myself. With regard to the pipe, I have a theory of my own;
I cannot help thinking that it is in some manner connected with
the event that brought us together; for I remember that it was a
long time before he even talked about it; that when he did, he
grew reserved and melancholy; and that it was a long time yet
before he brought it forth. I have no curiosity, however,
upon this subject; for I know that it promotes his tranquillity
and comfort, and I need no other inducement to regard it with my
utmost favour.</p>
<p>Such is the deaf gentleman. I can call up his figure
now, clad in sober gray, and seated in the chimney-corner.
As he puffs out the smoke from his favourite pipe, he casts a
look on me brimful of cordiality and friendship, and says all
manner of kind and genial things in a cheerful smile; then he
raises his eyes to my clock, which is just about to strike, and,
glancing from it to me and back <a name="page246"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 246</span>again, seems to divide his heart
between us. For myself, it is not too much to say that I
would gladly part with one of my poor limbs, could he but hear
the old clock’s voice.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p246b.jpg">
<img alt=
"The Two Friends"
title=
"The Two Friends"
src="images/p246s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>Of our two friends, the first has been all his life one of
that easy, wayward, truant class whom the world is accustomed to
designate as nobody’s enemies but their own. Bred to
a profession for which he never qualified himself, and reared in
the expectation of a fortune he has never inherited, he has
undergone every vicissitude of which such an existence is
capable. He and his younger brother, both orphans from
their childhood, were educated by a wealthy relative, who taught
them to expect an equal division of his property; but too
indolent to court, and too honest to flatter, the elder gradually
lost ground in the affections of a capricious old man, and the
younger, who did not fail to improve his opportunity, now
triumphs in the possession of enormous wealth. His triumph
is to hoard it in solitary wretchedness, and probably to feel
with the expenditure of every shilling a greater pang than the
loss of his whole inheritance ever cost his brother.</p>
<p>Jack Redburn—he was Jack Redburn at the first little
school he went to, where every other child was mastered and
surnamed, and he has been Jack Redburn all his life, or he would
perhaps have been a richer man by this time—has been an
inmate of my house these eight years past. He is my
librarian, secretary, steward, and first minister; director of
all my affairs, and inspector-general of my household. He
is something of a musician, something of an author, something of
an actor, something of a painter, very much of a carpenter, and
an extraordinary gardener, having had all his life a wonderful
aptitude for learning everything that was of no use to him.
He is remarkably fond of children, and is the best and kindest
nurse in sickness that ever drew the breath of life. He has
mixed with every grade of society, and known the utmost distress;
but there never was a less selfish, a more tender-hearted, a more
enthusiastic, or a more guileless man; and I dare say, if few
have done less good, fewer still have done less harm in the world
than he. By what chance Nature forms such whimsical jumbles
I don’t know; but I do know that she sends them among us
very often, and that the king of the whole race is Jack
Redburn.</p>
<p>I should be puzzled to say how old he is. His health is
none of the best, and he wears a quantity of iron-gray hair,
which shades his face and gives it rather a worn appearance; but
we consider him quite a young fellow notwithstanding; and if a
youthful spirit, surviving the roughest contact with the world,
confers upon its possessor any title to be considered young, then
he is a mere child. The only interruptions to his careless
cheerfulness are on a wet Sunday, when he is apt to be unusually
religious and solemn, and sometimes of an evening, when he has
been blowing a very slow tune on the flute. On these
last-named occasions he is apt to incline towards the mysterious,
or the terrible. As a specimen of his powers in this mood,
I refer my readers to the extract from the clock-case which
follows this paper: he brought it to me not long ago at midnight,
and informed me that the main incident had been suggested by a
dream of the night before.</p>
<p>His apartments are two cheerful rooms looking towards the
garden, and one of his great delights is to arrange and rearrange
the furniture in these chambers, and put it in every possible
variety of position. During the whole time he has been
here, I do not think he has slept for two nights running with the
head of his bed in the same place; and every time he moves it, is
to be the last. My housekeeper was at first well-nigh
distracted by these frequent changes; but she has become quite
reconciled to them by degrees, and has so fallen in with his
humour, that they often consult together with great gravity upon
the next final alteration. Whatever his arrangements are,
however, they are always a pattern of neatness; and every one of
the manifold articles connected with his manifold occupations is
to be found in its own particular place. Until within the
last two or three years he was subject to an occasional fit
(which usually came upon him in very fine weather), under the
influence of which he would dress himself with peculiar care,
and, going out under pretence of taking a walk, disappeared for
several days together. At length, after the interval
between each outbreak of this disorder had gradually grown longer
and longer, it wholly disappeared; and now he seldom stirs
abroad, except to stroll out a little way on a summer’s
evening. Whether he yet mistrusts his own constancy in this
respect, and is therefore afraid to wear a coat, I know not; but
we seldom see him in any other upper garment than an old
spectral-looking dressing-gown, with very disproportionate
pockets, full of a miscellaneous collection of odd matters, which
he picks up wherever he can lay his hands upon them.</p>
<p>Everything that is a favourite with our friend is a favourite
with us; and thus it happens that the fourth among us is Mr. Owen
Miles, a most worthy gentleman, who had treated Jack with great
kindness before my deaf friend and I encountered him by an
accident, to which I may refer on some future occasion. Mr.
Miles was once a very rich merchant; but receiving a severe shock
in the death of his wife, he retired from business, and devoted
himself to a quiet, unostentatious life. He is an excellent
man, of thoroughly sterling character: not of quick apprehension,
and not without some amusing prejudices, which I shall leave to
their own development. He holds us all in profound
veneration; but Jack Redburn he esteems as a kind of pleasant
wonder, that he may venture to approach familiarly. He
believes, not only that no man ever lived who could do so many
things as Jack, but that no man ever lived who could do anything
so well; and he never calls my attention to any of his ingenious
proceedings, but he whispers in my ear, nudging me at the same
time with his elbow: ‘If he had only made it his trade,
sir—if he had only made it his trade!’</p>
<p>They are inseparable companions; one would almost suppose
that, although Mr. Miles never by any chance does anything in the
way of assistance, Jack could do nothing without him.
Whether he is reading, writing, painting, carpentering,
gardening, flute-playing, or what not, there is Mr. Miles beside
him, buttoned up to the chin in his blue coat, and looking on
with a face of incredulous delight, as though he could not credit
the testimony of his own senses, and had a misgiving that no man
could be so clever but in a dream.</p>
<p>These are my friends; I have now introduced myself and
them.</p>
<h3>THE CLOCK-CASE</h3>
<p class="gutsumm">A CONFESSION FOUND IN A PRISON IN THE TIME OF
CHARLES THE SECOND</p>
<p>I held a lieutenant’s commission in his Majesty’s
army, and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678.
The treaty of Nimeguen being concluded, I returned home, and
retiring from the service, withdrew to a small estate lying a few
miles east of London, which I had recently acquired in right of
my wife.</p>
<p>This is the last night I have to live, and I will set down the
naked truth without disguise. I was never a brave man, and
had always been from my childhood of a secret, sullen,
distrustful nature. I speak of myself as if I had passed
from the world; for while I write this, my grave is digging, and
my name is written in the black-book of death.</p>
<p>Soon after my return to England, my only brother was seized
with mortal illness. This circumstance gave me slight or no
pain; for since we had been men, we had associated but very
little together. He was open-hearted and generous,
handsomer than I, more accomplished, and generally beloved.
Those who sought my acquaintance abroad or at home, because they
were friends of his, seldom attached themselves to me long, and
would usually say, in our first conversation, that they were
surprised to find two brothers so unlike in their manners and
appearance. It was my habit to lead them on to this avowal;
for I knew what comparisons they must draw between us; and having
a rankling envy in my heart, I sought to justify it to
myself.</p>
<p>We had married two sisters. This additional tie between
us, as it may appear to some, only estranged us the more.
His wife knew me well. I never struggled with any secret
jealousy or gall when she was present but that woman knew it as
well as I did. I never raised my eyes at such times but I
found hers fixed upon me; I never bent them on the ground or
looked another way but I felt that she overlooked me
always. It was an inexpressible relief to me when we
quarrelled, and a greater relief still when I heard abroad that
she was dead. It seems to me now as if some strange and
terrible foreshadowing of what has happened since must have hung
over us then. I was afraid of her; she haunted me; her
fixed and steady look comes back upon me now, like the memory of
a dark dream, and makes my blood run cold.</p>
<p>She died shortly after giving birth to a child—a
boy. When my brother knew that all hope of his own recovery
was past, he called my wife to his bedside, and confided this
orphan, a child of four years old, to her protection. He
bequeathed to him all the property he had, and willed that, in
case of his child’s death, it should pass to my wife, as
the only acknowledgment he could make her for her care and
love. He exchanged a few brotherly words with me, deploring
our long separation; and being exhausted, fell into a slumber,
from which he never awoke.</p>
<p>We had no children; and as there had been a strong affection
between the sisters, and my wife had almost supplied the place of
a mother to this boy, she loved him as if he had been her
own. The child was ardently attached to her; but he was his
mother’s image in face and spirit, and always mistrusted
me.</p>
<p>I can scarcely fix the date when the feeling first came upon
me; but I soon began to be uneasy when this child was by. I
never roused myself from some moody train of thought but I marked
him looking at me; not with mere childish wonder, but with
something of the purpose and meaning that I had so often noted in
his mother. It was no effort of my fancy, founded on close
resemblance of feature and expression. I never could look
the boy down. He feared me, but seemed by some instinct to
despise me while he did so; and even when he drew back beneath my
gaze—as he would when we were alone, to get nearer to the
door—he would keep his bright eyes upon me still.</p>
<p>Perhaps I hide the truth from myself, but I do not think that,
when this began, I meditated to do him any wrong. I may
have thought how serviceable his inheritance would be to us, and
may have wished him dead; but I believe I had no thought of
compassing his death. Neither did the idea come upon me at
once, but by very slow degrees, presenting itself at first in dim
shapes at a very great distance, as men may think of an
earthquake or the last day; then drawing nearer and nearer, and
losing something of its horror and improbability; then coming to
be part and parcel—nay nearly the whole sum and
substance—of my daily thoughts, and resolving itself into a
question of means and safety; not of doing or abstaining from the
deed.</p>
<p>While this was going on within me, I never could bear that the
child should see me looking at him, and yet I was under a
fascination which made it a kind of business with me to
contemplate his slight and fragile figure and think how easily it
might be done. Sometimes I would steal up-stairs and watch
him as he slept; but usually I hovered in the garden near the
window of the room in which he learnt his little tasks; and
there, as he sat upon a low seat beside my wife, I would peer at
him for hours together from behind a tree; starting, like the
guilty wretch I was, at every rustling of a leaf, and still
gliding back to look and start again.</p>
<p>Hard by our cottage, but quite out of sight, and (if there
were any wind astir) of hearing too, was a deep sheet of
water. I spent days in shaping with my pocket-knife a rough
model of a boat, which I finished at last and dropped in the
child’s way. Then I withdrew to a secret place, which
he must pass if he stole away alone to swim this bauble, and
lurked there for his coming. He came neither that day nor
the next, though I waited from noon till nightfall. I was
sure that I had him in my net, for I had heard him prattling of
the toy, and knew that in his infant pleasure he kept it by his
side in bed. I felt no weariness or fatigue, but waited
patiently, and on the third day he passed me, running joyously
along, with his silken hair streaming in the wind, and he
singing—God have mercy upon me!—singing a merry
ballad,—who could hardly lisp the words.</p>
<p>I stole down after him, creeping under certain shrubs which
grow in that place, and none but devils know with what terror I,
a strong, full-grown man, tracked the footsteps of that baby as
he approached the water’s brink. I was close upon
him, had sunk upon my knee and raised my hand to thrust him in,
when he saw my shadow in the stream and turned him round.</p>
<p>His mother’s ghost was looking from his eyes. The
sun burst forth from behind a cloud; it shone in the bright sky,
the glistening earth, the clear water, the sparkling drops of
rain upon the leaves. There were eyes in everything.
The whole great universe of light was there to see the murder
done. I know not what he said; he came of bold and manly
blood, and, child as he was, he did not crouch or fawn upon
me. I heard him cry that he would try to love me,—not
that he did,—and then I saw him running back towards the
house. The next I saw was my own sword naked in my hand,
and he lying at my feet stark dead,—dabbled here and there
with blood, but otherwise no different from what I had seen him
in his sleep—in the same attitude too, with his cheek
resting upon his little hand.</p>
<p>I took him in my arms and laid him—very gently now that
he was dead—in a thicket. My wife was from home that
day, and would not return until the next. Our bedroom
window, the only sleeping-room on that side of the house, was but
a few feet from the ground, and I resolved to descend from it at
night and bury him in the garden. I had no thought that I
had failed in my design, no thought that the water would be
dragged and nothing found, that the money must now lie waste,
since I must encourage the idea that the child was lost or
stolen. All my thoughts were bound up and knotted together
in the one absorbing necessity of hiding what I had done.</p>
<p>How I felt when they came to tell me that the child was
missing, when I ordered scouts in all directions, when I gasped
and trembled at every one’s approach, no tongue can tell or
mind of man conceive. I buried him that night. When I
parted the boughs and looked into the dark thicket, there was a
glow-worm shining like the visible spirit of God upon the
murdered child. I glanced down into his grave when I had
placed him there, and still it gleamed upon his breast; an eye of
fire looking up to Heaven in supplication to the stars that
watched me at my work.</p>
<p>I had to meet my wife, and break the news, and give her hope
that the child would soon be found. All this I
did,—with some appearance, I suppose, of being sincere, for
I was the object of no suspicion. This done, I sat at the
bedroom window all day long, and watched the spot where the
dreadful secret lay.</p>
<p>It was in a piece of ground which had been dug up to be newly
turfed, and which I had chosen on that account, as the traces of
my spade were less likely to attract attention. The men who
laid down the grass must have thought me mad. I called to
them continually to expedite their work, ran out and worked
beside them, trod down the earth with my feet, and hurried them
with frantic eagerness. They had finished their task before
night, and then I thought myself comparatively safe.</p>
<p>I slept,—not as men do who awake refreshed and cheerful,
but I did sleep, passing from vague and shadowy dreams of being
hunted down, to visions of the plot of grass, through which now a
hand, and now a foot, and now the head itself was starting
out. At this point I always woke and stole to the window,
to make sure that it was not really so. That done, I crept
to bed again; and thus I spent the night in fits and starts,
getting up and lying down full twenty times, and dreaming the
same dream over and over again,—which was far worse than
lying awake, for every dream had a whole night’s suffering
of its own. Once I thought the child was alive, and that I
had never tried to kill him. To wake from that dream was
the most dreadful agony of all.</p>
<p>The next day I sat at the window again, never once taking my
eyes from the place, which, although it was covered by the grass,
was as plain to me—its shape, its size, its depth, its
jagged sides, and all—as if it had been open to the light
of day. When a servant walked across it, I felt as if he
must sink in; when he had passed, I looked to see that his feet
had not worn the edges. If a bird lighted there, I was in
terror lest by some tremendous interposition it should be
instrumental in the discovery; if a breath of air sighed across
it, to me it whispered murder. There was not a sight or a
sound—how ordinary, mean, or unimportant soever—but
was fraught with fear. And in this state of ceaseless
watching I spent three days.</p>
<p>On the fourth there came to the gate one who had served with
me abroad, accompanied by a brother officer of his whom I had
never seen. I felt that I could not bear to be out of sight
of the place. It was a summer evening, and I bade my people
take a table and a flask of wine into the garden. Then I
sat down <i>with my chair upon the grave</i>, and being assured
that nobody could disturb it now without my knowledge, tried to
drink and talk.</p>
<p>They hoped that my wife was well,—that she was not
obliged to keep her chamber,—that they had not frightened
her away. What could I do but tell them with a faltering
tongue about the child? The officer whom I did not know was
a down-looking man, and kept his eyes upon the ground while I was
speaking. Even that terrified me. I could not divest
myself of the idea that he saw something there which caused him
to suspect the truth. I asked him hurriedly if he supposed
that—and stopped. ‘That the child has been
murdered?’ said he, looking mildly at me: ‘O no! what
could a man gain by murdering a poor child?’ <i>I</i>
could have told him what a man gained by such a deed, no one
better: but I held my peace and shivered as with an ague.</p>
<p>Mistaking my emotion, they were endeavouring to cheer me with
the hope that the boy would certainly be found,—great cheer
that was for me!—when we heard a low deep howl, and
presently there sprung over the wall two great dogs, who,
bounding into the garden, repeated the baying sound we had heard
before.</p>
<p>‘Bloodhounds!’ cried my visitors.</p>
<p>What need to tell me that! I had never seen one of that
kind in all my life, but I knew what they were and for what
purpose they had come. I grasped the elbows of my chair,
and neither spoke nor moved.</p>
<p>‘They are of the genuine breed,’ said the man whom
I had known abroad, ‘and being out for exercise have no
doubt escaped from their keeper.’</p>
<p>Both he and his friend turned to look at the dogs, who with
their noses to the ground moved restlessly about, running to and
fro, and up and down, and across, and round in circles, careering
about like wild things, and all this time taking no notice of us,
but ever and again repeating the yell we had heard already, then
dropping their noses to the ground again and tracking earnestly
here and there. They now began to snuff the earth more
eagerly than they had done yet, and although they were still very
restless, no longer beat about in such wide circuits, but kept
near to one spot, and constantly diminished the distance between
themselves and me.</p>
<p>At last they came up close to the great chair on which I sat,
and raising their frightful howl once more, tried to tear away
the wooden rails that kept them from the ground beneath. I
saw how I looked, in the faces of the two who were with me.</p>
<p> ‘They scent some prey,’ said they, both
together.</p>
<p>‘They scent no prey!’ cried I.</p>
<p>‘In Heaven’s name, move!’ said the one I
knew, very earnestly, ‘or you will be torn to
pieces.’</p>
<p>‘Let them tear me from limb to limb, I’ll never
leave this place!’ cried I. ‘Are dogs to hurry
men to shameful deaths? Hew them down, cut them in
pieces.’</p>
<p><a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
254</span>‘There is some foul mystery here!’ said the
officer whom I did not know, drawing his sword. ‘In
King Charles’s name, assist me to secure this
man.’</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p254b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Hunted down"
title=
"Hunted down"
src="images/p254s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>They both set upon me and forced me away, though I fought and
bit and caught at them like a madman. After a struggle,
they got me quietly between them; and then, my God! I saw
the angry dogs tearing at the earth and throwing it up into the
air like water.</p>
<p>What more have I to tell? That I fell upon my knees, and
with chattering teeth confessed the truth, and prayed to be
forgiven. That I have since denied, and now confess to it
again. That I have been tried for the crime, found guilty,
and sentenced. That I have not the courage to anticipate my
doom, or to bear up manfully against it. That I have no
compassion, no consolation, no hope, no friend. That my
wife has happily lost for the time those faculties which would
enable her to know my misery or hers. That I am alone in
this stone dungeon with my evil spirit, and that I die to-morrow.
<a name="citation255"></a><a href="#footnote255"
class="citation">[255]</a></p>
<h3>CORRESPONDENCE</h3>
<p>Master Humphrey has been favoured with the following letter
written on strongly-scented paper, and sealed in light-blue wax
with the representation of two very plump doves interchanging
beaks. It does not commence with any of the usual forms of
address, but begins as is here set forth.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">Bath, Wednesday night.</p>
<p>Heavens! into what an indiscretion do I suffer myself to be
betrayed! To address these faltering lines to a total
stranger, and that stranger one of a conflicting sex!—and
yet I am precipitated into the abyss, and have no power of
self-snatchation (forgive me if I coin that phrase) from the
yawning gulf before me.</p>
<p>Yes, I am writing to a man; but let me not think of that, for
madness is in the thought. You will understand my
feelings? O yes, I am sure you will; and you will respect
them too, and not despise them,—will you?</p>
<p>Let me be calm. That portrait,—smiling as once he
smiled on me; that cane,—dangling as I have seen it dangle
from his hand I know not how oft; those legs that have glided
through my nightly dreams and never stopped to speak; the
perfectly gentlemanly, though false original,—can I be
mistaken? O no, no.</p>
<p>Let me be calmer yet; I would be calm as coffins. You
have published a letter from one whose likeness is engraved, but
whose name (and wherefore?) is suppressed. Shall <i>I</i>
breathe that name! Is it—but why ask when my heart
tells me too truly that it is!</p>
<p>I would not upbraid him with his treachery; I would not remind
him of those times when he plighted the most eloquent of vows,
and procured from me a small pecuniary accommodation; and yet I
would see him—see him did I
say—<i>him</i>—alas! such is woman’s
nature. For as the poet beautifully says—but you will
already have anticipated the sentiment. Is it not
sweet? O yes!</p>
<p>It was in this city (hallowed by the recollection) that I met
him first; and assuredly if mortal happiness be recorded
anywhere, then those rubbers with their three-and-sixpenny points
are scored on tablets of celestial brass. He always held an
honour—generally two. On that eventful night we stood
at eight. He raised his eyes (luminous in their seductive
sweetness) to my agitated face. ‘<i>Can</i>
you?’ said he, with peculiar meaning. I felt the
gentle pressure of his foot on mine; our corns throbbed in
unison. ‘<i>Can</i> you?’ he said again; and
every lineament of his expressive countenance added the words
‘resist me?’ I murmured ‘No,’ and
fainted.</p>
<p>They said, when I recovered, it was the weather.
<i>I</i> said it was the nutmeg in the negus. How little
did they suspect the truth! How little did they guess the
deep mysterious meaning of that inquiry! He called next
morning on his knees; I do not mean to say that he actually came
in that position to the house-door, but that he went down upon
those joints directly the servant had retired. He brought
some verses in his hat, which he said were original, but which I
have since found were Milton’s; likewise a little bottle
labelled laudanum; also a pistol and a sword-stick. He drew
the latter, uncorked the former, and clicked the trigger of the
pocket fire-arm. He had come, he said, to conquer or to
die. He did not die. He wrested from me an avowal of
my love, and let off the pistol out of a back window previous to
partaking of a slight repast.</p>
<p>Faithless, inconstant man! How many ages seem to have
elapsed since his unaccountable and perfidious
disappearance! Could I still forgive him both that and the
borrowed lucre that he promised to pay next week! Could I
spurn him from my feet if he approached in penitence, and with a
matrimonial object! Would the blandishing enchanter still
weave his spells around me, or should I burst them all and turn
away in coldness! I dare not trust my weakness with the
thought.</p>
<p>My brain is in a whirl again. You know his address, his
occupations, his mode of life,—are acquainted, perhaps,
with his inmost thoughts. You are a humane and
philanthropic character; reveal all you know—all; but
especially the street and number of his lodgings. The post
is departing, the bellman rings,—pray Heaven it be not the
knell of love and hope to</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><span
class="smcap">Belinda</span>.</p>
<p>P.S. Pardon the wanderings of a bad pen and a distracted
mind. Address to the Post-office. The bellman,
rendered impatient by delay, is ringing dreadfully in the
passage.</p>
<p>P.P.S. I open this to say that the bellman is gone, and that
you must not expect it till the next post; so don’t be
surprised when you don’t get it.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>Master Humphrey does not feel himself at liberty to furnish
his fair correspondent with the address of the gentleman in
question, but he publishes her letter as a public appeal to his
faith and gallantry.</p>
<h2>III</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">MASTER HUMPHREY’S VISITOR</p>
<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I am in a thoughtful mood, I
often succeed in diverting the current of some mournful
reflections, by conjuring up a number of fanciful associations
with the objects that surround me, and dwelling upon the scenes
and characters they suggest.</p>
<p>I have been led by this habit to assign to every room in my
house and every old staring portrait on its walls a separate
interest of its own. Thus, I am persuaded that a stately
dame, terrible to behold in her rigid modesty, who hangs above
the chimney-piece of my bedroom, is the former lady of the
mansion. In the courtyard below is a stone face of
surpassing ugliness, which I have somehow—in a kind of
jealousy, I am afraid—associated with her husband.
Above my study is a little room with ivy peeping through the
lattice, from which I bring their daughter, a lovely girl of
eighteen or nineteen years of age, and dutiful in all respects
save one, that one being her devoted attachment to a young
gentleman on the stairs, whose grandmother (degraded to a disused
laundry in the garden) piques herself upon an old family quarrel,
and is the implacable enemy of their love. With such
materials as these I work out many a little drama, whose chief
merit is, that I can bring it to a happy end at will. I
have so many of them on hand, that if on my return home one of
these evenings I were to find some bluff old wight of two
centuries ago comfortably seated in my easy chair, and a lovelorn
damsel vainly appealing to his heart, and leaning her white arm
upon my clock itself, I verily believe I should only express my
surprise that they had kept me waiting so long, and never
honoured me with a call before.</p>
<p>I was in such a mood as this, sitting in my garden yesterday
morning under the shade of a favourite tree, revelling in all the
bloom and brightness about me, and feeling every sense of hope
and enjoyment quickened by this most beautiful season of Spring,
when my meditations were interrupted by the unexpected appearance
of my barber at the end of the walk, who I immediately saw was
coming towards me with a hasty step that betokened something
remarkable.</p>
<p>My barber is at all times a very brisk, bustling, active
little man,—for he is, as it were, chubby all over, without
being stout or unwieldy,—but yesterday his alacrity was so
very uncommon that it quite took me by surprise. For could
I fail to observe when he came up to me that his gray eyes were
twinkling in a most extraordinary manner, that his little red
nose was in an unusual glow, that every line in his round bright
face was twisted and curved into an expression of pleased
surprise, and that his whole countenance was radiant with
glee? I was still more surprised to see my housekeeper, who
usually preserves a very staid air, and stands somewhat upon her
dignity, peeping round the hedge at the bottom of the walk, and
exchanging nods and smiles with the barber, who twice or thrice
looked over his shoulder for that purpose. I could conceive
no announcement to which these appearances could be the prelude,
unless it were that they had married each other that morning.</p>
<p>I was, consequently, a little disappointed when it only came
out that there was a gentleman in the house who wished to speak
with me.</p>
<p>‘And who is it?’ said I.</p>
<p>The barber, with his face screwed up still tighter than
before, replied that the gentleman would not send his name, but
wished to see me. I pondered for a moment, wondering who
this visitor might be, and I remarked that he embraced the
opportunity of exchanging another nod with the housekeeper, who
still lingered in the distance.</p>
<p>‘Well!’ said I, ‘bid the gentleman come
here.’</p>
<p>This seemed to be the consummation of the barber’s
hopes, for he turned sharp round, and actually ran away.</p>
<p>Now, my sight is not very good at a distance, and therefore
when the gentleman first appeared in the walk, I was not quite
clear whether he was a stranger to me or otherwise. He was
an elderly gentleman, but came tripping along in the pleasantest
manner conceivable, avoiding the garden-roller and the borders of
the beds with inimitable dexterity, picking his way among the
flower-pots, and smiling with unspeakable good humour.
Before he was half-way up the walk he began to salute me; then I
thought I knew him; but when he came towards me with his hat in
his hand, the sun shining on his bald head, his bland face, his
bright spectacles, his fawn-coloured tights, and his black
gaiters,—then my heart warmed towards him, and I felt quite
certain that it was Mr. Pickwick.</p>
<p><a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
259</span>‘My dear sir,’ said that gentleman as I
rose to receive him, ‘pray be seated. Pray sit
down. Now, do not stand on my account. I must insist
upon it, really.’ With these words Mr. Pickwick
gently pressed me down into my seat, and taking my hand in his,
shook it again and again with a warmth of manner perfectly
irresistible. I endeavoured to express in my welcome
something of that heartiness and pleasure which the sight of him
awakened, and made him sit down beside me. All this time he
kept alternately releasing my hand and grasping it again, and
surveying me through his spectacles with such a beaming
countenance as I never till then beheld.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p259b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Mr. Pickwick introduces himself to Master Humphrey"
title=
"Mr. Pickwick introduces himself to Master Humphrey"
src="images/p259s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>‘You knew me directly!’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘What a pleasure it is to think that you knew me
directly!’</p>
<p>I remarked that I had read his adventures very often, and his
features were quite familiar to me from the published
portraits. As I thought it a good opportunity of adverting
to the circumstance, I condoled with him upon the various libels
on his character which had found their way into print. Mr.
Pickwick shook his head, and for a moment looked very indignant,
but smiling again directly, added that no doubt I was acquainted
with Cervantes’s introduction to the second part of Don
Quixote, and that it fully expressed his sentiments on the
subject.</p>
<p>‘But now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘don’t
you wonder how I found you out?’</p>
<p>‘I shall never wonder, and, with your good leave, never
know,’ said I, smiling in my turn. ‘It is
enough for me that you give me this gratification. I have
not the least desire that you should tell me by what means I have
obtained it.’</p>
<p>‘You are very kind,’ returned Mr. Pickwick,
shaking me by the hand again; ‘you are so exactly what I
expected! But for what particular purpose do you think I
have sought you, my dear sir? Now what <i>do</i> you think
I have come for?’</p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick put this question as though he were persuaded
that it was morally impossible that I could by any means divine
the deep purpose of his visit, and that it must be hidden from
all human ken. Therefore, although I was rejoiced to think
that I had anticipated his drift, I feigned to be quite ignorant
of it, and after a brief consideration shook my head
despairingly.</p>
<p>‘What should you say,’ said Mr. Pickwick, laying
the forefinger of his left hand upon my coat-sleeve, and looking
at me with his head thrown back, and a little on one
side,—‘what should you say if I confessed that after
reading your account of yourself and your little society, I had
come here, a humble candidate for one of those empty
chairs?’</p>
<p>‘I should say,’ I returned, ‘that I know of
only one circumstance which could still further endear that
little society to me, and that would be the associating with it
my old friend,—for you must let me call you so,—my
old friend, Mr. Pickwick.’</p>
<p>As I made him this answer every feature of Mr.
Pickwick’s face fused itself into one all-pervading
expression of delight. After shaking me heartily by both
hands at once, he patted me gently on the back, and then—I
well understood why—coloured up to the eyes, and hoped with
great earnestness of manner that he had not hurt me.</p>
<p>If he had, I would have been content that he should have
repeated the offence a hundred times rather than suppose so; but
as he had not, I had no difficulty in changing the subject by
making an inquiry which had been upon my lips twenty times
already.</p>
<p>‘You have not told me,’ said I, ‘anything
about Sam Weller.’</p>
<p>‘O! Sam,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, ‘is the same
as ever. The same true, faithful fellow that he ever
was. What should I tell you about Sam, my dear sir, except
that he is more indispensable to my happiness and comfort every
day of my life?’</p>
<p>‘And Mr. Weller senior?’ said I.</p>
<p>‘Old Mr. Weller,’ returned Mr. Pickwick, ‘is
in no respect more altered than Sam, unless it be that he is a
little more opinionated than he was formerly, and perhaps at
times more talkative. He spends a good deal of his time now
in our neighbourhood, and has so constituted himself a part of my
bodyguard, that when I ask permission for Sam to have a seat in
your kitchen on clock nights (supposing your three friends think
me worthy to fill one of the chairs), I am afraid I must often
include Mr. Weller too.’</p>
<p>I very readily pledged myself to give both Sam and his father
a free admission to my house at all hours and seasons, and this
point settled, we fell into a lengthy conversation which was
carried on with as little reserve on both sides as if we had been
intimate friends from our youth, and which conveyed to me the
comfortable assurance that Mr. Pickwick’s buoyancy of
spirit, and indeed all his old cheerful characteristics, were
wholly unimpaired. As he had spoken of the consent of my
friends as being yet in abeyance, I repeatedly assured him that
his proposal was certain to receive their most joyful sanction,
and several times entreated that he would give me leave to
introduce him to Jack Redburn and Mr. Miles (who were near at
hand) without further ceremony.</p>
<p>To this proposal, however, Mr. Pickwick’s delicacy would
by no means allow him to accede, for he urged that his
eligibility must be formally discussed, and that, until this had
been done, he could not think of obtruding himself further.
The utmost I could obtain from him was a promise that he would
attend upon our next night of meeting, that I might have the
pleasure of presenting him immediately on his election.</p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick, having with many blushes placed in my hands a
small roll of paper, which he termed his
‘qualification,’ put a great many questions to me
touching my friends, and particularly Jack Redburn, whom he
repeatedly termed ‘a fine fellow,’ and in whose
favour I could see he was strongly predisposed. When I had
satisfied him on these points, I took him up into my room, that
he might make acquaintance with the old chamber which is our
place of meeting.</p>
<p>‘And this,’ said Mr. Pickwick, stopping short,
‘is the clock! Dear me! And this is really the
old clock!’</p>
<p>I thought he would never have come away from it. After
advancing towards it softly, and laying his hand upon it with as
much respect and as many smiling looks as if it were alive, he
set himself to consider it in every possible direction, now
mounting on a chair to look at the top, now going down upon his
knees to examine the bottom, now surveying the sides with his
spectacles almost touching the case, and now trying to peep
between it and the wall to get a slight view of the back.
Then he would retire a pace or two and look up at the dial to see
it go, and then draw near again and stand with his head on one
side to hear it tick: never failing to glance towards me at
intervals of a few seconds each, and nod his head with such
complacent gratification as I am quite unable to describe.
His admiration was not confined to the clock either, but extended
itself to every article in the room; and really, when he had gone
through them every one, and at last sat himself down in all the
six chairs, one after another, to try how they felt, I never saw
such a picture of good-humour and happiness as he presented, from
the top of his shining head down to the very last button of his
gaiters.</p>
<p>I should have been well pleased, and should have had the
utmost enjoyment of his company, if he had remained with me all
day, but my favourite, striking the hour, reminded him that he
must take his leave. I could not forbear telling him once
more how glad he had made me, and we shook hands all the way
down-stairs.</p>
<p>We had no sooner arrived in the Hall than my housekeeper,
gliding out of her little room (she had changed her gown and cap,
I observed), greeted Mr. Pickwick with her best smile and
courtesy; and the barber, feigning to be accidentally passing on
his way out, made him a vast number of bows. When the
housekeeper courtesied, Mr. Pickwick bowed with the utmost
politeness, and when he bowed, the housekeeper courtesied again;
between the housekeeper and the barber, I should say that Mr.
Pickwick faced about and bowed with undiminished affability fifty
times at least.</p>
<p>I saw him to the door; an omnibus was at the moment passing
the corner of the lane, which Mr. Pickwick hailed and ran after
with extraordinary nimbleness. When he had got about
half-way, he turned his head, and seeing that I was still looking
after him and that I waved my hand, stopped, evidently irresolute
whether to come back and shake hands again, or to go on.
The man behind the omnibus shouted, and Mr. Pickwick ran a little
way towards him: then he looked round at me, and ran a little way
back again. Then there was another shout, and he turned
round once more and ran the other way. After several of
these vibrations, the man settled the question by taking Mr.
Pickwick by the arm and putting him into the carriage; but his
last action was to let down the window and wave his hat to me as
it drove off.</p>
<p>I lost no time in opening the parcel he had left with
me. The following were its contents:—</p>
<h3>MR. PICKWICK’S TALE</h3>
<p>A good many years have passed away since old John Podgers
lived in the town of Windsor, where he was born, and where, in
course of time, he came to be comfortably and snugly
buried. You may be sure that in the time of King James the
First, Windsor was a very quaint queer old town, and you may take
it upon my authority that John Podgers was a very quaint queer
old fellow; consequently he and Windsor fitted each other to a
nicety, and seldom parted company even for half a day.</p>
<p>John Podgers was broad, sturdy, Dutch-built, short, and a very
hard eater, as men of his figure often are. Being a hard
sleeper likewise, he divided his time pretty equally between
these two recreations, always falling asleep when he had done
eating, and always taking another turn at the trencher when he
had done sleeping, by which means he grew more corpulent and more
drowsy every day of his life. Indeed it used to be
currently reported that when he sauntered up and down the sunny
side of the street before dinner (as he never failed to do in
fair weather), he enjoyed his soundest nap; but many people held
this to be a fiction, as he had several times been seen to look
after fat oxen on market-days, and had even been heard, by
persons of good credit and reputation, to chuckle at the sight,
and say to himself with great glee, ‘Live beef, live
beef!’ It was upon this evidence that the wisest
people in Windsor (beginning with the local authorities of
course) held that John Podgers was a man of strong, sound sense,
not what is called smart, perhaps, and it might be of a rather
lazy and apoplectic turn, but still a man of solid parts, and one
who meant much more than he cared to show. This impression
was confirmed by a very dignified way he had of shaking his head
and imparting, at the same time, a pendulous motion to his double
chin; in short, he passed for one of those people who, being
plunged into the Thames, would make no vain efforts to set it
afire, but would straightway flop down to the bottom with a deal
of gravity, and be highly respected in consequence by all good
men.</p>
<p>Being well to do in the world, and a peaceful
widower,—having a great appetite, which, as he could afford
to gratify it, was a luxury and no inconvenience, and a power of
going to sleep, which, as he had no occasion to keep awake, was a
most enviable faculty,—you will readily suppose that John
Podgers was a happy man. But appearances are often
deceptive when they least seem so, and the truth is that,
notwithstanding his extreme sleekness, he was rendered uneasy in
his mind and exceedingly uncomfortable by a constant apprehension
that beset him night and day.</p>
<p>You know very well that in those times there flourished divers
evil old women who, under the name of Witches, spread great
disorder through the land, and inflicted various dismal tortures
upon Christian men; sticking pins and needles into them when they
least expected it, and causing them to walk in the air with their
feet upwards, to the great terror of their wives and families,
who were naturally very much disconcerted when the master of the
house unexpectedly came home, knocking at the door with his heels
and combing his hair on the scraper. These were their
commonest pranks, but they every day played a hundred others, of
which none were less objectionable, and many were much more so,
being improper besides; the result was that vengeance was
denounced against all old women, with whom even the king himself
had no sympathy (as he certainly ought to have had), for with his
own most Gracious hand he penned a most Gracious consignment of
them to everlasting wrath, and devised most Gracious means for
their confusion and slaughter, in virtue whereof scarcely a day
passed but one witch at the least was most graciously hanged,
drowned, or roasted in some part of his dominions. Still
the press teemed with strange and terrible news from the North or
the South, or the East or the West, relative to witches and their
unhappy victims in some corner of the country, and the
Public’s hair stood on end to that degree that it lifted
its hat off its head, and made its face pale with terror.</p>
<p>You may believe that the little town of Windsor did not escape
the general contagion. The inhabitants boiled a witch on
the king’s birthday and sent a bottle of the broth to
court, with a dutiful address expressive of their loyalty.
The king, being rather frightened by the present, piously
bestowed it upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, and returned an
answer to the address, wherein he gave them golden rules for
discovering witches, and laid great stress upon certain
protecting charms, and especially horseshoes. Immediately
the towns-people went to work nailing up horseshoes over every
door, and so many anxious parents apprenticed their children to
farriers to keep them out of harm’s way, that it became
quite a genteel trade, and flourished exceedingly.</p>
<p>In the midst of all this bustle John Podgers ate and slept as
usual, but shook his head a great deal oftener than was his
custom, and was observed to look at the oxen less, and at the old
women more. He had a little shelf put up in his
sitting-room, whereon was displayed, in a row which grew longer
every week, all the witchcraft literature of the time; he grew
learned in charms and exorcisms, hinted at certain questionable
females on broomsticks whom he had seen from his chamber window,
riding in the air at night, and was in constant terror of being
bewitched. At length, from perpetually dwelling upon this
one idea, which, being alone in his head, had all its own way,
the fear of witches became the single passion of his life.
He, who up to that time had never known what it was to dream,
began to have visions of witches whenever he fell asleep; waking,
they were incessantly present to his imagination likewise; and,
sleeping or waking, he had not a moment’s peace. He
began to set witch-traps in the highway, and was often seen lying
in wait round the corner for hours together, to watch their
effect. These engines were of simple construction, usually
consisting of two straws disposed in the form of a cross, or a
piece of a Bible cover with a pinch of salt upon it; but they
were infallible, and if an old woman chanced to stumble over them
(as not unfrequently happened, the chosen spot being a broken and
stony place), John started from a doze, pounced out upon her, and
hung round her neck till assistance arrived, when she was
immediately carried away and drowned. By dint of constantly
inveigling old ladies and disposing of them in this summary
manner, he acquired the reputation of a great public character;
and as he received no harm in these pursuits beyond a scratched
face or so, he came, in the course of time, to be considered
witch-proof.</p>
<p>There was but one person who entertained the least doubt of
John Podgers’s gifts, and that person was his own nephew, a
wild, roving young fellow of twenty who had been brought up in
his uncle’s house and lived there still,—that is to
say, when he was at home, which was not as often as it might have
been. As he was an apt scholar, it was he who read aloud
every fresh piece of strange and terrible intelligence that John
Podgers bought; and this he always did of an evening in the
little porch in front of the house, round which the neighbours
would flock in crowds to hear the direful news,—for people
like to be frightened, and when they can be frightened for
nothing and at another man’s expense, they like it all the
better.</p>
<p>One fine midsummer evening, a group of persons were gathered
in this place, listening intently to Will Marks (that was the
nephew’s name), as with his cap very much on one side, his
arm coiled slyly round the waist of a pretty girl who sat beside
him, and his face screwed into a comical expression intended to
represent extreme gravity, he read—with Heaven knows how
many embellishments of his own—a dismal account of a
gentleman down in Northamptonshire under the influence of
witchcraft and taken forcible possession of by the Devil, who was
playing his very self with him. John Podgers, in a high
sugar-loaf hat and short cloak, filled the opposite seat, and
surveyed the auditory with a look of mingled pride and horror
very edifying to see; while the hearers, with their heads thrust
forward and their mouths open, listened and trembled, and hoped
there was a great deal more to come. Sometimes Will stopped
for an instant to look round upon his eager audience, and then,
with a more comical expression of face than before and a settling
of himself comfortably, which included a squeeze of the young
lady before mentioned, he launched into some new wonder
surpassing all the others.</p>
<p>The setting sun shed his last golden rays upon this little
party, who, absorbed in their present occupation, took no heed of
the approach of night, or the glory in which the day went down,
when the sound of a horse, approaching at a good round trot,
invading the silence of the hour, caused the reader to make a
sudden stop, and the listeners to raise their heads in
wonder. Nor was their <a name="page266"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 266</span>wonder diminished when a horseman
dashed up to the porch, and abruptly checking his steed, inquired
where one John Podgers dwelt.</p>
<p>‘Here!’ cried a dozen voices, while a dozen hands
pointed out sturdy John, still basking in the terrors of the
pamphlet.</p>
<p>The rider, giving his bridle to one of those who surrounded
him, dismounted, and approached John, hat in hand, but with great
haste.</p>
<p>‘Whence come ye?’ said John.</p>
<p>‘From Kingston, master.’</p>
<p>‘And wherefore?’</p>
<p>‘On most pressing business.’</p>
<p>‘Of what nature?’</p>
<p>‘Witchcraft.’</p>
<p>Witchcraft! Everybody looked aghast at the breathless
messenger, and the breathless messenger looked equally aghast at
everybody—except Will Marks, who, finding himself
unobserved, not only squeezed the young lady again, but kissed
her twice. Surely he must have been bewitched himself, or
he never could have done it—and the young lady too, or she
never would have let him.</p>
<p>‘Witchcraft!’ cried Will, drowning the sound of
his last kiss, which was rather a loud one.</p>
<p>The messenger turned towards him, and with a frown repeated
the word more solemnly than before; then told his errand, which
was, in brief, that the people of Kingston had been greatly
terrified for some nights past by hideous revels, held by witches
beneath the gibbet within a mile of the town, and related and
deposed to by chance wayfarers who had passed within ear-shot of
the spot; that the sound of their voices in their wild orgies had
been plainly heard by many persons; that three old women laboured
under strong suspicion, and that precedents had been consulted
and solemn council had, and it was found that to identify the
hags some single person must watch upon the spot alone; that no
single person had the courage to perform the task; and that he
had been despatched express to solicit John Podgers to undertake
it that very night, as being a man of great renown, who bore a
charmed life, and was proof against unholy spells.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p266b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Will Marks reading the News concerning Witches"
title=
"Will Marks reading the News concerning Witches"
src="images/p266s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>John received this communication with much composure, and said
in a few words, that it would have afforded him inexpressible
pleasure to do the Kingston people so slight a service, if it
were not for his unfortunate propensity to fall asleep, which no
man regretted more than himself upon the present occasion, but
which quite settled the question. Nevertheless, he said,
there <i>was</i> a gentleman present (and here he looked very
hard at a tall farrier), who, having been engaged all his life in
the manufacture of horseshoes, must be quite invulnerable to the
power of witches, and who, he had no doubt, from his own
reputation for bravery and good-nature, would readily accept the
commission. The farrier politely thanked him for his good
opinion, which it would always be his study to deserve, but added
that, with regard to the present little matter, he couldn’t
think of it on any account, as his departing on such an errand
would certainly occasion the instant death of his wife, to whom,
as they all knew, he was tenderly attached. Now, so far
from this circumstance being notorious, everybody had suspected
the reverse, as the farrier was in the habit of beating his lady
rather more than tender husbands usually do; all the married men
present, however, applauded his resolution with great vehemence,
and one and all declared that they would stop at home and die if
needful (which happily it was not) in defence of their lawful
partners.</p>
<p>This burst of enthusiasm over, they began to look, as by one
consent, toward Will Marks, who, with his cap more on one side
than ever, sat watching the proceedings with extraordinary
unconcern. He had never been heard openly to express his
disbelief in witches, but had often cut such jokes at their
expense as left it to be inferred; publicly stating on several
occasions that he considered a broomstick an inconvenient
charger, and one especially unsuited to the dignity of the female
character, and indulging in other free remarks of the same
tendency, to the great amusement of his wild companions.</p>
<p>As they looked at Will they began to whisper and murmur among
themselves, and at length one man cried, ‘Why don’t
you ask Will Marks?’</p>
<p>As this was what everybody had been thinking of, they all took
up the word, and cried in concert, ‘Ah! why don’t you
ask Will?’</p>
<p>‘<i>He</i> don’t care,’ said the
farrier.</p>
<p>‘Not he,’ added another voice in the crowd.</p>
<p>‘He don’t believe in it, you know,’ sneered
a little man with a yellow face and a taunting nose and chin,
which he thrust out from under the arm of a long man before
him.</p>
<p>‘Besides,’ said a red-faced gentleman with a gruff
voice, ‘he’s a single man.’</p>
<p>‘That’s the point!’ said the farrier; and
all the married men murmured, ah! that was it, and they only
wished they were single themselves; they would show him what
spirit was, very soon.</p>
<p>The messenger looked towards Will Marks beseechingly.</p>
<p>‘It will be a wet night, friend, and my gray nag is
tired after yesterday’s work—’</p>
<p>Here there was a general titter.</p>
<p>‘But,’ resumed Will, looking about him with a
smile, ‘if nobody else puts in a better claim to go, for
the credit of the town I am your man, and I would be, if I had to
go afoot. In five minutes I shall be in the saddle, unless
I am depriving any worthy gentleman here of the honour of the
adventure, which I wouldn’t do for the world.’</p>
<p>But here arose a double difficulty, for not only did John
Podgers combat the resolution with all the words he had, which
were not many, but the young lady combated it too with all the
tears she had, which were very many indeed. Will, however,
being inflexible, parried his uncle’s objections with a
joke, and coaxed the young lady into a smile in three short
whispers. As it was plain that he set his mind upon it, and
would go, John Podgers offered him a few first-rate charms out of
his own pocket, which he dutifully declined to accept; and the
young lady gave him a kiss, which he also returned.</p>
<p>‘You see what a rare thing it is to be married,’
said Will, ‘and how careful and considerate all these
husbands are. There’s not a man among them but his
heart is leaping to forestall me in this adventure, and yet a
strong sense of duty keeps him back. The husbands in this
one little town are a pattern to the world, and so must the wives
be too, for that matter, or they could never boast half the
influence they have!’</p>
<p>Waiting for no reply to this sarcasm, he snapped his fingers
and withdrew into the house, and thence into the stable, while
some busied themselves in refreshing the messenger, and others in
baiting his steed. In less than the specified time he
returned by another way, with a good cloak hanging over his arm,
a good sword girded by his side, and leading his good horse
caparisoned for the journey.</p>
<p>‘Now,’ said Will, leaping into the saddle at a
bound, ‘up and away. Upon your mettle, friend, and
push on. Good night!’</p>
<p>He kissed his hand to the girl, nodded to his drowsy uncle,
waved his cap to the rest—and off they flew pell-mell, as
if all the witches in England were in their horses’
legs. They were out of sight in a minute.</p>
<p>The men who were left behind shook their heads doubtfully,
stroked their chins, and shook their heads again. The
farrier said that certainly Will Marks was a good horseman,
nobody should ever say he denied that: but he was rash, very
rash, and there was no telling what the end of it might be; what
did he go for, that was what he wanted to know? He wished
the young fellow no harm, but why did he go? Everybody
echoed these words, and shook their heads again, having done
which they wished John Podgers good night, and straggled home to
bed.</p>
<p>The Kingston people were in their first sleep when Will Marks
and his conductor rode through the town and up to the door of a
house where sundry grave functionaries were assembled, anxiously
expecting the arrival of the renowned Podgers. They were a
little disappointed to find a gay young man in his place; but
they put the best face upon the matter, and gave him full
instructions how he was to conceal himself behind the gibbet, and
watch and listen to the witches, and how at a certain time he was
to burst forth and cut and slash among them vigorously, so that
the suspected parties might be found bleeding in their beds next
day, and thoroughly confounded. They gave him a great
quantity of wholesome advice besides, and—which was more to
the purpose with Will—a good supper. All these things
being done, and midnight nearly come, <a name="page270"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 270</span>they sallied forth to show him the
spot where he was to keep his dreary vigil.</p>
<p>The night was by this time dark and threatening. There
was a rumbling of distant thunder, and a low sighing of wind
among the trees, which was very dismal. The potentates of
the town kept so uncommonly close to Will that they trod upon his
toes, or stumbled against his ankles, or nearly tripped up his
heels at every step he took, and, besides these annoyances, their
teeth chattered so with fear, that he seemed to be accompanied by
a dirge of castanets.</p>
<p>At last they made a halt at the opening of a lonely, desolate
space, and, pointing to a black object at some distance, asked
Will if he saw that, yonder.</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘What
then?’</p>
<p>Informing him abruptly that it was the gibbet where he was to
watch, they wished him good night in an extremely friendly
manner, and ran back as fast as their feet would carry them.</p>
<p>Will walked boldly to the gibbet, and, glancing upwards when
he came under it, saw—certainly with
satisfaction—that it was empty, and that nothing dangled
from the top but some iron chains, which swung mournfully to and
fro as they were moved by the breeze. After a careful
survey of every quarter he determined to take his station with
his face towards the town; both because that would place him with
his back to the wind, and because, if any trick or surprise were
attempted, it would probably come from that direction in the
first instance. Having taken these precautions, he wrapped
his cloak about him so that it left the handle of his sword free,
and ready to his hand, and leaning against the gallows-tree with
his cap not quite so much on one side as it had been before, took
up his position for the night.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p270b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Will Marks takes up his position for the night"
title=
"Will Marks takes up his position for the night"
src="images/p270s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<h3>SECOND CHAPTER OF MR. PICKWICK’S TALE</h3>
<p>We left Will Marks leaning under the gibbet with his face
towards the town, scanning the distance with a keen eye, which
sought to pierce the darkness and catch the earliest glimpse of
any person or persons that might approach towards him. But
all was quiet, and, save the howling of the wind as it swept
across the heath in gusts, and the creaking of the chains that
dangled above his head, there was no sound to break the sullen
stillness of the night. After half an hour or so this
monotony became more disconcerting to Will than the most furious
uproar would have been, and he heartily wished for some one
antagonist with whom he might have a fair stand-up fight, if it
were only to warm himself.</p>
<p>Truth to tell, it was a bitter wind, and seemed to blow to the
very heart of a man whose blood, heated but now with rapid
riding, was the more sensitive to the chilling blast. Will
was a daring fellow, and cared not a jot for hard knocks or sharp
blades; but he could not persuade himself to move or walk about,
having just that vague expectation of a sudden assault which made
it a comfortable thing to have something at his back, even though
that something were a gallows-tree. He had no great faith
in the superstitions of the age, still such of them as occurred
to him did not serve to lighten the time, or to render his
situation the more endurable. He remembered how witches
were said to repair at that ghostly hour to churchyards and
gibbets, and such-like dismal spots, to pluck the bleeding
mandrake or scrape the flesh from dead men’s bones, as
choice ingredients for their spells; how, stealing by night to
lonely places, they dug graves with their finger-nails, or
anointed themselves before riding in the air, with a delicate
pomatum made of the fat of infants newly boiled. These, and
many other fabled practices of a no less agreeable nature, and
all having some reference to the circumstances in which he was
placed, passed and repassed in quick succession through the mind
of Will Marks, and adding a shadowy dread to that distrust and
watchfulness which his situation inspired, rendered it, upon the
whole, sufficiently uncomfortable. As he had foreseen, too,
the rain began to descend heavily, and driving before the wind in
a thick mist, obscured even those few objects which the darkness
of the night had before imperfectly revealed.</p>
<p>‘Look!’ shrieked a voice. ‘Great
Heaven, it has fallen down, and stands erect as if it
lived!’</p>
<p>The speaker was close behind him; the voice was almost at his
ear. Will threw off his cloak, drew his sword, and darting
swiftly round, seized a woman by the wrist, who, recoiling from
him with a dreadful shriek, fell struggling upon her knees.
Another woman, clad, like her whom he had grasped, in mourning
garments, stood rooted to the spot on which they were, gazing
upon his face with wild and glaring eyes that quite appalled
him.</p>
<p>‘Say,’ cried Will, when they had confronted each
other thus for some time, ‘what are ye?’</p>
<p>‘Say what are <i>you</i>,’ returned the woman,
‘who trouble even this obscene resting-place of the dead,
and strip the gibbet of its honoured burden? Where is the
body?’</p>
<p>He looked in wonder and affright from the woman who questioned
him to the other whose arm he clutched.</p>
<p>‘Where is the body?’ repeated the questioner more
firmly than before. ‘You wear no livery which marks
you for the hireling of the government. You are no friend
to us, or I should recognise you, for the friends of such as we
are few in number. What are you then, and wherefore are you
here?’</p>
<p>‘I am no foe to the distressed and helpless,’ said
Will. ‘Are ye among that number? ye should be by your
looks.’</p>
<p>‘We are!’ was the answer.</p>
<p>‘Is it ye who have been wailing and weeping here under
cover of the night?’ said Will.</p>
<p>‘It is,’ replied the woman sternly; and pointing,
as she spoke, towards her companion, ‘she mourns a husband,
and I a brother. Even the bloody law that wreaks its
vengeance on the dead does not make that a crime, and if it did
’twould be alike to us who are past its fear or
favour.’</p>
<p>Will glanced at the two females, and could barely discern that
the one whom he addressed was much the elder, and that the other
was young and of a slight figure. Both were deadly pale,
their garments wet and worn, their hair dishevelled and streaming
in the wind, themselves bowed down with grief and misery; their
whole appearance most dejected, wretched, and forlorn. A
sight so different from any he had expected to encounter touched
him to the quick, and all idea of anything but their pitiable
condition vanished before it.</p>
<p>‘I am a rough, blunt yeoman,’ said Will.
‘Why I came here is told in a word; you have been overheard
at a distance in the silence of the night, and I have undertaken
a watch for hags or spirits. I came here expecting an
adventure, and prepared to go through with any. If there be
aught that I can do to help or aid you, name it, and on the faith
of a man who can be secret and trusty, I will stand by you to the
death.’</p>
<p>‘How comes this gibbet to be empty?’ asked the
elder female.</p>
<p>‘I swear to you,’ replied Will, ‘that I know
as little as yourself. But this I know, that when I came
here an hour ago or so, it was as it is now; and if, as I gather
from your question, it was not so last night, sure I am that it
has been secretly disturbed without the knowledge of the folks in
yonder town. Bethink you, therefore, whether you have no
friends in league with you or with him on whom the law has done
its worst, by whom these sad remains have been removed for
burial.’</p>
<p>The women spoke together, and Will retired a pace or two while
they conversed apart. He could hear them sob and moan, and
saw that they wrung their hands in fruitless agony. He
could make out little that they said, but between whiles he
gathered enough to assure him that his suggestion was not very
wide of the mark, and that they not only suspected by whom the
body had been removed, but also whither it had been
conveyed. When they had been in conversation a long time,
they turned towards him once more. This time the younger
female spoke.</p>
<p>‘You have offered us your help?’</p>
<p>‘I have.’</p>
<p>‘And given a pledge that you are still willing to
redeem?’</p>
<p>‘Yes. So far as I may, keeping all plots and
conspiracies at arm’s length.’</p>
<p>‘Follow us, friend.’</p>
<p>Will, whose self-possession was now quite restored, needed no
second bidding, but with his drawn sword in his hand, and his
cloak so muffled over his left arm as to serve for a kind of
shield without offering any impediment to its free action,
suffered them to lead the way. Through mud and mire, and
wind and rain, they walked in silence a full mile. At
length they turned into a dark lane, where, suddenly starting out
from beneath some trees where he had taken shelter, a man
appeared, having in his charge three saddled horses. One of
these (his own apparently), in obedience to a whisper from the
women, he consigned to Will, who, seeing that they mounted,
mounted also. Then, without a word spoken, they rode on
together, leaving the attendant behind.</p>
<p>They made no halt nor slackened their pace until they arrived
near Putney. At a large wooden house which stood apart from
any other they alighted, and giving their horses to one who was
already waiting, passed in by a side door, and so up some narrow
creaking stairs into a small panelled chamber, where Will was
left alone. He had not been here very long, when the door
was softly opened, and there entered to him a cavalier whose face
was concealed beneath a black mask.</p>
<p>Will stood upon his guard, and scrutinised this figure from
head to foot. The form was that of a man pretty far
advanced in life, but of a firm and stately carriage. His
dress was of a rich and costly kind, but so soiled and disordered
that it was scarcely to be recognised for one of those gorgeous
suits which the expensive taste and fashion of the time
prescribed for men of any rank or station.</p>
<p>He was booted and spurred, and bore about him even as many
tokens of the state of the roads as Will himself. All this
he noted, while the eyes behind the mask regarded him with equal
attention. This survey over, the cavalier broke
silence.</p>
<p>‘Thou’rt young and bold, and wouldst be richer
than thou art?’</p>
<p>‘The two first I am,’ returned Will.
‘The last I have scarcely thought of. But be it
so. Say that I would be richer than I am; what
then?’</p>
<p>‘The way lies before thee now,’ replied the
Mask.</p>
<p>‘Show it me.’</p>
<p>‘First let me inform thee, that thou wert brought here
to-night lest thou shouldst too soon have told thy tale to those
who placed thee on the watch.’</p>
<p>‘I thought as much when I followed,’ said
Will. ‘But I am no blab, not I.’</p>
<p>‘Good,’ returned the Mask. ‘Now
listen. He who was to have executed the enterprise of
burying that body, which, as thou hast suspected, was taken down
to-night, has left us in our need.’</p>
<p>Will nodded, and thought within himself that if the Mask were
to attempt to play any tricks, the first eyelet-hole on the
left-hand side of his doublet, counting from the buttons up the
front, would be a very good place in which to pink him
neatly.</p>
<p>‘Thou art here, and the emergency is desperate. I
propose his task to thee. Convey the body (now coffined in
this house), by means that I shall show, to the Church of St.
Dunstan in London to-morrow night, and thy service shall be
richly paid. Thou’rt about to ask whose corpse it
is. Seek not to know. I warn thee, seek not to
know. Felons hang in chains on every moor and heath.
Believe, as others do, that this was one, and ask no
further. The murders of state policy, its victims or
avengers, had best remain unknown to such as thee.’</p>
<p>‘The mystery of this service,’ said Will,
‘bespeaks its danger. What is the reward?’</p>
<p>‘One hundred golden unities,’ replied the
cavalier. ‘The danger to one who cannot be recognised
as the friend of a fallen cause is not great, but there is some
hazard to be run. Decide between that and the
reward.’</p>
<p>‘What if I refuse?’ said Will.</p>
<p>‘Depart in peace, in God’s name,’ returned
the Mask in a melancholy tone, ‘and keep our secret,
remembering that those who brought thee here were crushed and
stricken women, and that those who bade thee go free could have
had thy life with one word, and no man the wiser.’</p>
<p>Men were readier to undertake desperate adventures in those
times than they are now. In this case the temptation was
great, and the punishment, even in case of detection, was not
likely to be very severe, as Will came of a loyal stock, and his
uncle was in good repute, and a passable tale to account for his
possession of the body and his ignorance of the identity might be
easily devised.</p>
<p>The cavalier explained that a coveted cart had been prepared
for the purpose; that the time of departure could be arranged so
that he should reach London Bridge at dusk, and proceed through
the City after the day had closed in; that people would be ready
at his journey’s end to place the coffin in a vault without
a minute’s delay; that officious inquirers in the streets
would be easily repelled by the tale that he was carrying for
interment the corpse of one who had died of the plague; and in
short showed him every reason why he should succeed, and none why
he should fail. After a time they were joined by another
gentleman, masked like the first, who added new arguments to
those which had been already urged; the wretched wife, too, added
her tears and prayers to their calmer representations; and in the
end, Will, moved by compassion and good-nature, by a love of the
marvellous, by a mischievous anticipation of the terrors of the
Kingston people when he should be missing next day, and finally,
by the prospect of gain, took upon himself the task, and devoted
all his energies to its successful execution.</p>
<p>The following night, when it was quite dark, the hollow echoes
of old London Bridge responded to the rumbling of the cart which
contained the ghastly load, the object of Will Marks’
care. Sufficiently disguised to attract no attention by his
garb, Will walked at the horse’s head, as unconcerned as a
man could be who was sensible that he had now arrived at the most
dangerous part of his undertaking, but full of boldness and
confidence.</p>
<p>It was now eight o’clock. After nine, none could
walk the streets without danger of their lives, and even at this
hour, robberies and murder were of no uncommon occurrence.
The shops upon the bridge were all closed; the low wooden arches
thrown across the way were like so many black pits, in every one
of which ill-favoured fellows lurked in knots of three or four;
some standing upright against the wall, lying in wait; others
skulking in gateways, and thrusting out their uncombed heads and
scowling eyes: others crossing and recrossing, and constantly
jostling both horse and man to provoke a quarrel; others stealing
away and summoning their companions in a low whistle. Once,
even in that short passage, there was the noise of scuffling and
the clash of swords behind him, but Will, who knew the City and
its ways, kept straight on and scarcely turned his head.</p>
<p>The streets being unpaved, the rain of the night before had
converted them into a perfect quagmire, which the splashing
water-spouts from the gables, and the filth and offal cast from
the different houses, swelled in no small degree. These
odious matters being left to putrefy in the close and heavy air,
emitted an insupportable stench, to which every court and passage
poured forth a contribution of its own. Many parts, even of
the main streets, with their projecting stories tottering
overhead and nearly shutting out the sky, were more like huge
chimneys than open ways. At the corners of some of these,
great bonfires were burning to prevent infection from the plague,
of which it was rumoured that some citizens had lately died; and
few, who availing themselves of the light thus afforded paused
for a moment to look around them, would have been disposed to
doubt the existence of the disease, or wonder at its dreadful
visitations.</p>
<p>But it was not in such scenes as these, or even in the deep
and miry road, that Will Marks found the chief obstacles to his
progress. There were kites and ravens feeding in the
streets (the only scavengers the City kept), who, scenting what
he carried, followed the cart or fluttered on its top, and
croaked their knowledge of its burden and their ravenous appetite
for prey. There were distant fires, where the poor wood and
plaster tenements wasted fiercely, and whither crowds made their
way, clamouring eagerly for plunder, beating down all who came
within their reach, and yelling like devils let loose.
There were single-handed men flying from bands of ruffians, who
pursued them with naked weapons, and hunted them savagely; there
were drunken, desperate robbers issuing from their dens and
staggering through the open streets where no man dared molest
them; there were vagabond servitors returning from the Bear
Garden, where had been good sport that day, dragging after them
their torn and bleeding dogs, or leaving them to die and rot upon
the road. Nothing was abroad but cruelty, violence, and
disorder.</p>
<p>Many were the interruptions which Will Marks encountered from
these stragglers, and many the narrow escapes he made. Now
some stout bully would take his seat upon the cart, insisting to
be driven to his own home, and now two or three men would come
down upon him together, and demand that on peril of his life he
showed them what he had inside. Then a party of the city
watch, upon their rounds, would draw across the road, and not
satisfied with his tale, question him closely, and revenge
themselves by a little cuffing and hustling for maltreatment
sustained at other hands that night. All these assailants
had to be rebutted, some by fair words, some by foul, and some by
blows. But Will Marks was not the man to be stopped or
turned back now he had penetrated so far, and though he got on
slowly, still he made his way down Fleet-street and reached the
church at last.</p>
<p>As he had been forewarned, all was in readiness.
Directly he stopped, the coffin was removed by four men, who
appeared so suddenly that they seemed to have started from the
earth. A fifth mounted the cart, and scarcely allowing Will
time to snatch from it <a name="page277"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 277</span>a little bundle containing such of
his own clothes as he had thrown off on assuming his disguise,
drove briskly away. Will never saw cart or man again.</p>
<p>He followed the body into the church, and it was well he lost
no time in doing so, for the door was immediately closed.
There was no light in the building save that which came from a
couple of torches borne by two men in cloaks, who stood upon the
brink of a vault. Each supported a female figure, and all
observed a profound silence.</p>
<p>By this dim and solemn glare, which made Will feel as though
light itself were dead, and its tomb the dreary arches that
frowned above, they placed the coffin in the vault, with
uncovered heads, and closed it up. One of the torch-bearers
then turned to Will, and stretched forth his hand, in which was a
purse of gold. Something told him directly that those were
the same eyes which he had seen beneath the mask.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p277b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Will Marks arrives at the Church"
title=
"Will Marks arrives at the Church"
src="images/p277s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>‘Take it,’ said the cavalier in a low voice,
‘and be happy. Though these have been hasty
obsequies, and no priest has blessed the work, there will not be
the less peace with thee thereafter, for having laid his bones
beside those of his little children. Keep thy own counsel,
for thy sake no less than ours, and God be with thee!’</p>
<p>‘The blessing of a widowed mother on thy head, good
friend!’ cried the younger lady through her tears;
‘the blessing of one who has now no hope or rest but in
this grave!’</p>
<p>Will stood with the purse in his hand, and involuntarily made
a gesture as though he would return it, for though a thoughtless
fellow, he was of a frank and generous nature. But the two
gentlemen, extinguishing their torches, cautioned him to be gone,
as their common safety would be endangered by a longer delay; and
at the same time their retreating footsteps sounded through the
church. He turned, therefore, towards the point at which he
had entered, and seeing by a faint gleam in the distance that the
door was again partially open, groped his way towards it and so
passed into the street.</p>
<p>Meantime the local authorities of Kingston had kept watch and
ward all the previous night, fancying every now and then that
dismal shrieks were borne towards them on the wind, and
frequently winking to each other, and drawing closer to the fire
as they drank the health of the lonely sentinel, upon whom a
clerical gentleman present was especially severe by reason of his
levity and youthful folly. Two or three of the gravest in
company, who were of a theological turn, propounded to him the
question, whether such a character was not but poorly armed for
single combat with the Devil, and whether he himself would not
have been a stronger opponent; but the clerical gentleman,
sharply reproving them for their presumption in discussing such
questions, clearly showed that a fitter champion than Will could
scarcely have been selected, not only for that being a child of
Satan, he was the less likely to be alarmed by the appearance of
his own father, but because Satan himself would be at his ease in
such company, and would not scruple to kick up his heels to an
extent which it was quite certain he would never venture before
clerical eyes, under whose influence (as was notorious) he became
quite a tame and milk-and-water character.</p>
<p>But when next morning arrived, and with it no Will Marks, and
when a strong party repairing to the spot, as a strong party
ventured to do in broad day, found Will gone and the gibbet
empty, matters grew serious indeed. The day passing away
and no news arriving, and the night going on also without any
intelligence, the thing grew more tremendous still; in short, the
neighbourhood worked itself up to such a comfortable pitch of
mystery and horror, that it is a great question whether the
general feeling was not one of excessive disappointment, when, on
the second morning, Will Marks returned.</p>
<p>However this may be, back Will came in a very cool and
collected state, and appearing not to trouble himself much about
anybody except old John Podgers, who, having been sent for, was
sitting in the Town Hall crying slowly, and dozing between
whiles. Having embraced his uncle and assured him of his
safety, Will mounted on a table and told his story to the
crowd.</p>
<p>And surely they would have been the most unreasonable crowd
that ever assembled together, if they had been in the least
respect disappointed with the tale he told them; for besides
describing the Witches’ Dance to the minutest motion of
their legs, and performing it in character on the table, with the
assistance of a broomstick, he related how they had carried off
the body in a copper caldron, and so bewitched him, that he lost
his senses until he found himself lying under a hedge at least
ten miles off, whence he had straightway returned as they then
beheld. The story gained such universal applause that it
soon afterwards brought down express from London the great
witch-finder of the age, the Heaven-born Hopkins, who having
examined Will closely on several points, pronounced it the most
extraordinary and the best accredited witch-story ever known,
under which title it was published at the Three Bibles on London
Bridge, in small quarto, with a view of the caldron from an
original drawing, and a portrait of the clerical gentleman as he
sat by the fire.</p>
<p>On one point Will was particularly careful: and that was to
describe for the witches he had seen, three impossible old
females, whose likenesses never were or will be. Thus he
saved the lives of the suspected parties, and of all other old
women who were dragged before him to be identified.</p>
<p>This circumstance occasioned John Podgers much grief and
sorrow, until happening one day to cast his eyes upon his
housekeeper, and observing her to be plainly afflicted with
rheumatism, he procured her to be burnt as an undoubted
witch. For this service to the state he was immediately
knighted, and became from that time Sir John Podgers.</p>
<p>Will Marks never gained any clue to the mystery in which he
had been an actor, nor did any inscription in the church, which
he often visited afterwards, nor any of the limited inquiries
that he dared to make, yield him the least assistance. As
he kept his own secret, he was compelled to spend the gold
discreetly and sparingly. In the course of time he married
the young lady of whom I have already told you, whose maiden name
is not recorded, with whom he led a prosperous and happy
life. Years and years after this adventure, it was his wont
to tell her upon a stormy night that it was a great comfort to
him to think those bones, to whomsoever they might have once
belonged, were not bleaching in the troubled air, but were
mouldering away with the dust of their own kith and kindred in a
quiet grave.</p>
<h3>FURTHER PARTICULARS OF MASTER HUMPHREY’S VISITOR</h3>
<p>Being very full of Mr. Pickwick’s application, and
highly pleased with the compliment he had paid me, it will be
readily supposed that long before our next night of meeting I
communicated it to my three friends, who unanimously voted his
admission into our body. We all looked forward with some
impatience to the occasion which would enroll him among us, but I
am greatly mistaken if Jack Redburn and myself were not by many
degrees the most impatient of the party.</p>
<p>At length the night came, and a few minutes after ten Mr.
Pickwick’s knock was heard at the street-door. He was
shown into a lower room, and I directly took my crooked stick and
went to accompany him up-stairs, in order that he might be
presented with all honour and formality.</p>
<p>‘Mr. Pickwick,’ said I, on entering the room,
‘I am rejoiced to see you,—rejoiced to believe that
this is but the opening of a long series of visits to this house,
and but the beginning of a close and lasting
friendship.’</p>
<p>That gentleman made a suitable reply with a cordiality and
frankness peculiarly his own, and glanced with a smile towards
two persons behind the door, whom I had not at first observed,
and whom I immediately recognised as Mr. Samuel Weller and his
father.</p>
<p>It was a warm evening, but the elder Mr. Weller was attired,
notwithstanding, in a most capacious greatcoat, and his chin
enveloped in a large speckled shawl, such as is usually worn by
stage coachmen on active service. He looked very rosy and
very stout, especially about the legs, which appeared to have
been compressed into his top-boots with some difficulty.
His broad-brimmed hat he held under his left arm, and with the
forefinger of his right hand he touched his forehead a great many
times in acknowledgment of my presence.</p>
<p>‘I am very glad to see you in such good health, Mr.
Weller,’ said I.</p>
<p>‘Why, thankee, sir,’ returned Mr. Weller,
‘the axle an’t broke yet. We keeps up a steady
pace,—not too sewere, but vith a moderate degree o’
friction,—and the consekens is that ve’re still a
runnin’ and comes in to the time reg’lar.—My
son Samivel, sir, as you may have read on in history,’
added Mr. Weller, introducing his first-born.</p>
<p>I received Sam very graciously, but before he could say a word
his father struck in again.</p>
<p>‘Samivel Veller, sir,’ said the old gentleman,
‘has conferred upon me the ancient title o’
grandfather vich had long laid dormouse, and wos s’posed to
be nearly hex-tinct in our family. Sammy, relate a anecdote
o’ vun o’ them boys,—that ’ere little
anecdote about young Tony sayin’ as he <i>would</i> smoke a
pipe unbeknown to his mother.’</p>
<p>‘Be quiet, can’t you?’ said Sam; ‘I
never see such a old magpie—never!’</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p282b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Tony Weller and his Grandson"
title=
"Tony Weller and his Grandson"
src="images/p282s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>‘That ’ere Tony is the blessedest boy,’ said
Mr. Weller, heedless of this rebuff, ‘the blessedest boy as
ever <i>I</i> see in <i>my</i> days! of all the charmin’est
infants as ever I heerd tell on, includin’ them as was
kivered over by the robin-redbreasts arter they’d committed
sooicide with blackberries, there never wos any like that
’ere little Tony. He’s alvays a playin’
vith a quart pot, that boy is! To see him a settin’
down on the doorstep pretending to drink out of it, and fetching
a long breath artervards, and smoking a bit of firevood, and
sayin’, “Now I’m grandfather,”—to
see him a doin’ that at two year old is better than any
play as wos ever wrote. “Now I’m
grandfather!” He wouldn’t take a pint pot if
you wos to make him a present on it, but he gets his quart, and
then he says, “Now I’m grandfather!”’</p>
<p>Mr. Weller was so overpowered by this picture that he
straightway fell into a most alarming fit of coughing, which must
certainly have been attended with some fatal result but for the
dexterity and promptitude of Sam, who, taking a firm grasp of the
shawl just under his father’s chin, shook him to and fro
with great violence, at the same time administering some smart
blows between his shoulders. By this curious mode of
treatment Mr. Weller was finally recovered, but with a very
crimson face, and in a state of great exhaustion.</p>
<p>‘He’ll do now, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who
had been in some alarm himself.</p>
<p>‘He’ll do, sir!’ cried Sam, looking
reproachfully at his parent. ‘Yes, he <i>will</i> do
one o’ these days,—he’ll do for his-self and
then he’ll wish he hadn’t. Did anybody ever see
sich a inconsiderate old file,—laughing into conwulsions
afore company, and stamping on the floor as if he’d brought
his own carpet vith him and wos under a wager to punch the
pattern out in a given time? He’ll begin again in a
minute. There—he’s a goin’ off—I
said he would!’</p>
<p><a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 282</span>In
fact, Mr. Weller, whose mind was still running upon his
precocious grandson, was seen to shake his head from side to
side, while a laugh, working like an earthquake, below the
surface, produced various extraordinary appearances in his face,
chest, and shoulders,—the more alarming because
unaccompanied by any noise whatever. These emotions,
however, gradually subsided, and after three or four short
relapses he wiped his eyes with the cuff of his coat, and looked
about him with tolerable composure.</p>
<p>‘Afore the governor vith-draws,’ said Mr. Weller,
‘there is a pint, respecting vich Sammy has a qvestion to
ask. Vile that qvestion is a perwadin’ this here
conwersation, p’raps the genl’men vill permit me to
re-tire.’</p>
<p>‘Wot are you goin’ away for?’ demanded Sam,
seizing his father by the coat-tail.</p>
<p>‘I never see such a undootiful boy as you,
Samivel,’ returned Mr. Weller. ‘Didn’t
you make a solemn promise, amountin’ almost to a speeches
o’ wow, that you’d put that ’ere qvestion on my
account?’</p>
<p>‘Well, I’m agreeable to do it,’ said Sam,
‘but not if you go cuttin’ away like that, as the
bull turned round and mildly observed to the drover ven they wos
a goadin’ him into the butcher’s door. The fact
is, sir,’ said Sam, addressing me, ‘that he wants to
know somethin’ respectin’ that ’ere lady as is
housekeeper here.’</p>
<p>‘Ay. What is that?’</p>
<p>‘Vy, sir,’ said Sam, grinning still more,
‘he wishes to know vether she—’</p>
<p>‘In short,’ interposed old Mr. Weller decisively,
a perspiration breaking out upon his forehead, ‘vether that
’ere old creetur is or is not a widder.’</p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick laughed heartily, and so did I, as I replied
decisively, that ‘my housekeeper was a spinster.’</p>
<p>‘There!’ cried Sam, ‘now you’re
satisfied. You hear she’s a spinster.’</p>
<p>‘A wot?’ said his father, with deep scorn.</p>
<p>‘A spinster,’ replied Sam.</p>
<p>Mr. Weller looked very hard at his son for a minute or two,
and then said,</p>
<p>‘Never mind vether she makes jokes or not, that’s
no matter. Wot I say is, is that ’ere female a
widder, or is she not?’</p>
<p>‘Wot do you mean by her making jokes?’ demanded
Sam, quite aghast at the obscurity of his parent’s
speech.</p>
<p>‘Never you mind, Samivel,’ returned Mr. Weller
gravely; ‘puns may be wery good things or they may be wery
bad ’uns, and a female may be none the better or she may be
none the vurse for making of ’em; that’s got nothing
to do vith widders.’</p>
<p>‘Wy now,’ said Sam, looking round, ‘would
anybody believe as a man at his time o’ life could be
running his head agin spinsters and punsters being the same
thing?’</p>
<p>‘There an’t a straw’s difference between
’em,’ said Mr. Weller. ‘Your father
didn’t drive a coach for so many years, not to be ekal to
his own langvidge as far as <i>that</i> goes, Sammy.’</p>
<p>Avoiding the question of etymology, upon which the old
gentleman’s mind was quite made up, he was several times
assured that the housekeeper had never been married. He
expressed great satisfaction on hearing this, and apologised for
the question, remarking that he had been greatly terrified by a
widow not long before, and that his natural timidity was
increased in consequence.</p>
<p>‘It wos on the rail,’ said Mr. Weller, with strong
emphasis; ‘I wos a goin’ down to Birmingham by the
rail, and I wos locked up in a close carriage vith a living
widder. Alone we wos; the widder and me wos alone; and I
believe it wos only because we <i>wos</i> alone and there wos no
clergyman in the conwayance, that that ’ere widder
didn’t marry me afore ve reached the half-way
station. Ven I think how she began a screaming as we wos a
goin’ under them tunnels in the dark,—how she kept on
a faintin’ and ketchin’ hold o’ me,—and
how I tried to bust open the door as was tight-locked and
perwented all escape—Ah! It was a awful thing, most
awful!’</p>
<p>Mr. Weller was so very much overcome by this retrospect that
he was unable, until he had wiped his brow several times, to
return any reply to the question whether he approved of railway
communication, notwithstanding that it would appear from the
answer which he ultimately gave, that he entertained strong
opinions on the subject.</p>
<p>‘I con-sider,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘that the
rail is unconstitootional and an inwaser o’ priwileges, and
I should wery much like to know what that ’ere old Carter
as once stood up for our liberties and wun ’em too,—I
should like to know wot he vould say, if he wos alive now, to
Englishmen being locked up vith widders, or with anybody again
their wills. Wot a old Carter would have said, a old
Coachman may say, and I as-sert that in that pint o’ view
alone, the rail is an inwaser. As to the comfort,
vere’s the comfort o’ sittin’ in a harm-cheer
lookin’ at brick walls or heaps o’ mud, never
comin’ to a public-house, never seein’ a glass
o’ ale, never goin’ through a pike, never
meetin’ a change o’ no kind (horses or othervise),
but alvays comin’ to a place, ven you come to one at all,
the wery picter o’ the last, vith the same p’leesemen
standing about, the same blessed old bell a ringin’, the
same unfort’nate people standing behind the bars, a
waitin’ to be let in; and everythin’ the same except
the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the last
name, and vith the same colours. As to the <i>h</i>onour
and dignity o’ travellin’, vere can that be vithout a
coachman; and wot’s the rail to sich coachmen and guards as
is sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and a
insult? As to the pace, wot sort o’ pace do you think
I, Tony Veller, could have kept a coach goin’ at, for five
hundred thousand pound a mile, paid in adwance afore the coach
was on the road? And as to the ingein,—a nasty,
wheezin’, creakin’, gaspin’, puffin’,
bustin’ monster, alvays out o’ breath, vith a shiny
green-and-gold back, like a unpleasant beetle in that ’ere
gas magnifier,—as to the ingein as is alvays a
pourin’ out red-hot coals at night, and black smoke in the
day, the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is, ven
there’s somethin’ in the vay, and it sets up that
’ere frightful scream vich seems to say, “Now
here’s two hundred and forty passengers in the wery
greatest extremity o’ danger, and here’s their two
hundred and forty screams in vun!”’</p>
<p>By this time I began to fear that my friends would be rendered
impatient by my protracted absence. I therefore begged Mr.
Pickwick to accompany me up-stairs, and left the two Mr. Wellers
in the care of the housekeeper, laying strict injunctions upon
her to treat them with all possible hospitality.</p>
<h2>IV</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">THE CLOCK</p>
<p><span class="smcap">As</span> we were going up-stairs, Mr.
Pickwick put on his spectacles, which he had held in his hand
hitherto; arranged his neckerchief, smoothed down his waistcoat,
and made many other little preparations of that kind which men
are accustomed to be mindful of, when they are going among
strangers for the first time, and are anxious to impress them
pleasantly. Seeing that I smiled, he smiled too, and said
that if it had occurred to him before he left home, he would
certainly have presented himself in pumps and silk stockings.</p>
<p>‘I would, indeed, my dear sir,’ he said very
seriously; ‘I would have shown my respect for the society,
by laying aside my gaiters.’</p>
<p>‘You may rest assured,’ said I, ‘that they
would have regretted your doing so very much, for they are quite
attached to them.’</p>
<p>‘No, really!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, with manifest
pleasure. ‘Do you think they care about my
gaiters? Do you seriously think that they identify me at
all with my gaiters?’</p>
<p>‘I am sure they do,’ I replied.</p>
<p>‘Well, now,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that is one
of the most charming and agreeable circumstances that could
possibly have occurred to me!’</p>
<p>I should not have written down this short conversation, but
that it developed a slight point in Mr. Pickwick’s
character, with which I was not previously acquainted. He
has a secret pride in his legs. The manner in which he
spoke, and the accompanying glance he bestowed upon his tights,
convince me that Mr. Pickwick regards his legs with much innocent
vanity.</p>
<p>‘But here are our friends,’ said I, opening the
door and taking his arm in mine; ‘let them speak for
themselves.—Gentlemen, I present to you Mr.
Pickwick.’</p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick and I must have been a good contrast just
then. I, leaning quietly on my crutch-stick, with something
of a care-worn, patient air; he, having hold of my arm, and
bowing in every direction with the most elastic politeness, and
an expression of face whose sprightly cheerfulness and
good-humour knew no bounds. The difference between us must
have been more striking yet, as we advanced towards the table,
and the amiable gentleman, adapting his jocund step to my poor
tread, had his attention divided between treating my infirmities
with the utmost consideration, and affecting to be wholly
unconscious that I required any.</p>
<p>I made him personally known to each of my friends in
turn. First, to the deaf gentleman, whom he regarded with
much interest, and accosted with great frankness and
cordiality. He had evidently some vague idea, at the
moment, that my friend being deaf must be dumb also; for when the
latter opened his lips to express the pleasure it afforded him to
know a gentleman of whom he had heard so much, Mr. Pickwick was
so extremely disconcerted, that I was obliged to step in to his
relief.</p>
<p>His meeting with Jack Redburn was quite a treat to see.
Mr. Pickwick smiled, and shook hands, and looked at him through
his spectacles, and under them, and over them, and nodded his
head approvingly, and then nodded to me, as much as to say,
‘This is just the man; you were quite right;’ and
then turned to Jack and said a few hearty words, and then did and
said everything over again with unimpaired vivacity. As to
Jack himself, he was quite as much delighted with Mr. Pickwick as
Mr. Pickwick could possibly be with him. Two people never
can have met together since the world began, who exchanged a
warmer or more enthusiastic greeting.</p>
<p>It was amusing to observe the difference between this
encounter and that which succeeded, between Mr. Pickwick and Mr.
Miles. It was clear that the latter gentleman viewed our
new member as a kind of rival in the affections of Jack Redburn,
and besides this, he had more than once hinted to me, in secret,
that although he had no doubt Mr. Pickwick was a very worthy man,
still he did consider that some of his exploits were unbecoming a
gentleman of his years and gravity. Over and above these
grounds of distrust, it is one of his fixed opinions, that the
law never can by possibility do anything wrong; he therefore
looks upon Mr. Pickwick as one who has justly suffered in purse
and peace for a breach of his plighted faith to an unprotected
female, and holds that he is called upon to regard him with some
suspicion on that account. These causes led to a rather
cold and formal reception; which Mr. Pickwick acknowledged with
the same stateliness and intense politeness as was displayed on
the other side. Indeed, he assumed an air of such majestic
defiance, that I was fearful he might break out into some solemn
protest or declaration, and therefore inducted him into his chair
without a moment’s delay.</p>
<p>This piece of generalship was perfectly successful. The
instant he took his seat, Mr. Pickwick surveyed us all with a
most benevolent aspect, and was taken with a fit of smiling full
five minutes long. His interest in our ceremonies was
immense. They are not very numerous or complicated, and a
description of them may be comprised in very few words. As
our transactions have already been, and must necessarily continue
to be, more or less anticipated by being presented in these pages
at different times, and under various forms, they do not require
a detailed account.</p>
<p>Our first proceeding when we are assembled is to shake hands
all round, and greet each other with cheerful and pleasant
looks. Remembering that we assemble not only for the
promotion of our happiness, but with the view of adding something
to the common stock, an air of languor or indifference in any
member of our body would be regarded by the others as a kind of
treason. We have never had an offender in this respect; but
if we had, there is no doubt that he would be taken to task
pretty severely.</p>
<p>Our salutation over, the venerable piece of antiquity from
which we take our name is wound up in silence. The ceremony
is always performed by Master Humphrey himself (in treating of
the club, I may be permitted to assume the historical style, and
speak of myself in the third person), who mounts upon a chair for
the purpose, armed with a large key. While it is in
progress, Jack Redburn is required to keep at the farther end of
the room under the guardianship of Mr. Miles, for he is known to
entertain certain aspiring and unhallowed thoughts connected with
the clock, and has even gone so far as to state that if he might
take the works out for a day or two, he thinks he could improve
them. We pardon him his presumption in consideration of his
good intentions, and his keeping this respectful distance, which
last penalty is insisted on, lest by secretly wounding the object
of our regard in some tender part, in the ardour of his zeal for
its improvement, he should fill us with dismay and
consternation.</p>
<p>This regulation afforded Mr. Pickwick the highest delight, and
seemed, if possible, to exalt Jack in his good opinion.</p>
<p>The next ceremony is the opening of the clock-case (of which
Master Humphrey has likewise the key), the taking from it as many
papers as will furnish forth our evening’s entertainment,
and arranging in the recess such new contributions as have been
provided since our last meeting. This is always done with
peculiar solemnity. The deaf gentleman then fills and
lights his pipe, and we once more take our seats round the table
before mentioned, Master Humphrey acting as president,—if
we can be said to have any president, where all are on the same
social footing,—and our friend Jack as secretary. Our
preliminaries being now concluded, we fall into any train of
conversation that happens to suggest itself, or proceed
immediately to one of our readings. In the latter case, the
paper selected is consigned to Master Humphrey, who flattens it
carefully on the table and makes dog’s ears in the corner
of every page, ready for turning over easily; Jack Redburn trims
the lamp with a small machine of his own invention which usually
puts it out; Mr. Miles looks on with great approval
notwithstanding; the deaf gentleman draws in his chair, so that
he can follow the words on the paper or on Master
Humphrey’s lips as he pleases; and Master Humphrey <a
name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 288</span>himself,
looking round with mighty gratification, and glancing up at his
old clock, begins to read aloud.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p288b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Proceedings of the Club"
title=
"Proceedings of the Club"
src="images/p288s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick’s face, while his tale was being read,
would have attracted the attention of the dullest man
alive. The complacent motion of his head and forefinger as
he gently beat time, and corrected the air with imaginary
punctuation, the smile that mantled on his features at every
jocose passage, and the sly look he stole around to observe its
effect, the calm manner in which he shut his eyes and listened
when there was some little piece of description, the changing
expression with which he acted the dialogue to himself, his agony
that the deaf gentleman should know what it was all about, and
his extraordinary anxiety to correct the reader when he hesitated
at a word in the manuscript, or substituted a wrong one, were
alike worthy of remark. And when at last, endeavouring to
communicate with the deaf gentleman by means of the finger
alphabet, with which he constructed such words as are unknown in
any civilised or savage language, he took up a slate and wrote in
large text, one word in a line, the question,
‘How—do—you—like—it?’—when
he did this, and handing it over the table awaited the reply,
with a countenance only brightened and improved by his great
excitement, even Mr. Miles relaxed, and could not forbear looking
at him for the moment with interest and favour.</p>
<p>‘It has occurred to me,’ said the deaf gentleman,
who had watched Mr. Pickwick and everybody else with silent
satisfaction—‘it has occurred to me,’ said the
deaf gentleman, taking his pipe from his lips, ‘that now is
our time for filling our only empty chair.’</p>
<p>As our conversation had naturally turned upon the vacant seat,
we lent a willing ear to this remark, and looked at our friend
inquiringly.</p>
<p>‘I feel sure,’ said he, ‘that Mr. Pickwick
must be acquainted with somebody who would be an acquisition to
us; that he must know the man we want. Pray let us not lose
any time, but set this question at rest. Is it so, Mr.
Pickwick?’</p>
<p>The gentleman addressed was about to return a verbal reply,
but remembering our friend’s infirmity, he substituted for
this kind of answer some fifty nods. Then taking up the
slate and printing on it a gigantic ‘Yes,’ he handed
it across the table, and rubbing his hands as he looked round
upon our faces, protested that he and the deaf gentleman quite
understood each other, already.</p>
<p>‘The person I have in my mind,’ said Mr. Pickwick,
‘and whom I should not have presumed to mention to you
until some time hence, but for the opportunity you have given me,
is a very strange old man. His name is Bamber.’</p>
<p>‘Bamber!’ said Jack. ‘I have certainly
heard the name before.’</p>
<p>‘I have no doubt, then,’ returned Mr. Pickwick,
‘that you remember him in those adventures of mine (the
Posthumous Papers of our old club, I mean), although he is only
incidentally mentioned; and, if I remember right, appears but
once.’</p>
<p>‘That’s it,’ said Jack. ‘Let me
see. He is the person who has a grave interest in old
mouldy chambers and the Inns of Court, and who relates some
anecdotes having reference to his favourite theme,—and an
odd ghost story,—is that the man?’</p>
<p>‘The very same. Now,’ said Mr. Pickwick,
lowering his voice to a mysterious and confidential tone,
‘he is a very extraordinary and remarkable person; living,
and talking, and looking, like some strange spirit, whose delight
is to haunt old buildings; and absorbed in that one subject which
you have just mentioned, to an extent which is quite
wonderful. When I retired into private life, I sought him
out, and I do assure you that the more I see of him, the more
strongly I am impressed with the strange and dreamy character of
his mind.’</p>
<p>‘Where does he live?’ I inquired.</p>
<p>‘He lives,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘in one of
those dull, lonely old places with which his thoughts and stories
are all connected; quite alone, and often shut up close for
several weeks together. In this dusty solitude he broods
upon the fancies he has so long indulged, and when he goes into
the world, or anybody from the world without goes to see him,
they are still present to his mind and still his favourite
topic. I may say, I believe, that he has brought himself to
entertain a regard for me, and an interest in my visits; feelings
which I am certain he would extend to Master Humphrey’s
Clock if he were once tempted to join us. All I wish you to
understand is, that he is a strange, secluded visionary, in the
world but not of it; and as unlike anybody here as he is unlike
anybody elsewhere that I have ever met or known.’</p>
<p>Mr. Miles received this account of our proposed companion with
rather a wry face, and after murmuring that perhaps he was a
little mad, inquired if he were rich.</p>
<p>‘I never asked him,’ said Mr. Pickwick.</p>
<p>‘You might know, sir, for all that,’ retorted Mr.
Miles, sharply.</p>
<p>‘Perhaps so, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, no less
sharply than the other, ‘but I do not. Indeed,’
he added, relapsing into his usual mildness, ‘I have no
means of judging. He lives poorly, but that would seem to
be in keeping with his character. I never heard him allude
to his circumstances, and never fell into the society of any man
who had the slightest acquaintance with them. I have really
told you all I know about him, and it rests with you to say
whether you wish to know more, or know quite enough
already.’</p>
<p>We were unanimously of opinion that we would seek to know
more; and as a sort of compromise with Mr. Miles (who, although
he said ‘Yes—O certainly—he should like to know
more about the gentleman—he had no right to put himself in
opposition to the general wish,’ and so forth, shook his
head doubtfully and hemmed several times with peculiar gravity),
it was arranged that Mr. Pickwick should carry me with him on an
evening visit to the subject of our discussion, for which purpose
an early appointment between that gentleman and myself was
immediately agreed upon; it being understood that I was to act
upon my own responsibility, and to invite him to join us or not,
as I might think proper. This solemn question determined,
we returned to the clock-case (where we have been forestalled by
the reader), and between its contents, and the conversation they
occasioned, the remainder of our time passed very quickly.</p>
<p>When we broke up, Mr. Pickwick took me aside to tell me that
he had spent a most charming and delightful evening. Having
made this communication with an air of the strictest secrecy, he
took Jack Redburn into another corner to tell him the same, and
then retired into another corner with the deaf gentleman and the
slate, to repeat the assurance. It was amusing to observe
the contest in his mind whether he should extend his confidence
to Mr. Miles, or treat him with dignified reserve. Half a
dozen times he stepped up behind him with a friendly air, and as
often stepped back again without saying a word; at last, when he
was close at that gentleman’s ear and upon the very point
of whispering something conciliating and agreeable, Mr. Miles
happened suddenly to turn his head, upon which Mr. Pickwick
skipped away, and said with some fierceness, ‘Good night,
sir—I was about to say good night, sir,—nothing
more;’ and so made a bow and left him.</p>
<p>‘Now, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, when he had got
down-stairs.</p>
<p>‘All right, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller.
‘Hold hard, sir. Right arm fust—now the
left—now one strong conwulsion, and the great-coat’s
on, sir.’</p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick acted upon these directions, and being further
assisted by Sam, who pulled at one side of the collar, and Mr.
Weller, who pulled hard at the other, was speedily enrobed.
Mr. Weller, senior, then produced a full-sized stable lantern,
which he had carefully deposited in a remote corner, on his
arrival, and inquired whether Mr. Pickwick would have ‘the
lamps alight.’</p>
<p>‘I think not to-night,’ said Mr. Pickwick.</p>
<p>‘Then if this here lady vill per-mit,’ rejoined
Mr. Weller, ‘we’ll leave it here, ready for next
journey. This here lantern, mum,’ said Mr. Weller,
handing it to the housekeeper, ‘vunce belonged to the
celebrated Bill Blinder as is now at grass, as all on us vill be
in our turns. Bill, mum, wos the hostler as had charge
o’ them two vell-known piebald leaders that run in the
Bristol fast coach, and vould never go to no other tune but a
sutherly vind and a cloudy sky, which wos consekvently played
incessant, by the guard, wenever they wos on duty. He wos
took wery bad one arternoon, arter having been off his feed, and
wery shaky on his legs for some veeks; and he says to his mate,
“Matey,” he says, “I think I’m
a-goin’ the wrong side o’ the post, and that my
foot’s wery near the bucket. Don’t say I
an’t,” he says, “for I know I am, and
don’t let me be interrupted,” he says, “for
I’ve saved a little money, and I’m a-goin’ into
the stable to make my last vill and testymint.”
“I’ll take care as nobody interrupts,” says his
mate, “but you on’y hold up your head, and shake your
ears a bit, and you’re good for twenty years to
come.” Bill Blinder makes him no answer, but he goes
avay into the stable, and there he soon artervards lays himself
down a’tween the two piebalds, and dies,—previously a
writin’ outside the corn-chest, “This is the last
vill and testymint of Villiam Blinder.” They wos
nat’rally wery much amazed at this, and arter looking among
the litter, and up in the loft, and vere not, they opens the
corn-chest, and finds that he’d been and chalked his vill
inside the lid; so the lid was obligated to be took off the
hinges, and sent up to Doctor Commons to be proved, and under
that ’ere wery instrument this here lantern was passed to
Tony Veller; vich circumstarnce, mum, gives it a wally in my
eyes, and <a name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
292</span>makes me rekvest, if you vill be so kind, as to take
partickler care on it.’</p>
<p>The housekeeper graciously promised to keep the object of Mr.
Weller’s regard in the safest possible custody, and Mr.
Pickwick, with a laughing face, took his leave. The
bodyguard followed, side by side; old Mr. Weller buttoned and
wrapped up from his boots to his chin; and Sam with his hands in
his pockets and his hat half off his head, remonstrating with his
father, as he went, on his extreme loquacity.</p>
<p>I was not a little surprised, on turning to go up-stairs, to
encounter the barber in the passage at that late hour; for his
attendance is usually confined to some half-hour in the
morning. But Jack Redburn, who finds out (by instinct, I
think) everything that happens in the house, informed me with
great glee, that a society in imitation of our own had been that
night formed in the kitchen, under the title of ‘Mr.
Weller’s Watch,’ of which the barber was a member;
and that he could pledge himself to find means of making me
acquainted with the whole of its future proceedings, which I
begged him, both on my own account and that of my readers, by no
means to neglect doing. <a name="citation292"></a><a
href="#footnote292" class="citation">[292]</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p292b.jpg">
<img alt=
"The Last Will and Testament of William Blinder"
title=
"The Last Will and Testament of William Blinder"
src="images/p292s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<h2>V</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">MR. WELLER’S WATCH</p>
<p><span class="smcap">It</span> seems that the housekeeper and
the two Mr. Wellers were no sooner left together on the occasion
of their first becoming acquainted, than the housekeeper called
to her assistance Mr. Slithers the barber, who had been lurking
in the kitchen in expectation of her summons; and with many
smiles and much sweetness introduced him as one who would assist
her in the responsible office of entertaining her distinguished
visitors.</p>
<p>‘Indeed,’ said she, ‘without Mr. Slithers I
should have been placed in quite an awkward situation.’</p>
<p>‘There is no call for any hock’erdness,
mum,’ said Mr. Weller with the utmost politeness; ‘no
call wotsumever. A lady,’ added the old gentleman,
looking about him with the air of one who establishes an
incontrovertible position,—‘a lady can’t be
hock’erd. Natur’ has otherwise
purwided.’</p>
<p>The housekeeper inclined her head and smiled yet more
sweetly. The barber, who had been fluttering about Mr.
Weller and Sam in a state of great anxiety to improve their
acquaintance, rubbed his hands and cried, ‘Hear,
hear! Very true, sir;’ whereupon Sam turned about and
steadily regarded him for some seconds in silence.</p>
<p>‘I never knew,’ said Sam, fixing his eyes in a
ruminative manner upon the blushing barber,—‘I never
knew but vun o’ your trade, but <i>he</i> wos worth a
dozen, and wos indeed dewoted to his callin’!’</p>
<p>‘Was he in the easy shaving way, sir,’ inquired
Mr. Slithers; ‘or in the cutting and curling
line?’</p>
<p>‘Both,’ replied Sam; ‘easy shavin’ was
his natur’, and cuttin’ and curlin’ was his
pride and glory. His whole delight wos in his trade.
He spent all his money in bears, and run in debt for ’em
besides, and there they wos a growling avay down in the front
cellar all day long, and ineffectooally gnashing their teeth,
vile the grease o’ their relations and friends wos being
re-tailed in gallipots in the shop above, and the first-floor
winder wos ornamented vith their heads; not to speak o’ the
dreadful aggrawation it must have been to ’em to see a man
alvays a walkin’ up and down the pavement outside, vith the
portrait of a bear in his last agonies, and underneath in large
letters, “Another fine animal wos slaughtered yesterday at
Jinkinson’s!” Hows’ever, there they wos,
and there Jinkinson wos, till he wos took wery ill with some
inn’ard disorder, lost the use of his legs, and wos
confined to his bed, vere he laid a wery long time, but sich wos
his pride in his profession, even then, that wenever he wos worse
than usual the doctor used to go down-stairs and say,
“Jinkinson’s wery low this mornin’; we must
give the bears a stir;” and as sure as ever they stirred
’em up a bit and made ’em roar, Jinkinson opens his
eyes if he wos ever so bad, calls out, “There’s the
bears!” and rewives agin.’</p>
<p>‘Astonishing!’ cried the barber.</p>
<p>‘Not a bit,’ said Sam, ‘human natur’
neat as imported. Vun day the doctor happenin’ to
say, “I shall look in as usual to-morrow
mornin’,” Jinkinson catches hold of his hand and
says, “Doctor,” he says, “will you grant me one
favour?” “I will, Jinkinson,” says the
doctor. “Then, doctor,” says Jinkinson,
“vill you come unshaved, and let me shave you?”
“I will,” says the doctor. “God bless
you,” says Jinkinson. Next day the doctor came, and
arter he’d been shaved all skilful and reg’lar, he
says, “Jinkinson,” he says, “it’s wery
plain this does you good. Now,” he says,
“I’ve got a coachman as has got a beard that it
’ud warm your heart to work on, and though the
footman,” he says, “hasn’t got much of a beard,
still he’s a trying it on vith a pair o’ viskers to
that extent that razors is Christian charity. If they take
it in turns to mind the carriage when it’s a waitin’
below,” he says, “wot’s to hinder you from
operatin’ on both of ’em ev’ry day as well as
upon me? you’ve got six children,” he says,
“wot’s to hinder you from shavin’ all their
heads and keepin’ ’em shaved? you’ve got two
assistants in the shop down-stairs, wot’s to hinder you
from cuttin’ and curlin’ them as often as you
like? Do this,” he says, “and you’re a
man agin.” Jinkinson squeedged the doctor’s
hand and begun that wery day; he kept his tools upon the bed, and
wenever he felt his-self gettin’ worse, he turned to at vun
o’ the children who wos a runnin’ about the house
vith heads like clean Dutch cheeses, and shaved him agin.
Vun day the lawyer come to make his vill; all the time he wos a
takin’ it down, Jinkinson was secretly a clippin’
avay at his hair vith a large pair of scissors.
“Wot’s that ’ere snippin’ noise?”
says the lawyer every now and then; “it’s like a man
havin’ his hair cut.” “It <i>is</i> wery
like a man havin’ his hair cut,” says poor Jinkinson,
hidin’ the scissors, and lookin’ quite
innocent. By the time the lawyer found it out, he was wery
nearly bald. Jinkinson wos kept alive in this vay for a
long time, but at last vun day he has in all the children vun
arter another, shaves each on ’em wery clean, and gives him
vun kiss on the crown o’ his head; then he has in the two
assistants, and arter cuttin’ and curlin’ of
’em in the first style of elegance, says he should like to
hear the woice o’ the greasiest bear, vich rekvest is
immediately complied with; then he says that he feels wery happy
in his mind and vishes to be left alone; and then he dies,
previously cuttin’ his own hair and makin’ one flat
curl in the wery middle of his forehead.’</p>
<p>This anecdote produced an extraordinary effect, not only upon
Mr. Slithers, but upon the housekeeper also, who evinced so much
anxiety to please and be pleased, that Mr. Weller, with a manner
betokening some alarm, conveyed a whispered inquiry to his son
whether he had gone ‘too fur.’</p>
<p>‘Wot do you mean by too fur?’ demanded Sam.</p>
<p>‘In that ’ere little compliment respectin’
the want of hock’erdness in ladies, Sammy,’ replied
his father.</p>
<p>‘You don’t think she’s fallen in love with
you in consekens o’ that, do you?’ said Sam.</p>
<p>‘More unlikelier things have come to pass, my
boy,’ replied Mr. Weller in a hoarse whisper;
‘I’m always afeerd of inadwertent captiwation,
Sammy. If I know’d how to make myself ugly or
unpleasant, I’d do it, Samivel, rayther than live in this
here state of perpetival terror!’</p>
<p>Mr. Weller had, at that time, no further opportunity of
dwelling upon the apprehensions which beset his mind, for the
immediate occasion of his fears proceeded to lead the way
down-stairs, apologising as they went for conducting him into the
kitchen, which apartment, however, she was induced to proffer for
his accommodation in preference to her own little room, the
rather as it afforded greater facilities for smoking, and was
immediately adjoining the ale-cellar. The preparations
which were already made sufficiently proved that these were not
mere words of course, for on the deal table were a sturdy ale-jug
and glasses, flanked with clean pipes and a plentiful supply of
tobacco for the old gentleman and his son, while on a dresser
hard by was goodly store of cold meat and other eatables.
At sight of these arrangements Mr. Weller was at first distracted
between his love of joviality and his doubts whether they were
not to be considered as so many evidences of captivation having
already taken place; but he soon yielded to his natural impulse,
and took his seat at the table with a very jolly countenance.</p>
<p>‘As to imbibin’ any o’ this here flagrant
veed, mum, in the presence of a lady,’ said Mr. Weller,
taking up a pipe and laying it down again, ‘it
couldn’t be. Samivel, total abstinence, if <i>you</i>
please.’</p>
<p>‘But I like it of all things,’ said the
housekeeper.</p>
<p>‘No,’ rejoined Mr. Weller, shaking his
head,—‘no.’</p>
<p>‘Upon my word I do,’ said the housekeeper.
‘Mr. Slithers knows I do.’</p>
<p>Mr. Weller coughed, and notwithstanding the barber’s
confirmation of the statement, said ‘No’ again, but
more feebly than before. The housekeeper lighted a piece of
paper, and insisted on applying it to the bowl of the pipe with
her own fair hands; Mr. Weller resisted; the housekeeper cried
that her fingers would be burnt; Mr. Weller gave way. The
pipe was ignited, Mr. Weller drew a long puff of smoke, and
detecting himself in the very act of smiling on the housekeeper,
put a sudden constraint upon his countenance and looked sternly
at the candle, with a determination not to captivate, himself, or
encourage thoughts of captivation in others. From this iron
frame of mind he was roused by the voice of his son.</p>
<p>‘I don’t think,’ said Sam, who was smoking
with great composure and enjoyment, ‘that if the lady wos
agreeable it ’ud be wery far out o’ the vay for us
four to make up a club of our own like the governors does
up-stairs, and let him,’ Sam pointed with the stem of his
pipe towards his parent, ‘be the president.’</p>
<p>The housekeeper affably declared that it was the very thing
she had been thinking of. The barber said the same.
Mr. Weller said nothing, but he laid down his pipe as if in a fit
of inspiration, and performed the following manœuvres.</p>
<p>Unbuttoning the three lower buttons of his waistcoat and
pausing for a moment to enjoy the easy flow of breath consequent
upon this process, he laid violent hands upon his watch-chain,
and slowly and with extreme difficulty drew from his fob an
immense double-cased silver watch, which brought the lining of
the pocket with it, and was not to be disentangled but by great
exertions and an amazing redness of face. Having fairly got
it out at last, he detached the outer case and wound it up with a
key of corresponding magnitude; then put the case on again, and
having applied the watch to his ear to ascertain that it was
still going, gave it some half-dozen hard knocks on the table to
improve its performance.</p>
<p>‘That,’ said Mr. Weller, laying it on the table
with its face upwards, ‘is the title and emblem o’
this here society. Sammy, reach them two stools this vay
for the wacant cheers. Ladies and gen’lmen, Mr.
Weller’s Watch is vound up and now a-goin’.
Order!’</p>
<p>By way of enforcing this proclamation, Mr. Weller, using the
watch after the manner of a president’s hammer, and
remarking with great pride that nothing hurt it, and that falls
and concussions of all kinds materially enhanced the excellence
of the works and assisted the regulator, knocked the table a
great many times, and declared the association formally
constituted.</p>
<p>‘And don’t let’s have no grinnin’ at
the cheer, Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller to his son, ‘or
I shall be committin’ you to the cellar, and then
p’r’aps we may get into what the ‘Merrikins
call a fix, and the English a qvestion o’
privileges.’</p>
<p>Having uttered this friendly caution, the President settled
himself in his chair with great dignity, and requested that Mr.
Samuel would relate an anecdote.</p>
<p>‘I’ve told one,’ said Sam.</p>
<p>‘Wery good, sir; tell another,’ returned the
chair.</p>
<p>‘We wos a talking jist now, sir,’ said Sam,
turning to Slithers, ‘about barbers. Pursuing that
’ere fruitful theme, sir, I’ll tell you <a
name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 297</span>in a wery
few words a romantic little story about another barber as
p’r’aps you may never have heerd.’</p>
<p>‘Samivel!’ said Mr. Weller, again bringing his
watch and the table into smart collision, ‘address your
obserwations to the cheer, sir, and not to priwate
indiwiduals!’</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p297b.jpg">
<img alt=
"A Rival Club"
title=
"A Rival Club"
src="images/p297s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>‘And if I might rise to order,’ said the barber in
a soft voice, and looking round him with a conciliatory smile as
he leant over the table, with the knuckles of his left hand
resting upon it,—‘if I <i>might</i> rise to order, I
would suggest that “barbers” is not exactly the kind
of language which is agreeable and soothing to our
feelings. You, sir, will correct me if I’m wrong, but
I believe there <i>is</i> such a word in the dictionary as
hairdressers.’</p>
<p>‘Well, but suppose he wasn’t a hairdresser,’
suggested Sam.</p>
<p>‘Wy then, sir, be parliamentary and call him vun all the
more,’ returned his father. ‘In the same vay as
ev’ry gen’lman in another place is a
<i>h</i>onourable, ev’ry barber in this place is a
hairdresser. Ven you read the speeches in the papers, and
see as vun gen’lman says of another, “the
<i>h</i>onourable member, if he vill allow me to call him
so,” you vill understand, sir, that that means, “if
he vill allow me to keep up that ’ere pleasant and
uniwersal fiction.”’</p>
<p>It is a common remark, confirmed by history and experience,
that great men rise with the circumstances in which they are
placed. Mr. Weller came out so strong in his capacity of
chairman, that Sam was for some time prevented from speaking by a
grin of surprise, which held his faculties enchained, and at last
subsided in a long whistle of a single note. Nay, the old
gentleman appeared even to have astonished himself, and that to
no small extent, as was demonstrated by the vast amount of
chuckling in which he indulged, after the utterance of these
lucid remarks.</p>
<p>‘Here’s the story,’ said Sam.
‘Vunce upon a time there wos a young hairdresser as opened
a wery smart little shop vith four wax dummies in the winder, two
gen’lmen and two ladies—the gen’lmen vith blue
dots for their beards, wery large viskers, oudacious heads of
hair, uncommon clear eyes, and nostrils of amazin’
pinkness; the ladies vith their heads o’ one side, their
right forefingers on their lips, and their forms deweloped
beautiful, in vich last respect they had the adwantage over the
gen’lmen, as wasn’t allowed but wery little shoulder,
and terminated rayther abrupt in fancy drapery. He had also
a many hair-brushes and tooth-brushes bottled up in the winder,
neat glass-cases on the counter, a floor-clothed
cuttin’-room up-stairs, and a weighin’-macheen in the
shop, right opposite the door. But the great attraction and
ornament wos the dummies, which this here young hairdresser wos
constantly a runnin’ out in the road to look at, and
constantly a runnin’ in again to touch up and polish; in
short, he wos so proud on ’em, that ven Sunday come, he wos
always wretched and mis’rable to think they wos behind the
shutters, and looked anxiously for Monday on that account.
Vun o’ these dummies wos a favrite vith him beyond the
others; and ven any of his acquaintance asked him wy he
didn’t get married—as the young ladies he
know’d, in partickler, often did—he used to say,
“Never! I never vill enter into the bonds of
vedlock,” he says, “until I meet vith a young
’ooman as realises my idea o’ that ’ere fairest
dummy vith the light hair. Then, and not till then,”
he says, “I vill approach the altar.” All the
young ladies he know’d as had got dark hair told him this
wos wery sinful, and that he wos wurshippin’ a idle; but
them as wos at all near the same shade as the dummy coloured up
wery much, and wos observed to think him a wery nice young
man.’</p>
<p>‘Samivel,’ said Mr. Weller, gravely, ‘a
member o’ this associashun bein’ one o’ that
’ere tender sex which is now immedetly referred to, I have
to rekvest that you vill make no reflections.’</p>
<p>‘I ain’t a makin’ any, am I?’ inquired
Sam.</p>
<p>‘Order, sir!’ rejoined Mr. Weller, with severe
dignity. Then, sinking the chairman in the father, he
added, in his usual tone of voice: ‘Samivel, drive
on!’</p>
<p>Sam interchanged a smile with the housekeeper, and
proceeded:</p>
<p>‘The young hairdresser hadn’t been in the habit
o’ makin’ this avowal above six months, ven he
en-countered a young lady as wos the wery picter o’ the
fairest dummy. “Now,” he says,
“it’s all up. I am a slave!” The
young lady wos not only the picter o’ the fairest dummy,
but she was wery romantic, as the young hairdresser was, too, and
he says, “O!” he says, “here’s a
community o’ feelin’, here’s a flow o’
soul!” he says, “here’s a interchange o’
sentiment!” The young lady didn’t say much,
o’ course, but she expressed herself agreeable, and shortly
artervards vent to see him vith a mutual friend. The
hairdresser rushes out to meet her, but d’rectly she sees
the dummies she changes colour and falls a tremblin’
wiolently. “Look up, my love,” says the
hairdresser, “behold your imige in my winder, but not
correcter than in my art!” “My imige!”
she says. “Yourn!” replies the
hairdresser. “But whose imige is <i>that</i>?”
she says, a pinting at vun o’ the gen’lmen.
“No vun’s, my love,” he says, “it is but
a idea.” “A idea!” she cries: “it
is a portrait, I feel it is a portrait, and that ’ere noble
face must be in the millingtary!” “Wot do I
hear!” says he, a crumplin’ his curls.
“Villiam Gibbs,” she says, quite firm, “never
renoo the subject. I respect you as a friend,” she
says, “but my affections is set upon that manly
brow.” “This,” says the hairdresser,
“is a reg’lar blight, and in it I perceive the hand
of Fate. Farevell!” Vith these vords he rushes
into the shop, breaks the dummy’s nose vith a blow of his
curlin’-irons, melts him down at the parlour fire, and
never smiles artervards.’</p>
<p>‘The young lady, Mr. Weller?’ said the
housekeeper.</p>
<p>‘Why, ma’am,’ said Sam, ‘finding that
Fate had a spite agin her, and everybody she come into contact
vith, she never smiled neither, but read a deal o’ poetry
and pined avay,—by rayther slow degrees, for she
ain’t dead yet. It took a deal o’ poetry to
kill the hairdresser, and some people say arter all that it was
more the gin and water as caused him to be run over;
p’r’aps it was a little o’ both, and came
o’ mixing the two.’</p>
<p>The barber declared that Mr. Weller had related one of the
most interesting stories that had ever come within his knowledge,
in which opinion the housekeeper entirely concurred.</p>
<p>‘Are you a married man, sir?’ inquired Sam.</p>
<p>The barber replied that he had not that honour.</p>
<p>‘I s’pose you mean to be?’ said Sam.</p>
<p>‘Well,’ replied the barber, rubbing his hands
smirkingly, ‘I don’t know, I don’t think
it’s very likely.’</p>
<p>‘That’s a bad sign,’ said Sam; ‘if
you’d said you meant to be vun o’ these days, I
should ha’ looked upon you as bein’ safe.
You’re in a wery precarious state.’</p>
<p>‘I am not conscious of any danger, at all events,’
returned the barber.</p>
<p>‘No more wos I, sir,’ said the elder Mr. Weller,
interposing; ‘those vere my symptoms, exactly.
I’ve been took that vay twice. Keep your vether eye
open, my friend, or you’re gone.’</p>
<p>There was something so very solemn about this admonition, both
in its matter and manner, and also in the way in which Mr. Weller
still kept his eye fixed upon the unsuspecting victim, that
nobody cared to speak for some little time, and might not have
cared to do so for some time longer, if the housekeeper had not
happened to sigh, which called off the old gentleman’s
attention and gave rise to a gallant inquiry whether ‘there
wos anythin’ wery piercin’ in that ’ere little
heart?’</p>
<p>‘Dear me, Mr. Weller!’ said the housekeeper,
laughing.</p>
<p>‘No, but is there anythin’ as agitates it?’
pursued the old gentleman. ‘Has it always been
obderrate, always opposed to the happiness o’ human
creeturs? Eh? Has it?’</p>
<p>At this critical juncture for her blushes and confusion, the
housekeeper discovered that more ale was wanted, and hastily
withdrew into the cellar to draw the same, followed by the
barber, who insisted on carrying the candle. Having looked
after her with a very complacent expression of face, and after
him with some disdain, Mr. Weller caused his glance to travel
slowly round the kitchen, until at length it rested on his
son.</p>
<p>‘Sammy,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘I mistrust that
barber.’</p>
<p>‘Wot for?’ returned Sam; ‘wot’s he got
to do with you? You’re a nice man, you are, arter
pretendin’ all kinds o’ terror, to go a payin’
compliments and talkin’ about hearts and
piercers.’</p>
<p>The imputation of gallantry appeared to afford Mr. Weller the
utmost delight, for he replied in a voice choked by suppressed
laughter, and with the tears in his eyes,</p>
<p>‘Wos I a talkin’ about hearts and
piercers,—wos I though, Sammy, eh?’</p>
<p>‘Wos you? of course you wos.’</p>
<p>‘She don’t know no better, Sammy, there
ain’t no harm in it,—no danger, Sammy; she’s
only a punster. She seemed pleased, though, didn’t
she? O’ course, she wos pleased, it’s
nat’ral she should be, wery nat’ral.’</p>
<p>‘He’s wain of it!’ exclaimed Sam, joining in
his father’s mirth. ‘He’s actually
wain!’</p>
<p>‘Hush!’ replied Mr. Weller, composing his
features, ‘they’re a comin’ back,—the
little heart’s a comin’ back. But mark these
wurds o’ mine once more, and remember ’em ven your
father says he said ’em. Samivel, I mistrust that
’ere deceitful barber.’ <a name="citation300"></a><a
href="#footnote300" class="citation">[300]</a></p>
<h2>VI</h2>
<p class="gutsumm">MASTER HUMPHREY, FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE
CHIMNEY CORNER</p>
<p><span class="smcap">Two</span> or three evenings after the
institution of Mr. Weller’s Watch, I thought I heard, as I
walked in the garden, the voice of Mr. Weller himself at no great
distance; and stopping once or twice to listen more attentively,
I found that the sounds proceeded from my housekeeper’s
little sitting-room, which is at the back of the house. I
took no further notice of the circumstance at that time, but it
formed the subject of a conversation between me and my friend
Jack Redburn next morning, when I found that I had not been
deceived in my impression. Jack furnished me with the
following particulars; and as he appeared to take extraordinary
pleasure in relating them, I have begged him in future to jot
down any such domestic scenes or occurrences that may please his
humour, in order that they may be told in his own way. I
must confess that, as Mr. Pickwick and he are constantly
together, I have been influenced, in making this request, by a
secret desire to know something of their proceedings.</p>
<p>On the evening in question, the housekeeper’s room was
arranged with particular care, and the housekeeper herself was
very smartly dressed. The preparations, however, were not
confined to mere showy demonstrations, as tea was prepared for
three persons, with a small display of preserves and jams and
sweet cakes, which heralded some uncommon occasion. Miss
Benton (my housekeeper bears that name) was in a state of great
expectation, too, frequently going to the front door and looking
anxiously down the lane, and more than once observing to the
servant-girl that she expected company, and hoped no accident had
happened to delay them.</p>
<p>A modest ring at the bell at length allayed her fears, and
Miss Benton, hurrying into her own room and shutting herself up,
in order that she might preserve that appearance of being taken
by surprise which is so essential to the polite reception of
visitors, awaited their coming with a smiling countenance.</p>
<p>‘Good ev’nin’, mum,’ said the older
Mr. Weller, looking in at the door after a prefatory tap.
‘I’m afeerd we’ve come in rayther arter the
time, mum, but the young colt being full o’ wice, has
been’ a boltin’ and shyin’ and gettin’
his leg over the traces to sich a extent that if he an’t
wery soon broke in, he’ll wex me into a broken heart, and
then he’ll never be brought out no more except to learn his
letters from the writin’ on his grandfather’s
tombstone.’</p>
<p><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 302</span>With
these pathetic words, which were addressed to something outside
the door about two feet six from the ground, Mr. Weller
introduced a very small boy firmly set upon a couple of very
sturdy legs, who looked as if nothing could ever knock him
down. Besides having a very round face strongly resembling
Mr. Weller’s, and a stout little body of exactly his build,
this young gentleman, standing with his little legs very wide
apart, as if the top-boots were familiar to them, actually winked
upon the housekeeper with his infant eye, in imitation of his
grandfather.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p302b.jpg">
<img alt=
"A Chip of the Old Block"
title=
"A Chip of the Old Block"
src="images/p302s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>‘There’s a naughty boy, mum,’ said Mr.
Weller, bursting with delight, ‘there’s a immoral
Tony. Wos there ever a little chap o’ four year and
eight months old as vinked his eye at a strange lady
afore?’</p>
<p>As little affected by this observation as by the former appeal
to his feelings, Master Weller elevated in the air a small model
of a coach whip which he carried in his hand, and addressing the
housekeeper with a shrill ‘ya—hip!’ inquired if
she was ‘going down the road;’ at which happy
adaptation of a lesson he had been taught from infancy, Mr.
Weller could restrain his feelings no longer, but gave him
twopence on the spot.</p>
<p>‘It’s in wain to deny it, mum,’ said Mr.
Weller, ‘this here is a boy arter his grandfather’s
own heart, and beats out all the boys as ever wos or will
be. Though at the same time, mum,’ added Mr. Weller,
trying to look gravely down upon his favourite, ‘it was
wery wrong on him to want to—over all the posts as we come
along, and wery cruel on him to force poor grandfather to lift
him cross-legged over every vun of ’em. He
wouldn’t pass vun single blessed post, mum, and at the top
o’ the lane there’s seven-and-forty on ’em all
in a row, and wery close together.’</p>
<p>Here Mr. Weller, whose feelings were in a perpetual conflict
between pride in his grandson’s achievements and a sense of
his own responsibility, and the importance of impressing him with
moral truths, burst into a fit of laughter, and suddenly checking
himself, remarked in a severe tone that little boys as made their
grandfathers put ’em over posts never went to heaven at any
price.</p>
<p>By this time the housekeeper had made tea, and little Tony,
placed on a chair beside her, with his eyes nearly on a level
with the top of the table, was provided with various delicacies
which yielded him extreme contentment. The housekeeper (who
seemed rather afraid of the child, notwithstanding her caresses)
then patted him on the head, and declared that he was the finest
boy she had ever seen.</p>
<p>‘Wy, mum,’ said Mr. Weller, ‘I don’t
think you’ll see a many sich, and that’s the
truth. But if my son Samivel vould give me my vay, mum, and
only dis-pense vith his—<i>might</i> I wenter to say the
vurd?’</p>
<p>‘What word, Mr. Weller?’ said the housekeeper,
blushing slightly.</p>
<p>‘Petticuts, mum,’ returned that gentleman, laying
his hand upon the garments of his grandson. ‘If my
son Samivel, mum, vould only dis-pense vith these here,
you’d see such a alteration in his appearance, as the
imagination can’t depicter.’</p>
<p>‘But what would you have the child wear instead, Mr.
Weller?’ said the housekeeper.</p>
<p>‘I’ve offered my son Samivel, mum, agen and
agen,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘to purwide him at
my own cost vith a suit o’ clothes as ’ud be the
makin’ on him, and form his mind in infancy for those
pursuits as I hope the family o’ the Vellers vill alvays
dewote themselves to. Tony, my boy, tell the lady wot them
clothes are, as grandfather says, father ought to let you
vear.’</p>
<p>‘A little white hat and a little sprig weskut and little
knee cords and little top-boots and a little green coat with
little bright buttons and a little welwet collar,’ replied
Tony, with great readiness and no stops.</p>
<p>‘That’s the cos-toom, mum,’ said Mr. Weller,
looking proudly at the housekeeper. ‘Once make sich a
model on him as that, and you’d say he <i>wos</i> an
angel!’</p>
<p>Perhaps the housekeeper thought that in such a guise young
Tony would look more like the angel at Islington than anything
else of that name, or perhaps she was disconcerted to find her
previously-conceived ideas disturbed, as angels are not commonly
represented in top-boots and sprig waistcoats. She coughed
doubtfully, but said nothing.</p>
<p>‘How many brothers and sisters have you, my dear?’
she asked, after a short silence.</p>
<p>‘One brother and no sister at all,’ replied
Tony. ‘Sam his name is, and so’s my
father’s. Do you know my father?’</p>
<p>‘O yes, I know him,’ said the housekeeper,
graciously.</p>
<p>‘Is my father fond of you?’ pursued Tony.</p>
<p>‘I hope so,’ rejoined the smiling housekeeper.</p>
<p>Tony considered a moment, and then said, ‘Is my
grandfather fond of you?’</p>
<p>This would seem a very easy question to answer, but instead of
replying to it, the housekeeper smiled in great confusion, and
said that really children did ask such extraordinary questions
that it was the most difficult thing in the world to talk to
them. Mr. Weller took upon himself to reply that he was
very fond of the lady; but the housekeeper entreating that he
would not put such things into the child’s head, Mr. Weller
shook his own while she looked another way, and seemed to be
troubled with a misgiving that captivation was in progress.
It was, perhaps, on this account that he changed the subject
precipitately.</p>
<p>‘It’s wery wrong in little boys to make game
o’ their grandfathers, an’t it, mum?’ said Mr.
Weller, shaking his head waggishly, until Tony looked at him,
when he counterfeited the deepest dejection and sorrow.</p>
<p>‘O, very sad!’ assented the housekeeper.
‘But I hope no little boys do that?’</p>
<p>‘There is vun young Turk, mum,’ said Mr. Weller,
‘as havin’ seen his grandfather a little overcome
vith drink on the occasion of a friend’s birthday, goes a
reelin’ and staggerin’ about the house, and
makin’ believe that he’s the old
gen’lm’n.’</p>
<p>‘O, quite shocking!’ cried the housekeeper,</p>
<p>‘Yes, mum,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘and previously
to so doin’, this here young traitor that I’m a
speakin’ of, pinches his little nose to make it red, and
then he gives a hiccup and says, “I’m all
right,” he says; “give us another song!”
Ha, ha! “Give us another song,” he says.
Ha, ha, ha!’</p>
<p>In his excessive delight, Mr. Weller was quite unmindful of
his moral responsibility, until little Tony kicked up his legs,
and laughing immoderately, cried, ‘That was me, that
was;’ whereupon the grandfather, by a great effort, became
extremely solemn.</p>
<p>‘No, Tony, not you,’ said Mr. Weller.
‘I hope it warn’t you, Tony. It must ha’
been that ’ere naughty little chap as comes sometimes out
o’ the empty watch-box round the corner,—that same
little chap as wos found standing on the table afore the
looking-glass, pretending to shave himself vith a
oyster-knife.’</p>
<p>‘He didn’t hurt himself, I hope?’ observed
the housekeeper.</p>
<p>‘Not he, mum,’ said Mr. Weller proudly;
‘bless your heart, you might trust that ’ere boy vith
a steam-engine a’most, he’s such a knowin’
young’—but suddenly recollecting himself and
observing that Tony perfectly understood and appreciated the
compliment, the old gentleman groaned and observed that ‘it
wos all wery shockin’—wery.’</p>
<p>‘O, he’s a bad ’un,’ said Mr. Weller,
‘is that ’ere watch-box boy, makin’ such a
noise and litter in the back yard, he does, waterin’ wooden
horses and feedin’ of ’em vith grass, and
perpetivally spillin’ his little brother out of a
veelbarrow and frightenin’ his mother out of her vits, at
the wery moment wen she’s expectin’ to increase his
stock of happiness vith another play-feller,—O, he’s
a bad one! He’s even gone so far as to put on a pair
of paper spectacles as he got his father to make for him, and
walk up and down the garden vith his hands behind him in
imitation of Mr. Pickwick,—but Tony don’t do sich
things, O no!’</p>
<p>‘O no!’ echoed Tony.</p>
<p>‘He knows better, he does,’ said Mr. Weller.
‘He knows that if he wos to come sich games as these nobody
wouldn’t love him, and that his grandfather in partickler
couldn’t abear the sight on him; for vich reasons
Tony’s always good.’</p>
<p>‘Always good,’ echoed Tony; and his grandfather
immediately took him on his knee and kissed him, at the same
time, with many nods and winks, slyly pointing at the
child’s head with his thumb, in order that the housekeeper,
otherwise deceived by the admirable manner in which he (Mr.
Weller) had sustained his character, might not suppose that any
other young gentleman was referred to, and might clearly
understand that the boy of the watch-box was but an imaginary
creation, and a fetch of Tony himself, invented for his
improvement and reformation.</p>
<p>Not confining himself to a mere verbal description of his
grandson’s abilities, Mr. Weller, when tea was finished,
invited him by various gifts of pence and halfpence to smoke
imaginary pipes, drink visionary beer from real pots, imitate his
grandfather without reserve, and in particular to go through the
drunken scene, which threw the old gentleman into ecstasies and
filled the housekeeper with wonder. Nor was Mr.
Weller’s pride satisfied with even this display, for when
he took his leave he carried the child, like some rare and
astonishing curiosity, first to the barber’s house and
afterwards to the tobacconist’s, at each of which places he
repeated his performances with the utmost effect to applauding
and delighted audiences. It was half-past nine
o’clock when Mr. Weller was last seen carrying him home
upon his shoulder, and it has been whispered abroad that at that
time the infant Tony was rather intoxicated. <a
name="citation306"></a><a href="#footnote306"
class="citation">[306]</a></p>
<div class="gapshortline"> </div>
<p>I was musing the other evening upon the characters and
incidents with which I had been so long engaged; wondering how I
could ever have looked forward with pleasure to the completion of
my tale, and reproaching myself for having done so, as if it were
a kind of cruelty to those companions of my solitude whom I had
now dismissed, and could never again recall; when my clock struck
ten. Punctual to the hour, my friends appeared.</p>
<p>On our last night of meeting, we had finished the story which
the reader has just concluded. Our conversation took the
same current as the meditations which the entrance of my friends
had interrupted, and The Old Curiosity Shop was the staple of our
discourse.</p>
<p>I may confide to the reader now, that in connection with this
little history I had something upon my mind; something to
communicate which I had all along with difficulty repressed;
something I had deemed it, during the progress of the story,
necessary to its interest to disguise, and which, now that it was
over, I wished, and was yet reluctant, to disclose.</p>
<p>To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not
in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened
my heart. This temper, and the consciousness of having done
some violence to it in my narrative, laid me under a restraint
which I should have had great difficulty in overcoming, but for a
timely remark from Mr. Miles, who, as I hinted in a former paper,
is a gentleman of business habits, and of great exactness and
propriety in all his transactions.</p>
<p>‘I could have wished,’ my friend objected,
‘that we had been made acquainted with the single
gentleman’s name. I don’t like his withholding
his name. It made me look upon him at first with suspicion,
and caused me to doubt his moral character, I assure you. I
am fully satisfied by this time of his being a worthy creature;
but in this respect he certainly would not appear to have acted
at all like a man of business.’</p>
<p>‘My friends,’ said I, drawing to the table, at
which they were by this time seated in their usual chairs,
‘do you remember that this story bore another title besides
that one we have so often heard of late?’</p>
<p>Mr. Miles had his pocket-book out in an instant, and referring
to an entry therein, rejoined, ‘Certainly. Personal
Adventures of Master Humphrey. Here it is. I made a
note of it at the time.’</p>
<p>I was about to resume what I had to tell them, when the same
Mr. Miles again interrupted me, observing that the narrative
originated in a personal adventure of my own, and that was no
doubt the reason for its being thus designated.</p>
<p>This led me to the point at once.</p>
<p>‘You will one and all forgive me,’ I returned,
‘if for the greater convenience of the story, and for its
better introduction, that adventure was fictitious. I had
my share, indeed,—no light or trivial one,—in the
pages we have read, but it was not the share I feigned to have at
first. The younger brother, the single gentleman, the
nameless actor in this little drama, stands before you
now.’</p>
<p>It was easy to see they had not expected this disclosure.</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ I pursued. ‘I can look back
upon my part in it with a calm, half-smiling pity for myself as
for some other man. But I am he, indeed; and now the chief
sorrows of my life are yours.’</p>
<p>I need not say what true gratification I derived from the
sympathy and kindness with which this acknowledgment was
received; nor how often it had risen to my lips before; nor how
difficult I had found it—how impossible, when I came to
those passages which touched me most, and most nearly concerned
me—to sustain the character I had assumed. It is
enough to say that I replaced in the clock-case the record of so
many trials,—sorrowfully, it is true, but with a softened
sorrow which was almost pleasure; and felt that in living through
the past again, and communicating to others the lesson it had
helped to teach me, I had been a happier man.</p>
<p>We lingered so long over the leaves from which I had read,
that as I consigned them to their former resting-place, the hand
of my trusty clock pointed to twelve, and there came towards us
upon the wind the voice of the deep and distant bell of St.
Paul’s as it struck the hour of midnight.</p>
<p>‘This,’ said I, returning with a manuscript I had
taken at the moment, from the same repository, ‘to be
opened to such music, should be a tale where London’s face
by night is darkly seen, and where some deed of such a time as
this is dimly shadowed out. Which of us here has seen the
working of that great machine whose voice has just now
ceased?’</p>
<p>Mr. Pickwick had, of course, and so had Mr. Miles. Jack
and my deaf friend were in the minority.</p>
<p>I had seen it but a few days before, and could not help
telling them of the fancy I had about it.</p>
<p>I paid my fee of twopence upon entering, to one of the
money-changers who sit within the Temple; and falling, after a
few turns up and down, into the quiet train of thought which such
a place awakens, paced the echoing stones like some old monk
whose present world lay all within its walls. As I looked
afar up into the lofty dome, I could not help wondering what were
his reflections whose genius reared that mighty pile, when, the
last small wedge of timber fixed, the last nail driven into its
home for many centuries, the clang of hammers, and the hum of
busy voices gone, and the Great Silence whole years of noise had
helped to make, reigning undisturbed around, he mused, as I did
now, upon his work, and lost himself amid its vast extent.
I could not quite determine whether the contemplation of it would
impress him with a sense of greatness or of insignificance; but
when I remembered how long a time it had taken to erect, in how
short a space it might be traversed even to its remotest parts,
for how brief a term he, or any of those who cared to bear his
name, would live to see it, or know of its existence, I imagined
him far more melancholy than proud, and looking with regret upon
his labour done. With these thoughts in my mind, I began to
ascend, almost unconsciously, the flight of steps leading to the
several wonders of the building, and found myself before a
barrier where another money-taker sat, who demanded which among
them I would choose to see. There were the stone gallery,
he said, and the whispering gallery, the geometrical staircase,
the room of models, the clock—the clock being quite in my
way, I stopped him there, and chose that sight from all the
rest.</p>
<p>I groped my way into the Turret which it occupies, and saw
before me, in a kind of loft, what seemed to be a great, old
oaken press with folding doors. These being thrown back by
the attendant (who was sleeping when I came upon him, and looked
a drowsy fellow, as though his close companionship with Time had
made him quite indifferent to it), disclosed a complicated crowd
of wheels and chains in iron and brass,—great, sturdy,
rattling engines,—suggestive of breaking a finger put in
here or there, and grinding the bone to powder,—and these
were the Clock! Its very pulse, if I may use the word, was
like no other clock. It did not mark the flight of every
moment with a gentle second stroke, as though it would check old
Time, and have him stay his pace in pity, but measured it with
one sledge-hammer beat, as if its business were to crush the
seconds as they came trooping on, and remorselessly to clear a
path before the Day of Judgment.</p>
<p>I sat down opposite to it, and hearing its regular and
never-changing voice, that one deep constant note, uppermost
amongst all the noise and clatter in the streets
below,—marking that, let that tumult rise or fall, go on or
stop,—let it be night or noon, to-morrow or to-day, this
year or next,—it still performed its functions with the
same dull constancy, and regulated the progress of the life
around, the fancy came upon me that this was London’s
Heart,—and that when it should cease to beat, the City
would be no more.</p>
<p>It is night. Calm and unmoved amidst the scenes that
darkness favours, the great heart of London throbs in its Giant
breast. Wealth and beggary, vice and virtue, guilt and
innocence, repletion and the direst hunger, all treading on each
other and crowding together, are gathered round it. Draw
but a little circle above the clustering housetops, and you shall
have within its space everything, with its opposite extreme and
contradiction, close beside. Where yonder feeble light is
shining, a man is but this moment dead. The taper at a few
yards’ distance is seen by eyes that have this instant
opened on the world. There are two houses separated by but
an inch or two of wall. In one, there are quiet minds at
rest; in the other, a waking conscience that one might think
would trouble the very air. In that close corner where the
roofs shrink down and cower together as if to hide their secrets
from the handsome street hard by, there are such dark crimes,
such miseries and horrors, as could be hardly told in
whispers. In the handsome street, there are folks asleep
who have dwelt there all their lives, and have no more knowledge
of these things than if they had never been, or were transacted
at the remotest limits of the world,—who, if they were
hinted at, would shake their heads, look wise, and frown, and say
they were impossible, and out of Nature,—as if all great
towns were not. Does not this Heart of London, that nothing
moves, nor stops, nor quickens,—that goes on the same let
what will be done, does it not express the City’s character
well?</p>
<p>The day begins to break, and soon there is the hum and noise
of life. Those who have spent the night on doorsteps and
cold stones crawl off to beg; they who have slept in beds come
forth to their occupation, too, and business is astir. The
fog of sleep rolls slowly off, and London shines awake. The
streets are filled with carriages and people gaily clad.
The jails are full, too, to the throat, nor have the workhouses
or hospitals much room to spare. The courts of law are
crowded. Taverns have their regular frequenters by this
time, and every mart of traffic has its throng. Each of
these places is a world, and has its own inhabitants; each is
distinct from, and almost unconscious of the existence of any
other. There are some few people well to do, who remember
to have heard it said, that numbers of men and
women—thousands, they think it was—get up in London
every day, unknowing where to lay their heads at night; and that
there are quarters of the town where misery and famine always
are. They don’t believe it quite,—there may be
some truth in it, but it is exaggerated, of course. So,
each of these thousand worlds goes on, intent upon itself, until
night comes again,—first with its lights and pleasures, and
its cheerful streets; then with its guilt and darkness.</p>
<p>Heart of London, there is a moral in thy every stroke! as I
look on at thy indomitable working, which neither death, nor
press of life, nor grief, nor gladness out of doors will
influence one jot, I seem to hear a voice within thee which sinks
into my heart, bidding me, as I elbow my way among the crowd,
have some thought for the meanest wretch that passes, and, being
a man, to turn away with scorn and pride from none that bear the
human shape.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>I am by no means sure that I might not have been tempted to
enlarge upon the subject, had not the papers that lay before me
on the table been a silent reproach for even this
digression. I took them up again when I had got thus far,
and seriously prepared to read.</p>
<p>The handwriting was strange to me, for the manuscript had been
fairly copied. As it is against our rules, in such a case,
to inquire into the authorship until the reading is concluded, I
could only glance at the different faces round me, in search of
some expression which should betray the writer. Whoever he
might be, he was prepared for this, and gave no sign for my
enlightenment.</p>
<p>I had the papers in my hand, when my deaf friend interposed
with a suggestion.</p>
<p>‘It has occurred to me,’ he said, ‘bearing
in mind your sequel to the tale we have finished, that if such of
us as have anything to relate of our own lives could interweave
it with our contribution to the Clock, it would be well to do
so. This need be no restraint upon us, either as to time,
or place, or incident, since any real passage of this kind may be
surrounded by fictitious circumstances, and represented by
fictitious characters. What if we make this an article of
agreement among ourselves?’</p>
<p>The proposition was cordially received, but the difficulty
appeared to be that here was a long story written before we had
thought of it.</p>
<p>‘Unless,’ said I, ‘it should have happened
that the writer of this tale—which is not impossible, for
men are apt to do so when they write—has actually mingled
with it something of his own endurance and experience.’</p>
<p>Nobody spoke, but I thought I detected in one quarter that
this was really the case.</p>
<p><a name="page311"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
311</span>‘If I have no assurance to the contrary,’ I
added, therefore, ‘I shall take it for granted that he has
done so, and that even these papers come within our new
agreement. Everybody being mute, we hold that understanding
if you please.’</p>
<p>And here I was about to begin again, when Jack informed us
softly, that during the progress of our last narrative, Mr.
Weller’s Watch had adjourned its sittings from the kitchen,
and regularly met outside our door, where he had no doubt that
august body would be found at the present moment. As this
was for the convenience of listening to our stories, he submitted
that they might be suffered to come in, and hear them more
pleasantly.</p>
<p>To this we one and all yielded a ready assent, and the party
being discovered, as Jack had supposed, and invited to walk in,
entered (though not without great confusion at having been
detected), and were accommodated with chairs at a little
distance.</p>
<p>Then, the lamp being trimmed, the fire well stirred and
burning brightly, the hearth clean swept, the curtains closely
drawn, the clock wound up, we entered on our new story. <a
name="citation311"></a><a href="#footnote311"
class="citation">[311]</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p311b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Master Humphrey’s Visionary Friends"
title=
"Master Humphrey’s Visionary Friends"
src="images/p311s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>It is again midnight. My fire burns cheerfully; the room
is filled with my old friend’s sober voice; and I am left
to muse upon the story we have just now finished.</p>
<p>It makes me smile, at such a time as this, to think if there
were any one to see me sitting in my easy-chair, my gray head
hanging down, my eyes bent thoughtfully upon the glowing embers,
and my crutch—emblem of my helplessness—lying upon
the hearth at my feet, how solitary I should seem. Yet
though I am the sole tenant of this chimney-corner, though I am
childless and old, I have no sense of loneliness at this hour;
but am the centre of a silent group whose company I love.</p>
<p>Thus, even age and weakness have their consolations. If
I were a younger man, if I were more active, more strongly bound
and tied to life, these visionary friends would shun me, or I
should desire to fly from them. Being what I am, I can
court their society, and delight in it; and pass whole hours in
picturing to myself the shadows that perchance flock every night
into this chamber, and in imagining with pleasure what kind of
interest they have in the frail, feeble mortal who is its sole
inhabitant.</p>
<p>All the friends I have ever lost I find again among these
visitors. I love to fancy their spirits hovering about me,
feeling still some earthly kindness for their old companion, and
watching his decay. ‘He is weaker, he declines apace,
he draws nearer and nearer to us, and will soon be conscious of
our existence.’ What is there to alarm me in
this? It is encouragement and hope.</p>
<p>These thoughts have never crowded on me half so fast as they
have done to-night. Faces I had long forgotten have become
familiar to me once again; traits I had endeavoured to recall for
years have come before me in an instant; nothing is changed but
me; and even I can be my former self at will.</p>
<p>Raising my eyes but now to the face of my old clock, I
remember, quite involuntarily, the veneration, not unmixed with a
sort of childish awe, with which I used to sit and watch it as it
ticked, unheeded in a dark staircase corner. I recollect
looking more grave and steady when I met its dusty face, as if,
having that strange kind of life within it, and being free from
all excess of vulgar appetite, and warning all the house by night
and day, it were a sage. How often have I listened to it as
it told the beads of time, and wondered at its constancy!
How often watched it slowly pointing round the dial, and, while I
panted for the eagerly expected hour to come, admired, despite
myself, its steadiness of purpose and lofty freedom from all
human strife, impatience, and desire!</p>
<p>I thought it cruel once. It was very hard of heart, to
my mind, I remember. It was an old servant even then; and I
felt as though it ought to show some sorrow; as though it wanted
sympathy with us in our distress, and were a dull, heartless,
mercenary creature. Ah! how soon I learnt to know that in
its ceaseless going on, and in its being checked or stayed by
nothing, lay its greatest kindness, and the only balm for grief
and wounded peace of mind.</p>
<p>To-night, to-night, when this tranquillity and calm are on my
spirits, and memory presents so many shifting scenes before me, I
take my quiet stand at will by many a fire that has been long
extinguished, and mingle with the cheerful group that cluster
round it. If I could be sorrowful in such a mood, I should
grow sad to think what a poor blot I was upon their youth and
beauty once, and now how few remain to put me to the blush; I
should grow sad to think that such among them as I sometimes meet
with in my daily walks are scarcely less infirm than I; that time
has brought us to a level; and that all distinctions fade and
vanish as we take our trembling steps towards the grave.</p>
<p>But memory was given us for better purposes than this, and
mine is not a torment, but a source of pleasure. To muse
upon the gaiety and youth I have known suggests to me glad scenes
of harmless mirth that may be passing now. From
contemplating them apart, I soon become an actor in these little
dramas, and humouring my fancy, lose myself among the beings it
invokes.</p>
<p>When my fire is bright and high, and a warm blush mantles in
the walls and ceiling of this ancient room; when my clock makes
cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in
the warm hearth, and are sometimes, by a good superstition,
looked upon as the harbingers of fortune and plenty to that
household in whose mercies they put their humble trust; when
everything is in a ruddy genial glow, and there are voices in the
crackling flame, and smiles in its flashing light, other smiles
and other voices congregate around me, invading, with their
pleasant harmony, the silence of the time.</p>
<p>For then a knot of youthful creatures gather round my
fireside, and the room re-echoes to their merry voices. My
solitary chair no longer holds its ample place before the fire,
but is wheeled into a smaller corner, to leave more room for the
broad circle formed about the cheerful hearth. I have sons,
and daughters, and grandchildren, and we are assembled on some
occasion of rejoicing common to us all. It is a birthday,
perhaps, or perhaps it may be Christmas time; but be it what it
may, there is rare holiday among us; we are full of glee.</p>
<p>In the chimney-comer, opposite myself, sits one who has grown
old beside me. She is changed, of course; much changed; and
yet I recognise the girl even in that gray hair and wrinkled
brow. Glancing from the laughing child who half hides in
her ample skirts, and half peeps out,—and from her to the
little matron of twelve years old, who sits so womanly and so
demure at no great distance from me,—and from her again, to
a fair girl in the full bloom of early womanhood, the centre of
the group, who has glanced more than once towards the opening
door, and by whom the children, whispering and tittering among
themselves, <i>will</i> leave a vacant chair, although she bids
them not,—I see her image thrice repeated, and feel how
long it is before one form and set of features wholly pass away,
if ever, from among the living. While I am dwelling upon
this, and tracing out the gradual change from infancy to youth,
from youth to perfect growth, from that to age, and thinking,
with an old man’s pride, that she is comely yet, I feel a
slight thin hand upon my arm, and, looking down, see seated at my
feet a crippled boy,—a gentle, patient child,—whose
aspect I know well. He rests upon a little crutch,—I
know it too,—and leaning on it as he climbs my footstool,
whispers in my ear, ‘I am hardly one of these, dear
grandfather, although I love them dearly. They are very
kind to me, but you will be kinder still, I know.’</p>
<p>I have my hand upon his neck, and stoop to kiss him, when my
clock strikes, my chair is in its old spot, and I am alone.</p>
<p>What if I be? What if this fireside be tenantless, save
for the presence of one weak old man? From my house-top I
can look upon a hundred homes, in every one of which these social
companions are matters of reality. In my daily walks I pass
a thousand men whose cares are all forgotten, whose labours are
made light, whose dull routine of work from day to day is cheered
and brightened by their glimpses of domestic joy at home.
Amid the struggles of this struggling town what cheerful
sacrifices are made; what toil endured with readiness; what
patience shown and fortitude displayed for the mere sake of home
and its affections! Let me thank Heaven that I can people
my fireside with shadows such as these; with shadows of bright
objects that exist in crowds about me; and let me say, ‘I
am alone no more.’</p>
<p>I never was less so—I write it with a grateful
heart—than I am to-night. Recollections of the past
and visions of the present come to bear me company; the meanest
man to whom I have ever given alms appears, to add his mite of
peace and comfort to my stock; and whenever the fire within me
shall grow cold, to light my path upon this earth no more, I pray
that it may be at such an hour as this, and when I love the world
as well as I do now.</p>
<h3>THE DEAF GENTLEMAN FROM HIS OWN APARTMENT</h3>
<p>Our dear friend laid down his pen at the end of the foregoing
paragraph, to take it up no more. I little thought ever to
employ mine upon so sorrowful a task as that which he has left
me, and to which I now devote it.</p>
<p>As he did not appear among us at his usual hour next morning,
we knocked gently at his door. No answer being given, it
was softly opened; and then, to our surprise, we saw him seated
before the ashes of his fire, with a little table I was
accustomed to set at his elbow when I left him for the night at a
short distance from him, as though he had pushed it away with the
idea of rising and retiring to his bed. His crutch and
footstool lay at his feet as usual, and he was dressed in his
chamber-gown, which he had put on before I left him. He was
reclining in his chair, in his accustomed posture, with his face
towards the fire, and seemed absorbed in
meditation,—indeed, at first, we almost hoped he was.</p>
<p>Going up to him, we found him dead. I have often, very
often, seen him sleeping, and always peacefully, but I never saw
him look so calm and tranquil. His face wore a serene,
benign expression, which had impressed me very strongly when we
last shook hands; not that he had ever had any other look, God
knows; but there was something in this so very spiritual, so
strangely and indefinably allied to youth, although his head was
gray and venerable, that it was new even in him. It came
upon me all at once when on some slight pretence he called me
back upon the previous night to take me by the hand again, and
once more say, ‘God bless you.’</p>
<p>A bell-rope hung within his reach, but he had not moved
towards it; nor had he stirred, we all agreed, except, as I have
said, to push away his table, which he could have done, and no
doubt did, with a very slight motion of his hand. He had
relapsed for a moment into his late train of meditation, and,
with a thoughtful smile upon his face, had died.</p>
<p>I had long known it to be his wish that whenever this event
should come to pass we might be all assembled in the house.
I therefore lost no time in sending for Mr. Pickwick and for Mr.
Miles, both of whom arrived before the messenger’s
return.</p>
<p>It is not my purpose to dilate upon the sorrow and
affectionate emotions of which I was at once the witness and the
sharer. But I may say, of the humbler mourners, that his
faithful housekeeper was fairly heart-broken; that the poor
barber would not be comforted; and that I shall respect the
homely truth and warmth of heart of Mr. Weller and his son to the
last moment of my life.</p>
<p>‘And the sweet old creetur, sir,’ said the elder
Mr. Weller to me in the afternoon, ‘has bolted. Him
as had no wice, and was so free from temper that a infant might
ha’ drove him, has been took at last with that ’ere
unawoidable fit o’ staggers as we all must come to, and
gone off his feed for ever! I see him,’ said the old
gentleman, with a moisture in his eye, which could not be
mistaken,—‘I see him gettin’, every journey,
more and more groggy; I says to Samivel, “My boy! the
Grey’s a-goin’ at the knees;” and now my
predilictions is fatally werified, and him as I could never do
enough to serve or show my likin’ for, is up the great
uniwersal spout o’ natur’.’</p>
<p>I was not the less sensible of the old man’s attachment
because he expressed it in his peculiar manner. Indeed, I
can truly assert of both him and his son, that notwithstanding
the extraordinary dialogues they held together, and the strange
commentaries and corrections with which each of them illustrated
the other’s speech, I do not think it possible to exceed
the sincerity of their regret; and that I am sure their
thoughtfulness and anxiety in anticipating the discharge of many
little offices of sympathy would have done honour to the most
delicate-minded persons.</p>
<p>Our friend had frequently told us that his will would be found
in a box in the Clock-case, the key of which was in his
writing-desk. As he had told us also that he desired it to
be opened immediately after his death, whenever that should
happen, we met together that night for the fulfilment of his
request.</p>
<p>We found it where he had told us, wrapped in a sealed paper,
and with it a codicil of recent date, in which he named Mr. Miles
and Mr. Pickwick his executors,—as having no need of any
greater benefit from his estate than a generous token (which he
bequeathed to them) of his friendship and remembrance.</p>
<p>After pointing out the spot in which he wished his ashes to
repose, he gave to ‘his dear old friends,’ Jack
Redburn and myself, his house, his books, his furniture,—in
short, all that his house contained; and with this legacy more
ample means of maintaining it in its present state than we, with
our habits and at our terms of life, can ever exhaust.
Besides these gifts, he left to us, in trust, an annual sum of no
insignificant amount, to be distributed in charity among his
accustomed pensioners—they are a long list—and such
other claimants on his bounty as might, from time to time,
present themselves. And as true charity not only covers a
multitude of sins, but includes a multitude of virtues, such as
forgiveness, liberal construction, gentleness and mercy to the
faults of others, and the remembrance of our own imperfections
and advantages, he bade us not inquire too closely into the
venial errors of the poor, but finding that they <i>were</i>
poor, first to relieve and then endeavour—at an
advantage—to reclaim them.</p>
<p>To the housekeeper he left an annuity, sufficient for her
comfortable maintenance and support through life. For the
barber, who had attended him many years, he made a similar
provision. And I may make two remarks in this place: first,
that I think this pair are very likely to club their means
together and make a match of it; and secondly, that I think my
friend had this result in his mind, for I have heard him say,
more than once, that he could not concur with the generality of
mankind in censuring equal marriages made in later life, since
there were many cases in which such unions could not fail to be a
wise and rational source of happiness to both parties.</p>
<p>The elder Mr. Weller is so far from viewing this prospect with
any feelings of jealousy, that he appears to be very much
relieved by its contemplation; and his son, if I am not mistaken,
participates in this feeling. We are all of opinion,
however, that the old gentleman’s danger, even at its
crisis, was very slight, and that he merely laboured under one of
those transitory weaknesses to which persons of his temperament
are now and then liable, and which become less and less alarming
at every return, until they wholly subside. I have no doubt
he will remain a jolly old widower for the rest of his life, as
he has already inquired of me, with much gravity, whether a writ
of habeas corpus would enable him to settle his property upon
Tony beyond the possibility of recall; and has, in my presence,
conjured his son, with tears in his eyes, that in the event of
his ever becoming amorous again, he will put him in a
strait-waistcoat until the fit is past, and distinctly inform the
lady that his property is ‘made over.’</p>
<p>Although I have very little doubt that Sam would dutifully
comply with these injunctions in a case of extreme necessity, and
that he would do so with perfect composure and coolness, I do not
apprehend things will ever come to that pass, as the old
gentleman seems perfectly happy in the society of his son, his
pretty daughter-in-law, and his grandchildren, and has solemnly
announced his determination to ‘take arter the old
’un in all respects;’ from which I infer that it is
his intention to regulate his conduct by the model of Mr.
Pickwick, who will certainly set him the example of a single
life.</p>
<p>I have diverged for a moment from the subject with which I set
out, for I know that my friend was interested in these little
matters, and I have a natural tendency to linger upon any topic
that occupied his thoughts or gave him pleasure and
amusement. His remaining wishes are very briefly
told. He desired that we would make him the frequent
subject of our conversation; at the same time, that we would
never speak of him with an air of gloom or restraint, but
frankly, and as one whom we still loved and hoped to meet
again. He trusted that the old house would wear no aspect
of mourning, but that it would be lively and cheerful; and that
we would not remove or cover up his picture, which hangs in our
dining-room, but make it our companion as he had been. His
own room, our place of meeting, remains, at his desire, in its
accustomed state; our seats are placed about the table as of old;
his easy-chair, his desk, his crutch, his footstool, hold their
accustomed places, and the clock stands in its familiar
corner. We go into the chamber at stated times to see that
all is as it should be, and to take care that <a
name="page318"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 318</span>the light
and air are not shut out, for on that point he expressed a strong
solicitude. But it was his fancy that the apartment should
not be inhabited; that it should be religiously preserved in this
condition, and that the voice of his old companion should be
heard no more.</p>
<p>My own history may be summed up in very few words; and even
those I should have spared the reader but for my friend’s
allusion to me some time since. I have no deeper sorrow
than the loss of a child,—an only daughter, who is living,
and who fled from her father’s house but a few weeks before
our friend and I first met. I had never spoken of this even
to him, because I have always loved her, and I could not bear to
tell him of her error until I could tell him also of her sorrow
and regret. Happily I was enabled to do so some time
ago. And it will not be long, with Heaven’s leave,
before she is restored to me; before I find in her and her
husband the support of my declining years.</p>
<p>For my pipe, it is an old relic of home, a thing of no great
worth, a poor trifle, but sacred to me for her sake.</p>
<p>Thus, since the death of our venerable friend, Jack Redburn
and I have been the sole tenants of the old house; and, day by
day, have lounged together in his favourite walks. Mindful
of his injunctions, we have long been able to speak of him with
ease and cheerfulness, and to remember him as he would be
remembered. From certain allusions which Jack has dropped,
to his having been deserted and cast off in early life, I am
inclined to believe that some passages of his youth may possibly
be shadowed out in the history of Mr. Chester and his son, but
seeing that he avoids the subject, I have not pursued it.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p318b.jpg">
<img alt=
"The Deserted Chamber"
title=
"The Deserted Chamber"
src="images/p318s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p>My task is done. The chamber in which we have whiled
away so many hours, not, I hope, without some pleasure and some
profit, is deserted; our happy hour of meeting strikes no more;
the chimney-corner has grown cold; and <span class="smcap">Master
Humphrey’s Clock</span> has stopped for ever.</p>
<h2>TO THE READERS OF “MASTER HUMPHREY’S
CLOCK”</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>,</p>
<p>Next November we shall have finished the tale of which we are
at present engaged, and shall have travelled together through
twenty monthly parts and eighty-seven weekly numbers. It is
my design when we have gone so far, to close this work. Let
me tell you why.</p>
<p>I should not regard the anxiety, the close confinement, or the
constant attention, inseparable from the weekly form of
publication (for to commune with you in any form is to me a
labour of love) if I had found it advantageous to the conduct of
my stories, the elucidation of my meaning, or the gradual
development of my characters. But I have not done so.
I have often felt cramped and confined in a very irksome and
harassing degree by the space in which I have been constrained to
move. I have wanted you to know more at once than I could
tell you; and it has frequently been of the greatest importance
to my cherished intention, that you should do so. I have
been sometimes strongly tempted (and have been at some pains to
resist the temptation) to hurry incidents on, lest they should
appear to you who waited from week to week, and had not, like me,
the result and purpose in your minds, <a name="pagexix"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. xix</span>too long delayed. In a word, I
have found this form of publication most anxious, perplexing, and
difficult. I cannot bear these jerky confidences which are
no sooner begun than ended, and no sooner ended than begun
again.</p>
<p>Many passages in a tale of any length, depend materially for
their interest on the intimate relation they bear to what has
gone before, or to what is to follow. I have sometimes
found it difficult when I issued thirty-two closely printed pages
once a month, to sustain in your minds this needful connection:
in the present form of publication it is often, especially in the
first half of a story, quite impossible to preserve it
sufficiently through the current numbers. And although in
my progress, I am gradually able to set you right, and to show
you what my meaning has been, and to work it out, I see no reason
why you should ever be wrong when I have it in my power by
resorting to a better means of communication between us to
prevent it.</p>
<p>Considerations of immediate profit and advantage ought in such
a case to be of secondary importance. They would lead me,
at all hazards, to hold my present course. But for the
reason I have just now mentioned, I have after long
consideration, and with especial reference to the next new tale I
bear in my mind, arrived at the conclusion that it will be better
to abandon this scheme of publication in favour of our old and
well-tried plan which has only twelve gaps in a year, instead of
fifty-two.</p>
<p>Therefore my intention is, to close this story (with the
limits of which I am of course by this time acquainted) and this
work, within, or about, the period I have mentioned. I
should add, that for the general convenience of subscribers,
another volume of collected numbers will not be published until
the whole is brought to a conclusion.</p>
<p>Taking advantage of the respite which the close of this work
will afford me, I have decided, in January next, to pay a visit
to America. The pleasure I anticipate from this realization
of a wish I have long entertained, and long hoped <a
name="pagexx"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xx</span>to gratify,
is subdued by the reflection that it must separate us for a
longer time than other circumstances would have rendered
necessary.</p>
<p>On the first of November, eighteen hundred and forty-two, I
purpose, if it please God, to commence my book in monthly parts,
under the old green cover, in the old size and form, and at the
old price.</p>
<p>I look forward to addressing a few more words to you in
reference to this latter theme before I close the task on which I
am now engaged. If there be any among the numerous readers
of <i>Master Humphrey’s Clock</i> who are at first
dissatisfied with the prospect of this change—and it is not
unnatural almost to hope there may be some—I trust they
will, at no very distant day, find reason to agree with</p>
<p style="text-align: right">ITS AUTHOR</p>
<p><i>September</i>, 1841.</p>
<h2><a name="pagexxi"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
xxi</span>POSTSCRIPT <a name="citation0"></a><a href="#footnote0"
class="citation">[0]</a></h2>
<p>Now that the time is come for taking leave, I find that the
words I have to add are very few indeed.</p>
<p>We part until next November. It is a long parting
between us, but if I have left you anything by which to remember
me, in the meanwhile, with no unkind or distant
feelings—anything by which I may be associated in spirit
with your firesides, homes, and blameless pleasures—I am
happy.</p>
<p>Believe me it has ever been my true desire to add to the
common stock of healthful cheerfulness, good humour, and
good-will, and trust me when I return to England and to another
tale of English life and manners, I shall not slacken in this
zealous work.</p>
<p>I take the opportunity for thanking all those who have
addressed me by letter since the appearance of the foregoing
announcement; and of expressing a hope that they will rest
contented with this form of acknowledgment, as their number
renders it impossible to me to answer them individually.</p>
<p>I bid farewell to them and all my readers with a regret that
we feel in taking leave of Friends who have become endeared to us
by long and close communication; and I look forward with
truthfulness and pleasure to our next meeting.</p>
<p><i>November</i>, 1841.</p>
<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
<p><a name="footnote0"></a><a href="#citation0"
class="footnote">[0]</a> Postscript, printed on the wrapper
of No. 87 of “Master Humphrey’s Clock”.</p>
<p><a name="footnote255"></a><a href="#citation255"
class="footnote">[255]</a> Old Curiosity Shop begins
here.</p>
<p><a name="footnote292"></a><a href="#citation292"
class="footnote">[292]</a> Old Curiosity Shop is continued
here, completing No. IV.</p>
<p><a name="footnote300"></a><a href="#citation300"
class="footnote">[300]</a> Old Curiosity Shop is continued
to the end of the number.</p>
<p><a name="footnote306"></a><a href="#citation306"
class="footnote">[306]</a> Old Curiosity Shop is continued
from here to the end without further break. Master Humphrey
is revived thus at the close of the Old Curiosity Shop, merely to
introduce Barnaby Rudge.</p>
<p><a name="footnote311"></a><a href="#citation311"
class="footnote">[311]</a> This was Barnaby Rudge,
contained in vol. ix. of this Edition. This is, as
indicated, the final appearance of Master Humphrey’s
Clock. It forms the conclusion of Barnaby Rudge.</p>
<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK***</p>
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