diff options
Diffstat (limited to '888-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 888-h/888-h.htm | 4678 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 888-h/images/coverb.jpg | bin | 0 -> 244736 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 888-h/images/covers.jpg | bin | 0 -> 36479 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 888-h/images/p408b.jpg | bin | 0 -> 319911 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 888-h/images/p408s.jpg | bin | 0 -> 39947 bytes |
5 files changed, 4678 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/888-h/888-h.htm b/888-h/888-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ace511 --- /dev/null +++ b/888-h/888-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4678 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, by Charles Dickens</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, by +Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: January 11, 2015 [eBook #888] +[This file was first posted on April 28, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE +APPRENTICES*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1905 Chapman and Hall edition (<i>The +Works of Charles Dickens</i>, volume 28) by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1><span class="smcap">The Lazy Tour of Two Idle +Apprentices</span></h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">By CHARLES DICKENS</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><b><i>With Illustrations by Harry +Furniss and A. J. Goodman</i></b></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LD.<br +/> +NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br /> +1905</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the autumn month of September, +eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear +date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, +and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away from +their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious +lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it +must be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as +she might be. This is the more remarkable, as there is +nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but quite +the contrary; her family having rendered eminent service to many +famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient to name Sir +William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard II., at the time +of Wat Tyler’s insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: +which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless +indebted to the lady’s family for the gift of his +celebrated cat. There is also strong reason to suppose that +they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.</p> +<p>The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the +mistress from whom they had received many favours, were actuated +by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any +direction. They had no intention of going anywhere in +particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to know +nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do +nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to +themselves (after <span class="smcap">Hogarth</span>), the names +of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild; but there was not a +moral pin to choose between them, and they were both idle in the +last degree.</p> +<p>Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference +of character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon +himself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he +was idle; in short, had no better idea of idleness than that it +was useless industry. Thomas Idle, on the other hand, was +an idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan type; a passive +idler, a born-and-bred idler, a consistent idler, who practised +what he would have preached if he had not been too idle to +preach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness.</p> +<p>The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours +of their escape, walking down into the North of England, that is +to say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway +trains as they passed over a distant viaduct—which was +<i>his</i> idea of walking down into the North; while Francis was +walking a mile due South against time—which was <i>his</i> +idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the +day waned, and the milestones remained unconquered.</p> +<p>‘Tom,’ said Goodchild, ‘the sun is getting +low. Up, and let us go forward!’</p> +<p>‘Nay,’ quoth Thomas Idle, ‘I have not done +with Annie Laurie yet.’ And he proceeded with that +idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie young +person of that name he would ‘lay him doon and +dee’—equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and +die.</p> +<p>‘What an ass that fellow was!’ cried Goodchild, +with the bitter emphasis of contempt.</p> +<p>‘Which fellow?’ asked Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>‘The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and +dee! Finely he’d show off before the girl by doing +<i>that</i>. A sniveller! Why couldn’t he get +up, and punch somebody’s head!’</p> +<p>‘Whose?’ asked Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>‘Anybody’s. Everybody’s would be +better than nobody’s! If I fell into that state of +mind about a girl, do you think I’d lay me doon and +dee? No, sir,’ proceeded Goodchild, with a +disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent, ‘I’d +get me oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn’t +you?’</p> +<p>‘I wouldn’t have anything to do with her,’ +yawned Thomas Idle. ‘Why should I take the +trouble?’</p> +<p>‘It’s no trouble, Tom, to fall in love,’ +said Goodchild, shaking his head.</p> +<p>‘It’s trouble enough to fall out of it, once +you’re in it,’ retorted Tom. ‘So I keep +out of it altogether. It would be better for you, if you +did the same.’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild, who is always in love with somebody, and not +unfrequently with several objects at once, made no reply. +He heaved a sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower orders +‘a bellowser,’ and then, heaving Mr. Idle on his feet +(who was not half so heavy as the sigh), urged him northward.</p> +<p>These two had sent their personal baggage on by train: only +retaining each a knapsack. Idle now applied himself to +constantly regretting the train, to tracking it through the +intricacies of Bradshaw’s Guide, and finding out where it +is now—and where now—and where now—and to +asking what was the use of walking, when you could ride at such a +pace as that. Was it to see the country? If that was +the object, look at it out of the carriage windows. There +was a great deal more of it to be seen there than here. +Besides, who wanted to see the country? Nobody. And +again, whoever did walk? Nobody. Fellows set off to +walk, but they never did it. They came back and said they +did, but they didn’t. Then why should he walk? +He wouldn’t walk. He swore it by this milestone!</p> +<p>It was the fifth from London, so far had they penetrated into +the North. Submitting to the powerful chain of argument, +Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis, and a falling back +upon Euston Square Terminus. Thomas assented with alacrity, +and so they walked down into the North by the next +morning’s express, and carried their knapsacks in the +luggage-van.</p> +<p>It was like all other expresses, as every express is and must +be. It bore through the harvest country a smell like a +large washing-day, and a sharp issue of steam as from a huge +brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in nature and art +combined, it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight of +people looking up from fields and roads, as smoothly and unreally +as a light miniature plaything. Now, the engine shrieked in +hysterics of such intensity, that it seemed desirable that the +men who had her in charge should hold her feet, slap her hands, +and bring her to; now, burrowed into tunnels with a stubborn and +undemonstrative energy so confusing that the train seemed to be +flying back into leagues of darkness. Here, were station +after station, swallowed up by the express without stopping; +here, stations where it fired itself in like a volley of +cannon-balls, swooped away four country-people with nosegays, and +three men of business with portmanteaus, and fired itself off +again, bang, bang, bang! At long intervals were +uncomfortable refreshment-rooms, made more uncomfortable by the +scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the public (but to whom she never +relented, as Beauty did in the story, towards the other Beast), +and where sensitive stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous +sharpness occasioning indigestion. Here, again, were +stations with nothing going but a bell, and wonderful wooden +razors set aloft on great posts, shaving the air. In these +fields, the horses, sheep, and cattle were well used to the +thundering meteor, and didn’t mind; in those, they were all +set scampering together, and a herd of pigs scoured after +them. The pastoral country darkened, became coaly, became +smoky, became infernal, got better, got worse, improved again, +grew rugged, turned romantic; was a wood, a stream, a chain of +hills, a gorge, a moor, a cathedral town, a fortified place, a +waste. Now, miserable black dwellings, a black canal, and +sick black towers of chimneys; now, a trim garden, where the +flowers were bright and fair; now, a wilderness of hideous altars +all a-blaze; now, the water meadows with their fairy rings; now, +the mangy patch of unlet building ground outside the stagnant +town, with the larger ring where the Circus was last week. +The temperature changed, the dialect changed, the people changed, +faces got sharper, manner got shorter, eyes got shrewder and +harder; yet all so quickly, that the spruce guard in the London +uniform and silver lace, had not yet rumpled his shirt-collar, +delivered half the dispatches in his shiny little pouch, or read +his newspaper.</p> +<p>Carlisle! Idle and Goodchild had got to Carlisle. +It looked congenially and delightfully idle. Something in +the way of public amusement had happened last month, and +something else was going to happen before Christmas; and, in the +meantime there was a lecture on India for those who liked +it—which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise, by +those who liked them, there were impressions to be bought of all +the vapid prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the vapid +books. For those who wanted to put anything in missionary +boxes, here were the boxes. For those who wanted the +Reverend Mr. Podgers (artist’s proofs, thirty shillings), +here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not less gracious and +abundant, Mr. Codgers also of the vineyard, but opposed to Mr. +Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here, were guide-books +to the neighbouring antiquities, and eke the Lake country, in +several dry and husky sorts; here, many physically and morally +impossible heads of both sexes, for young ladies to copy, in the +exercise of the art of drawing; here, further, a large impression +of <span class="smcap">Mr. Spurgeon</span>, solid as to the +flesh, not to say even something gross. The working young +men of Carlisle were drawn up, with their hands in their pockets, +across the pavements, four and six abreast, and appeared (much to +the satisfaction of Mr. Idle) to have nothing else to do. +The working and growing young women of Carlisle, from the age of +twelve upwards, promenaded the streets in the cool of the +evening, and rallied the said young men. Sometimes the +young men rallied the young women, as in the case of a group +gathered round an accordion-player, from among whom a young man +advanced behind a young woman for whom he appeared to have a +tenderness, and hinted to her that he was there and playful, by +giving her (he wore clogs) a kick.</p> +<p>On market morning, Carlisle woke up amazingly, and became (to +the two Idle Apprentices) disagreeably and reproachfully +busy. There were its cattle market, its sheep market, and +its pig market down by the river, with raw-boned and shock-headed +Rob Roys hiding their Lowland dresses beneath heavy plaids, +prowling in and out among the animals, and flavouring the air +with fumes of whiskey. There was its corn market down the +main street, with hum of chaffering over open sacks. There +was its general market in the street too, with heather brooms on +which the purple flower still flourished, and heather baskets +primitive and fresh to behold. With women trying on clogs +and caps at open stalls, and ‘Bible stalls’ +adjoining. With ‘Doctor Mantle’s Dispensary for +the cure of all Human Maladies and no charge for advice,’ +and with Doctor Mantle’s ‘Laboratory of Medical, +Chemical, and Botanical Science’—both healing +institutions established on one pair of trestles, one board, and +one sun-blind. With the renowned phrenologist from London, +begging to be favoured (at sixpence each) with the company of +clients of both sexes, to whom, on examination of their heads, he +would make revelations ‘enabling him or her to know +themselves.’ Through all these bargains and +blessings, the recruiting-sergeant watchfully elbowed his way, a +thread of War in the peaceful skein. Likewise on the walls +were printed hints that the Oxford Blues might not be indisposed +to hear of a few fine active young men; and that whereas the +standard of that distinguished corps is full six feet, +‘growing lads of five feet eleven’ need not +absolutely despair of being accepted.</p> +<p>Scenting the morning air more pleasantly than the buried +majesty of Denmark did, Messrs. Idle and Goodchild rode away from +Carlisle at eight o’clock one forenoon, bound for the +village of Hesket, Newmarket, some fourteen miles distant. +Goodchild (who had already begun to doubt whether he was idle: as +his way always is when he has nothing to do) had read of a +certain black old Cumberland hill or mountain, called Carrock, or +Carrock Fell; and had arrived at the conclusion that it would be +the culminating triumph of Idleness to ascend the same. +Thomas Idle, dwelling on the pains inseparable from that +achievement, had expressed the strongest doubts of the +expediency, and even of the sanity, of the enterprise; but +Goodchild had carried his point, and they rode away.</p> +<p>Up hill and down hill, and twisting to the right, and twisting +to the left, and with old Skiddaw (who has vaunted himself a +great deal more than his merits deserve; but that is rather the +way of the Lake country), dodging the apprentices in a +picturesque and pleasant manner. Good, weather-proof, warm, +pleasant houses, well white-limed, scantily dotting the +road. Clean children coming out to look, carrying other +clean children as big as themselves. Harvest still lying +out and much rained upon; here and there, harvest still +unreaped. Well-cultivated gardens attached to the cottages, +with plenty of produce forced out of their hard soil. +Lonely nooks, and wild; but people can be born, and married, and +buried in such nooks, and can live and love, and be loved, there +as elsewhere, thank God! (Mr. Goodchild’s remark.) +By-and-by, the village. Black, coarse-stoned, +rough-windowed houses; some with outer staircases, like Swiss +houses; a sinuous and stony gutter winding up hill and round the +corner, by way of street. All the children running out +directly. Women pausing in washing, to peep from doorways +and very little windows. Such were the observations of +Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their conveyance stopped at the +village shoemaker’s. Old Carrock gloomed down upon it +all in a very ill-tempered state; and rain was beginning.</p> +<p>The village shoemaker declined to have anything to do with +Carrock. No visitors went up Carrock. No visitors +came there at all. Aa’ the world ganged awa’ +yon. The driver appealed to the Innkeeper. The +Innkeeper had two men working in the fields, and one of them +should be called in, to go up Carrock as guide. Messrs. +Idle and Goodchild, highly approving, entered the +Innkeeper’s house, to drink whiskey and eat oatcake.</p> +<p>The Innkeeper was not idle enough—was not idle at all, +which was a great fault in him—but was a fine specimen of a +north-country man, or any kind of man. He had a ruddy +cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an immense hand, a +cheery, outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad +look. He had a drawing-room, too, upstairs, which was worth +a visit to the Cumberland Fells. (This was Mr. Francis +Goodchild’s opinion, in which Mr. Thomas Idle did not +concur.)</p> +<p>The ceiling of this drawing-room was so crossed and recrossed +by beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre, in a +corner, that it looked like a broken star-fish. The room +was comfortably and solidly furnished with good mahogany and +horsehair. It had a snug fireside, and a couple of +well-curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country behind +the house. What it most developed was, an unexpected taste +for little ornaments and nick-nacks, of which it contained a most +surprising number. They were not very various, consisting +in great part of waxen babies with their limbs more or less +mutilated, appealing on one leg to the parental affections from +under little cupping glasses; but, Uncle Tom was there, in +crockery, receiving theological instructions from Miss Eva, who +grew out of his side like a wen, in an exceedingly rough state of +profile propagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt’s +country boy, before and after his pie, were on the wall, divided +by a highly-coloured nautical piece, the subject of which had all +her colours (and more) flying, and was making great way through a +sea of a regular pattern, like a lady’s collar. A +benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a +powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most +perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a +driving seat and an angular knife-box, but, when opened, a +musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David’s +harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack +in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up +to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his +own at the greatest possible distance from the fireplace, and +said: ‘By your leave, not a kettle, but a +bijou.’ The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the +cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, +with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs +accidentally placed there, as an aid to polite conversation, a +graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by callers, as they +airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly +existence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland +Fells. The very footstool could not keep the floor, but got +upon a sofa, and there-from proclaimed itself, in high relief of +white and liver-coloured wool, a favourite spaniel coiled up for +repose. Though, truly, in spite of its bright glass eyes, +the spaniel was the least successful assumption in the +collection: being perfectly flat, and dismally suggestive of a +recent mistake in sitting down on the part of some corpulent +member of the family.</p> +<p>There were books, too, in this room; books on the table, books +on the chimney-piece, books in an open press in the corner. +Fielding was there, and Smollett was there, and Steele and +Addison were there, in dispersed volumes; and there were tales of +those who go down to the sea in ships, for windy nights; and +there was really a choice of good books for rainy days or +fine. It was so very pleasant to see these things in such a +lonesome by-place—so very agreeable to find these evidences +of a taste, however homely, that went beyond the beautiful +cleanliness and trimness of the house—so fanciful to +imagine what a wonder a room must be to the little children born +in the gloomy village—what grand impressions of it those of +them who became wanderers over the earth would carry away; and +how, at distant ends of the world, some old voyagers would die, +cherishing the belief that the finest apartment known to men was +once in the Hesket-Newmarket Inn, in rare old Cumberland—it +was such a charmingly lazy pursuit to entertain these rambling +thoughts over the choice oatcake and the genial whiskey, that Mr. +Idle and Mr. Goodchild never asked themselves how it came to pass +that the men in the fields were never heard of more, how the +stalwart landlord replaced them without explanation, how his +dog-cart came to be waiting at the door, and how everything was +arranged without the least arrangement for climbing to old +Carrock’s shoulders, and standing on his head.</p> +<p>Without a word of inquiry, therefore, the Two Idle Apprentices +drifted out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy, +penetrating rain; got into the landlord’s light dog-cart, +and rattled off through the village for the foot of +Carrock. The journey at the outset was not +remarkable. The Cumberland road went up and down like all +other roads; the Cumberland curs burst out from backs of cottages +and barked like other curs, and the Cumberland peasantry stared +after the dog-cart amazedly, as long as it was in sight, like the +rest of their race. The approach to the foot of the +mountain resembled the approaches to the feet of most other +mountains all over the world. The cultivation gradually +ceased, the trees grew gradually rare, the road became gradually +rougher, and the sides of the mountain looked gradually more and +more lofty, and more and more difficult to get up. The +dog-cart was left at a lonely farm-house. The landlord +borrowed a large umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the +character of the most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the +way to the ascent. Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top +of the mountain, and, feeling apparently that he was now going to +be very lazy indeed, shone all over wonderfully to the eye, under +the influence of the contentment within and the moisture +without. Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle did +Despondency now hold her gloomy state. He kept it a secret; +but he would have given a very handsome sum, when the ascent +began, to have been back again at the inn. The sides of +Carrock looked fearfully steep, and the top of Carrock was hidden +in mist. The rain was falling faster and faster. The +knees of Mr. Idle—always weak on walking +excursions—shivered and shook with fear and damp. The +wet was already penetrating through the young man’s outer +coat to a brand-new shooting-jacket, for which he had reluctantly +paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving town; he had no +stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of clammy +gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody to +push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front, +nobody to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the +ascent, the dampness of the rain, the denseness of the mist, and +the unutterable folly of climbing, undriven, up any steep place +in the world, when there is level ground within reach to walk on +instead. Was it for this that Thomas had left London? +London, where there are nice short walks in level public gardens, +with benches of repose set up at convenient distances for weary +travellers—London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded +into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into +smooth slabs for the pavement! No! it was not for the +laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his +native city, and travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel +more disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave +error in judgment than when he found himself standing in the rain +at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the +responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting +to the top of it.</p> +<p>The honest landlord went first, the beaming Goodchild +followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time +to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed +places in the order of march; but the rearguard never altered his +position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in the +water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs, skirting +the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was always +the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first +the ascent was delusively easy, the sides of the mountain sloped +gradually, and the material of which they were composed was a +soft spongy turf, very tender and pleasant to walk upon. +After a hundred yards or so, however, the verdant scene and the +easy slope disappeared, and the rocks began. Not noble, +massive rocks, standing upright, keeping a certain regularity in +their positions, and possessing, now and then, flat tops to sit +upon, but little irritating, comfortless rocks, littered about +anyhow, by Nature; treacherous, disheartening rocks of all sorts +of small shapes and small sizes, bruisers of tender toes and +trippers-up of wavering feet. When these impediments were +passed, heather and slough followed. Here the steepness of +the ascent was slightly mitigated; and here the exploring party +of three turned round to look at the view below them. The +scene of the moorland and the fields was like a feeble +water-colour drawing half sponged out. The mist was +darkening, the rain was thickening, the trees were dotted about +like spots of faint shadow, the division-lines which mapped out +the fields were all getting blurred together, and the lonely +farm-house where the dog-cart had been left, loomed spectral in +the grey light like the last human dwelling at the end of the +habitable world. Was this a sight worth climbing to +see? Surely—surely not!</p> +<p>Up again—for the top of Carrock is not reached +yet. The land-lord, just as good-tempered and obliging as +he was at the bottom of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild +brighter in the eyes and rosier in the face than ever; full of +cheerful remarks and apt quotations; and walking with a +springiness of step wonderful to behold. Mr. Idle, farther +and farther in the rear, with the water squeaking in the toes of +his boots, with his two-guinea shooting-jacket clinging damply to +his aching sides, with his overcoat so full of rain, and standing +out so pyramidically stiff, in consequence, from his shoulders +downwards, that he felt as if he was walking in a gigantic +extinguisher—the despairing spirit within him representing +but too aptly the candle that had just been put out. Up and +up and up again, till a ridge is reached and the outer edge of +the mist on the summit of Carrock is darkly and drizzingly +near. Is this the top? No, nothing like the +top. It is an aggravating peculiarity of all mountains, +that, although they have only one top when they are seen (as they +ought always to be seen) from below, they turn out to have a +perfect eruption of false tops whenever the traveller is +sufficiently ill-advised to go out of his way for the purpose of +ascending them. Carrock is but a trumpery little mountain +of fifteen hundred feet, and it presumes to have false tops, and +even precipices, as if it were Mont Blanc. No matter; +Goodchild enjoys it, and will go on; and Idle, who is afraid of +being left behind by himself, must follow. On entering the +edge of the mist, the landlord stops, and says he hopes that it +will not get any thicker. It is twenty years since he last +ascended Carrock, and it is barely possible, if the mist +increases, that the party may be lost on the mountain. +Goodchild hears this dreadful intimation, and is not in the least +impressed by it. He marches for the top that is never to be +found, as if he was the Wandering Jew, bound to go on for ever, +in defiance of everything. The landlord faithfully +accompanies him. The two, to the dim eye of Idle, far +below, look in the exaggerative mist, like a pair of friendly +giants, mounting the steps of some invisible castle +together. Up and up, and then down a little, and then up, +and then along a strip of level ground, and then up again. +The wind, a wind unknown in the happy valley, blows keen and +strong; the rain-mist gets impenetrable; a dreary little cairn of +stones appears. The landlord adds one to the heap, first +walking all round the cairn as if he were about to perform an +incantation, then dropping the stone on to the top of the heap +with the gesture of a magician adding an ingredient to a cauldron +in full bubble. Goodchild sits down by the cairn as if it +was his study-table at home; Idle, drenched and panting, stands +up with his back to the wind, ascertains distinctly that this is +the top at last, looks round with all the little curiosity that +is left in him, and gets, in return, a magnificent view +of—Nothing!</p> +<p>The effect of this sublime spectacle on the minds of the +exploring party is a little injured by the nature of the direct +conclusion to which the sight of it points—the said +conclusion being that the mountain mist has actually gathered +round them, as the landlord feared it would. It now becomes +imperatively necessary to settle the exact situation of the +farm-house in the valley at which the dog-cart has been left, +before the travellers attempt to descend. While the +landlord is endeavouring to make this discovery in his own way, +Mr. Goodchild plunges his hand under his wet coat, draws out a +little red morocco-case, opens it, and displays to the view of +his companions a neat pocket-compass. The north is found, +the point at which the farm-house is situated is settled, and the +descent begins. After a little downward walking, Idle +(behind as usual) sees his fellow-travellers turn aside +sharply—tries to follow them—loses them in the +mist—is shouted after, waited for, recovered—and then +finds that a halt has been ordered, partly on his account, partly +for the purpose of again consulting the compass.</p> +<p>The point in debate is settled as before between Goodchild and +the landlord, and the expedition moves on, not down the mountain, +but marching straight forward round the slope of it. The +difficulty of following this new route is acutely felt by Thomas +Idle. He finds the hardship of walking at all greatly +increased by the fatigue of moving his feet straight forward +along the side of a slope, when their natural tendency, at every +step, is to turn off at a right angle, and go straight down the +declivity. Let the reader imagine himself to be walking +along the roof of a barn, instead of up or down it, and he will +have an exact idea of the pedestrian difficulty in which the +travellers had now involved themselves. In ten minutes more +Idle was lost in the distance again, was shouted for, waited for, +recovered as before; found Goodchild repeating his observation of +the compass, and remonstrated warmly against the sideway route +that his companions persisted in following. It appeared to +the uninstructed mind of Thomas that when three men want to get +to the bottom of a mountain, their business is to walk down it; +and he put this view of the case, not only with emphasis, but +even with some irritability. He was answered from the +scientific eminence of the compass on which his companions were +mounted, that there was a frightful chasm somewhere near the foot +of Carrock, called The Black Arches, into which the travellers +were sure to march in the mist, if they risked continuing the +descent from the place where they had now halted. Idle +received this answer with the silent respect which was due to the +commanders of the expedition, and followed along the roof of the +barn, or rather the side of the mountain, reflecting upon the +assurance which he received on starting again, that the object of +the party was only to gain ‘a certain point,’ and, +this haven attained, to continue the descent afterwards until the +foot of Carrock was reached. Though quite unexceptionable +as an abstract form of expression, the phrase ‘a certain +point’ has the disadvantage of sounding rather vaguely when +it is pronounced on unknown ground, under a canopy of mist much +thicker than a London fog. Nevertheless, after the compass, +this phrase was all the clue the party had to hold by, and Idle +clung to the extreme end of it as hopefully as he could.</p> +<p>More sideway walking, thicker and thicker mist, all sorts of +points reached except the ‘certain point;’ third loss +of Idle, third shouts for him, third recovery of him, third +consultation of compass. Mr. Goodchild draws it tenderly +from his pocket, and prepares to adjust it on a stone. +Something falls on the turf—it is the glass. +Something else drops immediately after—it is the +needle. The compass is broken, and the exploring party is +lost!</p> +<p>It is the practice of the English portion of the human race to +receive all great disasters in dead silence. Mr. Goodchild +restored the useless compass to his pocket without saying a word, +Mr. Idle looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at Mr. +Idle. There was nothing for it now but to go on blindfold, +and trust to the chapter of chances. Accordingly, the lost +travellers moved forward, still walking round the slope of the +mountain, still desperately resolved to avoid the Black Arches, +and to succeed in reaching the ‘certain point.’</p> +<p>A quarter of an hour brought them to the brink of a ravine, at +the bottom of which there flowed a muddy little stream. +Here another halt was called, and another consultation took +place. The landlord, still clinging pertinaciously to the +idea of reaching the ‘point,’ voted for crossing the +ravine, and going on round the slope of the mountain. Mr. +Goodchild, to the great relief of his fellow-traveller, took +another view of the case, and backed Mr. Idle’s proposal to +descend Carrock at once, at any hazard—the rather as the +running stream was a sure guide to follow from the mountain to +the valley. Accordingly, the party descended to the rugged +and stony banks of the stream; and here again Thomas lost ground +sadly, and fell far behind his travelling companions. Not +much more than six weeks had elapsed since he had sprained one of +his ankles, and he began to feel this same ankle getting rather +weak when he found himself among the stones that were strewn +about the running water. Goodchild and the landlord were +getting farther and farther ahead of him. He saw them cross +the stream and disappear round a projection on its banks. +He heard them shout the moment after as a signal that they had +halted and were waiting for him. Answering the shout, he +mended his pace, crossed the stream where they had crossed it, +and was within one step of the opposite bank, when his foot +slipped on a wet stone, his weak ankle gave a twist outwards, a +hot, rending, tearing pain ran through it at the same moment, and +down fell the idlest of the Two Idle Apprentices, crippled in an +instant.</p> +<p>The situation was now, in plain terms, one of absolute +danger. There lay Mr. Idle writhing with pain, there was +the mist as thick as ever, there was the landlord as completely +lost as the strangers whom he was conducting, and there was the +compass broken in Goodchild’s pocket. To leave the +wretched Thomas on unknown ground was plainly impossible; and to +get him to walk with a badly sprained ankle seemed equally out of +the question. However, Goodchild (brought back by his cry +for help) bandaged the ankle with a pocket-handkerchief, and +assisted by the landlord, raised the crippled Apprentice to his +legs, offered him a shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the +sake of the whole party to try if he could walk. Thomas, +assisted by the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, +did try, with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who +have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it +afterwards. At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a +newly-lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant +whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the wrong, +and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able to contend with +the pain in his ankle, before he gave in altogether and fell down +again, unable to stir another step.</p> +<p>Slowly and more slowly, as the clog of crippled Thomas weighed +heavily and more heavily on the march of the expedition, the lost +travellers followed the windings of the stream, till they came to +a faintly-marked cart-track, branching off nearly at right +angles, to the left. After a little consultation it was +resolved to follow this dim vestige of a road in the hope that it +might lead to some farm or cottage, at which Idle could be left +in safety. It was now getting on towards the afternoon, and +it was fast becoming more than doubtful whether the party, +delayed in their progress as they now were, might not be +overtaken by the darkness before the right route was found, and +be condemned to pass the night on the mountain, without bit or +drop to comfort them, in their wet clothes.</p> +<p>The cart-track grew fainter and fainter, until it was washed +out altogether by another little stream, dark, turbulent, and +rapid. The landlord suggested, judging by the colour of the +water, that it must be flowing from one of the lead mines in the +neighbourhood of Carrock; and the travellers accordingly kept by +the stream for a little while, in the hope of possibly wandering +towards help in that way. After walking forward about two +hundred yards, they came upon a mine indeed, but a mine, +exhausted and abandoned; a dismal, ruinous place, with nothing +but the wreck of its works and buildings left to speak for +it. Here, there were a few sheep feeding. The +landlord looked at them earnestly, thought he recognised the +marks on them—then thought he did not—finally gave up +the sheep in despair—and walked on just as ignorant of the +whereabouts of the party as ever.</p> +<p>The march in the dark, literally as well as metaphorically in +the dark, had now been continued for three-quarters of an hour +from the time when the crippled Apprentice had met with his +accident. Mr. Idle, with all the will to conquer the pain +in his ankle, and to hobble on, found the power rapidly failing +him, and felt that another ten minutes at most would find him at +the end of his last physical resources. He had just made up +his mind on this point, and was about to communicate the dismal +result of his reflections to his companions, when the mist +suddenly brightened, and begun to lift straight ahead. In +another minute, the landlord, who was in advance, proclaimed that +he saw a tree. Before long, other trees appeared—then +a cottage—then a house beyond the cottage, and a familiar +line of road rising behind it. Last of all, Carrock itself +loomed darkly into view, far away to the right hand. The +party had not only got down the mountain without knowing how, but +had wandered away from it in the mist, without knowing +why—away, far down on the very moor by which they had +approached the base of Carrock that morning.</p> +<p>The happy lifting of the mist, and the still happier discovery +that the travellers had groped their way, though by a very +roundabout direction, to within a mile or so of the part of the +valley in which the farm-house was situated, restored Mr. +Idle’s sinking spirits and reanimated his failing +strength. While the landlord ran off to get the dog-cart, +Thomas was assisted by Goodchild to the cottage which had been +the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was +propped up against the garden wall, like an artist’s lay +figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog-cart should arrive +from the farm-house below. In due time—and a very +long time it seemed to Mr. Idle—the rattle of wheels was +heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into the +seat. As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the +landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the +farm-house, of an unhappy man who had been lost, like his two +guests and himself, on Carrock; who had passed the night there +alone; who had been found the next morning, ‘scared and +starved;’ and who never went out afterwards, except on his +way to the grave. Mr. Idle heard this sad story, and +derived at least one useful impression from it. Bad as the +pain in his ankle was, he contrived to bear it patiently, for he +felt grateful that a worse accident had not befallen him in the +wilds of Carrock.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle +and his ankle on the hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild +and the Innkeeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes +everywhere, made the best of its way back to the little inn; the +broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite +sop, or the ruins of some enormous jorum of antediluvian +toast-and-water. The trees dripped; the eaves of the +scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone walls dividing the +land, dripped; the yelping dogs dripped; carts and waggons under +ill-roofed penthouses, dripped; melancholy cocks and hens +perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter underneath them, +dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Thomas Idle dripped; the +Inn-keeper dripped; the mare dripped; the vast curtains of mist +and cloud passed before the shadowy forms of the hills, streamed +water as they were drawn across the landscape. Down such +steep pitches that the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, +and up such steep pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary +leg in her tail, the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the +village. It was too wet for the women to look out, it was +too wet even for the children to look out; all the doors and +windows were closed, and the only sign of life or motion was in +the rain-punctured puddles.</p> +<p>Whiskey and oil to Thomas Idle’s ankle, and whiskey +without oil to Francis Goodchild’s stomach, produced an +agreeable change in the systems of both; soothing Mr. +Idle’s pain, which was sharp before, and sweetening Mr. +Goodchild’s temper, which was sweet before. +Portmanteaus being then opened and clothes changed, Mr. +Goodchild, through having no change of outer garments but +broadcloth and velvet, suddenly became a magnificent portent in +the Innkeeper’s house, a shining frontispiece to the +fashions for the month, and a frightful anomaly in the Cumberland +village.</p> +<p>Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious +Goodchild quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of +Thomas Idle’s ankle, and in a corner of the little covered +carriage that started with them for Wigton—a most desirable +carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and +no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the +roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all +the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to see +how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made +no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton +policeman taking a country walk of half-a-dozen miles (apparently +for pleasure), in resplendent uniform, accepted saturation as his +normal state; how clerks and schoolmasters in black, loitered +along the road without umbrellas, getting varnished at every +step; how the Cumberland girls, coming out to look after the +Cumberland cows, shook the rain from their eyelashes and laughed +it away; and how the rain continued to fall upon all, as it only +does fall in hill countries.</p> +<p>Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking with +rain all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melodramatically +carried to the inn’s first floor, and laid upon three +chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. +Goodchild went to the window to take an observation of Wigton, +and report what he saw to his disabled companion.</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘What do you see from the turret?’</p> +<p>‘I see,’ said Brother Francis, ‘what I hope +and believe to be one of the most dismal places ever seen by +eyes. I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, +their stained fronts, and their dark-rimmed windows, looking as +if they were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind +comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off +along the wooden stalls in the market-place and exploded against +me. I see a very big gas lamp in the centre which I know, +by a secret instinct, will not be lighted to-night. I see a +pump, with a trivet underneath its spout whereon to stand the +vessels that are brought to be filled with water. I see a +man come to pump, and he pumps very hard, but no water follows, +and he strolls empty away.’</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘what more do you see from the turret, besides the +man and the pump, and the trivet and the houses all in mourning +and the rain?’</p> +<p>‘I see,’ said Brother Francis, ‘one, two, +three, four, five, linen-drapers’ shops in front of +me. I see a linen-draper’s shop next door to the +right—and there are five more linen-drapers’ shops +down the corner to the left. Eleven homicidal +linen-drapers’ shops within a short stone’s throw, +each with its hands at the throats of all the rest! Over +the small first-floor of one of these linen-drapers’ shops +appears the wonderful inscription, <span +class="smcap">Bank</span>.’</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘what more do you see from the turret, besides the +eleven homicidal linen-drapers’ shops, and the wonderful +inscription, “Bank,”—on the small first-floor, +and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in +mourning and the rain?’</p> +<p>‘I see,’ said Brother Francis, ‘the +depository for Christian Knowledge, and through the dark vapour I +think I again make out Mr. Spurgeon looming heavily. Her +Majesty the Queen, God bless her, printed in colours, I am sure I +see. I see the <i>Illustrated London News</i> of several +years ago, and I see a sweetmeat shop—which the proprietor +calls a “Salt Warehouse”—with one small female +child in a cotton bonnet looking in on tip-toe, oblivious of +rain. And I see a watchmaker’s with only three great +pale watches of a dull metal hanging in his window, each in a +separate pane.’</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘what more do you see of Wigton, besides these +objects, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses +all in mourning and the rain?’</p> +<p>‘I see nothing more,’ said Brother Francis, +‘and there is nothing more to see, except the curlpaper +bill of the theatre, which was opened and shut last week (the +manager’s family played all the parts), and the short, +square, chinky omnibus that goes to the railway, and leads too +rattling a life over the stones to hold together long. O +yes! Now, I see two men with their hands in their pockets +and their backs towards me.’</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘what do you make out from the turret, of the +expression of the two men with their hands in their pockets and +their backs towards you?’</p> +<p>‘They are mysterious men,’ said Brother Francis, +‘with inscrutable backs. They keep their backs +towards me with persistency. If one turns an inch in any +direction, the other turns an inch in the same direction, and no +more. They turn very stiffly, on a very little pivot, in +the middle of the market-place. Their appearance is partly +of a mining, partly of a ploughing, partly of a stable, +character. They are looking at nothing—very +hard. Their backs are slouched, and their legs are curved +with much standing about. Their pockets are loose and +dog’s-eared, on account of their hands being always in +them. They stand to be rained upon, without any movement of +impatience or dissatisfaction, and they keep so close together +that an elbow of each jostles an elbow of the other, but they +never speak. They spit at times, but speak not. I see +it growing darker and darker, and still I see them, sole visible +population of the place, standing to be rained upon with their +backs towards me, and looking at nothing very hard.’</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘before you draw down the blind of the turret and +come in to have your head scorched by the hot gas, see if you +can, and impart to me, something of the expression of those two +amazing men.’</p> +<p>‘The murky shadows,’ said Francis Goodchild, +‘are gathering fast; and the wings of evening, and the +wings of coal, are folding over Wigton. Still, they look at +nothing very hard, with their backs towards me. Ah! +Now, they turn, and I see—’</p> +<p>‘Brother Francis, brother Francis,’ cried Thomas +Idle, ‘tell me quickly what you see of the two men of +Wigton!’</p> +<p>‘I see,’ said Francis Goodchild, ‘that they +have no expression at all. And now the town goes to sleep, +undazzled by the large unlighted lamp in the market-place; and +let no man wake it.’</p> +<p>At the close of the next day’s journey, Mr. Thomas +Idle’s ankle became much swollen and inflamed. There +are reasons which will presently explain themselves for not +publicly indicating the exact direction in which that journey +lay, or the place in which it ended. It was a long +day’s shaking of Thomas Idle over the rough roads, and a +long day’s getting out and going on before the horses, and +fagging up hills, and scouring down hills, on the part of Mr. +Goodchild, who in the fatigues of such labours congratulated +himself on attaining a high point of idleness. It was at a +little town, still in Cumberland, that they halted for the +night—a very little town, with the purple and brown moor +close upon its one street; a curious little ancient market-cross +set up in the midst of it; and the town itself looking much as if +it were a collection of great stones piled on end by the Druids +long ago, which a few recluse people had since hollowed out for +habitations.</p> +<p>‘Is there a doctor here?’ asked Mr. Goodchild, on +his knee, of the motherly landlady of the little Inn: stopping in +his examination of Mr. Idle’s ankle, with the aid of a +candle.</p> +<p>‘Ey, my word!’ said the landlady, glancing +doubtfully at the ankle for herself; ‘there’s Doctor +Speddie.’</p> +<p>‘Is he a good Doctor?’</p> +<p>‘Ey!’ said the landlady, ‘I ca’ him +so. A’ cooms efther nae doctor that I ken. Mair +nor which, a’s just <span class="GutSmall">THE</span> +doctor heer.’</p> +<p>‘Do you think he is at home?’</p> +<p>Her reply was, ‘Gang awa’, Jock, and bring +him.’</p> +<p>Jock, a white-headed boy, who, under pretence of stirring up +some bay salt in a basin of water for the laving of this +unfortunate ankle, had greatly enjoyed himself for the last ten +minutes in splashing the carpet, set off promptly. A very +few minutes had elapsed when he showed the Doctor in, by tumbling +against the door before him and bursting it open with his +head.</p> +<p>‘Gently, Jock, gently,’ said the Doctor as he +advanced with a quiet step. ‘Gentlemen, a good +evening. I am sorry that my presence is required +here. A slight accident, I hope? A slip and a +fall? Yes, yes, yes. Carrock, indeed? +Hah! Does that pain you, sir? No doubt, it +does. It is the great connecting ligament here, you see, +that has been badly strained. Time and rest, sir! +They are often the recipe in greater cases,’ with a slight +sigh, ‘and often the recipe in small. I can send a +lotion to relieve you, but we must leave the cure to time and +rest.’</p> +<p>This he said, holding Idle’s foot on his knee between +his two hands, as he sat over against him. He had touched +it tenderly and skilfully in explanation of what he said, and, +when his careful examination was completed, softly returned it to +its former horizontal position on a chair.</p> +<p>He spoke with a little irresolution whenever he began, but +afterwards fluently. He was a tall, thin, large-boned, old +gentleman, with an appearance at first sight of being +hard-featured; but, at a second glance, the mild expression of +his face and some particular touches of sweetness and patience +about his mouth, corrected this impression and assigned his long +professional rides, by day and night, in the bleak hill-weather, +as the true cause of that appearance. He stooped very +little, though past seventy and very grey. His dress was +more like that of a clergyman than a country doctor, being a +plain black suit, and a plain white neck-kerchief tied behind +like a band. His black was the worse for wear, and there +were darns in his coat, and his linen was a little frayed at the +hems and edges. He might have been poor—it was likely +enough in that out-of-the-way spot—or he might have been a +little self-forgetful and eccentric. Any one could have +seen directly, that he had neither wife nor child at home. +He had a scholarly air with him, and that kind of considerate +humanity towards others which claimed a gentle consideration for +himself. Mr. Goodchild made this study of him while he was +examining the limb, and as he laid it down. Mr. Goodchild +wishes to add that he considers it a very good likeness.</p> +<p>It came out in the course of a little conversation, that +Doctor Speddie was acquainted with some friends of Thomas +Idle’s, and had, when a young man, passed some years in +Thomas Idle’s birthplace on the other side of +England. Certain idle labours, the fruit of Mr. +Goodchild’s apprenticeship, also happened to be well known +to him. The lazy travellers were thus placed on a more +intimate footing with the Doctor than the casual circumstances of +the meeting would of themselves have established; and when Doctor +Speddie rose to go home, remarking that he would send his +assistant with the lotion, Francis Goodchild said that was +unnecessary, for, by the Doctor’s leave, he would accompany +him, and bring it back. (Having done nothing to fatigue +himself for a full quarter of an hour, Francis began to fear that +he was not in a state of idleness.)</p> +<p>Doctor Speddie politely assented to the proposition of Francis +Goodchild, ‘as it would give him the pleasure of enjoying a +few more minutes of Mr. Goodchild’s society than he could +otherwise have hoped for,’ and they went out together into +the village street. The rain had nearly ceased, the clouds +had broken before a cool wind from the north-east, and stars were +shining from the peaceful heights beyond them.</p> +<p>Doctor Speddie’s house was the last house in the +place. Beyond it, lay the moor, all dark and +lonesome. The wind moaned in a low, dull, shivering manner +round the little garden, like a houseless creature that knew the +winter was coming. It was exceedingly wild and +solitary. ‘Roses,’ said the Doctor, when +Goodchild touched some wet leaves overhanging the stone porch; +‘but they get cut to pieces.’</p> +<p>The Doctor opened the door with a key he carried, and led the +way into a low but pretty ample hall with rooms on either +side. The door of one of these stood open, and the Doctor +entered it, with a word of welcome to his guest. It, too, +was a low room, half surgery and half parlour, with shelves of +books and bottles against the walls, which were of a very dark +hue. There was a fire in the grate, the night being damp +and chill. Leaning against the chimney-piece looking down +into it, stood the Doctor’s Assistant.</p> +<p>A man of a most remarkable appearance. Much older than +Mr. Goodchild had expected, for he was at least two-and-fifty; +but, that was nothing. What was startling in him was his +remarkable paleness. His large black eyes, his sunken +cheeks, his long and heavy iron-grey hair, his wasted hands, and +even the attenuation of his figure, were at first forgotten in +his extraordinary pallor. There was no vestige of colour in +the man. When he turned his face, Francis Goodchild started +as if a stone figure had looked round at him.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Lorn,’ said the Doctor. ‘Mr. +Goodchild.’</p> +<p>The Assistant, in a distraught way—as if he had +forgotten something—as if he had forgotten everything, even +to his own name and himself—acknowledged the +visitor’s presence, and stepped further back into the +shadow of the wall behind him. But, he was so pale that his +face stood out in relief again the dark wall, and really could +not be hidden so.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Goodchild’s friend has met with accident, +Lorn,’ said Doctor Speddie. ‘We want the lotion +for a bad sprain.’</p> +<p>A pause.</p> +<p>‘My dear fellow, you are more than usually absent +to-night. The lotion for a bad sprain.’</p> +<p>‘Ah! yes! Directly.’</p> +<p>He was evidently relieved to turn away, and to take his white +face and his wild eyes to a table in a recess among the +bottles. But, though he stood there, compounding the lotion +with his back towards them, Goodchild could not, for many +moments, withdraw his gaze from the man. When he at length +did so, he found the Doctor observing him, with some trouble in +his face. ‘He is absent,’ explained the Doctor, +in a low voice. ‘Always absent. Very +absent.’</p> +<p>‘Is he ill?’</p> +<p>‘No, not ill.’</p> +<p>‘Unhappy?’</p> +<p>‘I have my suspicions that he was,’ assented the +Doctor, ‘once.’</p> +<p>Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor +accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting glance at +their subject, in which there was much of the expression with +which an attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted +son. Yet, that they were not father and son must have been +plain to most eyes. The Assistant, on the other hand, +turning presently to ask the Doctor some question, looked at him +with a wan smile as if he were his whole reliance and sustainment +in life.</p> +<p>It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy-chair, to try to +lead the mind of Mr. Goodchild in the opposite easy-chair, away +from what was before him. Let Mr. Goodchild do what he +would to follow the Doctor, his eyes and thoughts reverted to the +Assistant. The Doctor soon perceived it, and, after falling +silent, and musing in a little perplexity, said:</p> +<p>‘Lorn!’</p> +<p>‘My dear Doctor.’</p> +<p>‘Would you go to the Inn, and apply that lotion? +You will show the best way of applying it, far better than Mr. +Goodchild can.’</p> +<p>‘With pleasure.’</p> +<p>The Assistant took his hat, and passed like a shadow to the +door.</p> +<p>‘Lorn!’ said the Doctor, calling after him.</p> +<p>He returned.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Goodchild will keep me company till you come +home. Don’t hurry. Excuse my calling you +back.’</p> +<p>‘It is not,’ said the Assistant, with his former +smile, ‘the first time you have called me back, dear +Doctor.’ With those words he went away.</p> +<p>‘Mr. Goodchild,’ said Doctor Speddie, in a low +voice, and with his former troubled expression of face, ‘I +have seen that your attention has been concentrated on my +friend.’</p> +<p>‘He fascinates me. I must apologise to you, but he +has quite bewildered and mastered me.’</p> +<p>‘I find that a lonely existence and a long +secret,’ said the Doctor, drawing his chair a little nearer +to Mr. Goodchild’s, ‘become in the course of time +very heavy. I will tell you something. You may make +what use you will of it, under fictitious names. I know I +may trust you. I am the more inclined to confidence +to-night, through having been unexpectedly led back, by the +current of our conversation at the Inn, to scenes in my early +life. Will you please to draw a little nearer?’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild drew a little nearer, and the Doctor went on +thus: speaking, for the most part, in so cautious a voice, that +the wind, though it was far from high, occasionally got the +better of him.</p> +<p>When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good +many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur +Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster, exactly in +the middle of a race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of +the month of September. He was one of those reckless, +rattle-pated, open-hearted, and open-mouthed young gentlemen, who +possess the gift of familiarity in its highest perfection, and +who scramble carelessly along the journey of life making friends, +as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father was a rich +manufacturer, and had bought landed property enough in one of the +midland counties to make all the born squires in his +neighbourhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his +only son, possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great +business after his father’s death; well supplied with +money, and not too rigidly looked after, during his +father’s lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you +please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his +youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed +to be violently indignant when he found that his son took after +him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the +elder Mr. Holliday when he was getting on in years; and then he +was as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met +with.</p> +<p>Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to +Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his harebrained +way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the +town till towards the close of the evening, and he went at once +to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. +Dinner they were ready enough to give him; but as for a bed, they +laughed when he mentioned it. In the race-week at +Doncaster, it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not +bespoken apartments, to pass the night in their carriages at the +inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself +have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the +doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich +as he was, Arthur’s chance of getting a night’s +lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) +was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the +third hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that; and was met +everywhere by the same form of answer. No accommodation for +the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden +sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in +the race-week.</p> +<p>To a young fellow of Arthur’s temperament, the novelty +of being turned away into the street, like a penniless vagabond, +at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in +the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. +He went on, with his carpet-bag in his hand, applying for a bed +at every place of entertainment for travellers that he could find +in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts of the +town. By this time, the last glimmer of twilight had faded +out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting +cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there was every +prospect that it was soon going to rain.</p> +<p>The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young +Holliday’s good spirits. He began to contemplate the +houseless situation in which he was placed, from the serious +rather than the humorous point of view; and he looked about him, +for another public-house to inquire at, with something very like +downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the +night. The suburban part of the town towards which he had +now strayed was hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing +of the houses as he passed them, except that they got +progressively smaller and dirtier, the farther he went. +Down the winding road before him shone the dull gleam of an oil +lamp, the one faint, lonely light that struggled ineffectually +with the foggy darkness all round him. He resolved to go on +as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him nothing in the +shape of an Inn, to return to the central part of the town and to +try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on, +through the night, at one of the principal Hotels.</p> +<p>As he got near the lamp, he heard voices; and, walking close +under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, +on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded +flesh-colour, pointing with a lean forefinger, to this +inscription:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">THE TWO ROBINS.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Arthur turned into the court without hesitation, to see what +The Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men were +standing together round the door of the house which was at the +bottom of the court, facing the entrance from the street. +The men were all listening to one other man, better dressed than +the rest, who was telling his audience something, in a low voice, +in which they were apparently very much interested.</p> +<p>On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with +a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house.</p> +<p>‘No,’ said the traveller with the knapsack, +turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, +sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who +had followed him down the passage. ‘No, Mr. landlord, +I am not easily scared by trifles; but, I don’t mind +confessing that I can’t quite stand <i>that</i>.’</p> +<p>It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these +words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a +bed at The Two Robins; and that he was unable or unwilling to pay +it. The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably +conscious of his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a +great hurry, for fear any other benighted traveller should slip +in and forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty +apron and the bald head.</p> +<p>‘If you have got a bed to let,’ he said, +‘and if that gentleman who has just gone out won’t +pay your price for it, I will.’</p> +<p>The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur.</p> +<p>‘Will you, sir?’ he asked, in a meditative, +doubtful way.</p> +<p>‘Name your price,’ said young Holliday, thinking +that the landlord’s hesitation sprang from some boorish +distrust of him. ‘Name your price, and I’ll +give you the money at once if you like?’</p> +<p>‘Are you game for five shillings?’ inquired the +landlord, rubbing his stubbly double chin, and looking up +thoughtfully at the ceiling above him.</p> +<p>Arthur nearly laughed in the man’s face; but thinking it +prudent to control himself, offered the five shillings as +seriously as he could. The sly landlord held out his hand, +then suddenly drew it back again.</p> +<p>‘You’re acting all fair and above-board by +me,’ he said: ‘and, before I take your money, +I’ll do the same by you. Look here, this is how it +stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for five +shillings; but you can’t have more than a half-share of the +room it stands in. Do you see what I mean, young +gentleman?’</p> +<p>‘Of course I do,’ returned Arthur, a little +irritably. ‘You mean that it is a double-bedded room, +and that one of the beds is occupied?’</p> +<p>The landlord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin +harder than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved +back a step or two towards the door. The idea of sleeping +in the same room with a total stranger, did not present an +attractive prospect to him. He felt more than half inclined +to drop his five shillings into his pocket, and to go out into +the street once more.</p> +<p>‘Is it yes, or no?’ asked the landlord. +‘Settle it as quick as you can, because there’s lots +of people wanting a bed at Doncaster to-night, besides +you.’</p> +<p>Arthur looked towards the court, and heard the rain falling +heavily in the street outside. He thought he would ask a +question or two before he rashly decided on leaving the shelter +of The Two Robins.</p> +<p>‘What sort of a man is it who has got the other +bed?’ he inquired. ‘Is he a gentleman? I +mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?’</p> +<p>‘The quietest man I ever came across,’ said the +landlord, rubbing his fat hands stealthily one over the +other. ‘As sober as a judge, and as regular as +clock-work in his habits. It hasn’t struck nine, not +ten minutes ago, and he’s in his bed already. I +don’t know whether that comes up to your notion of a quiet +man: it goes a long way ahead of mine, I can tell you.’</p> +<p>‘Is he asleep, do you think?’ asked Arthur.</p> +<p>‘I know he’s asleep,’ returned the +landlord. ‘And what’s more, he’s gone off +so fast, that I’ll warrant you don’t wake him. +This way, sir,’ said the landlord, speaking over young +Holliday’s shoulder, as if he was addressing some new guest +who was approaching the house.</p> +<p>‘Here you are,’ said Arthur, determined to be +beforehand with the stranger, whoever he might be. +‘I’ll take the bed.’ And he handed the +five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money +carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket, and lighted the candle.</p> +<p>‘Come up and see the room,’ said the host of The +Two Robins, leading the way to the staircase quite briskly, +considering how fat he was.</p> +<p>They mounted to the second-floor of the house. The +landlord half opened a door, fronting the landing, then stopped, +and turned round to Arthur.</p> +<p>‘It’s a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as +on yours,’ he said. ‘You give me five +shillings, I give you in return a clean, comfortable bed; and I +warrant, beforehand, that you won’t be interfered with, or +annoyed in any way, by the man who sleeps in the same room as +you.’ Saying those words, he looked hard, for a +moment, in young Holliday’s face, and then led the way into +the room.</p> +<p>It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would +be. The two beds stood parallel with each other—a +space of about six feet intervening between them. They were +both of the same medium size, and both had the same plain white +curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round them. The +occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains +were all drawn round this, except the half curtain at the bottom, +on the side of the bed farthest from the window. Arthur saw +the feet of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a +sharp little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. +He took the candle, and advanced softly to draw the +curtain—stopped half-way, and listened for a +moment—then turned to the landlord.</p> +<p>‘He’s a very quiet sleeper,’ said +Arthur.</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said the landlord, ‘very +quiet.’</p> +<p>Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at the +man cautiously.</p> +<p>‘How pale he is!’ said Arthur.</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ returned the landlord, ‘pale enough, +isn’t he?’</p> +<p>Arthur looked closer at the man. The bedclothes were +drawn up to his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the +region of his chest. Surprised and vaguely startled, as he +noticed this, Arthur stooped down closer over the stranger; +looked at his ashy, parted lips; listened breathlessly for an +instant; looked again at the strangely still face, and the +motionless lips and chest; and turned round suddenly on the +landlord, with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the +hollow cheeks of the man on the bed.</p> +<p>‘Come here,’ he whispered, under his breath. +‘Come here, for God’s sake! The man’s not +asleep—he is dead!’</p> +<p>‘You have found that out sooner than I thought you +would,’ said the landlord, composedly. ‘Yes, +he’s dead, sure enough. He died at five o’clock +to-day.’</p> +<p>‘How did he die? Who is he?’ asked Arthur, +staggered, for a moment, by the audacious coolness of the +answer.</p> +<p>‘As to who is he,’ rejoined the landlord, ‘I +know no more about him than you do. There are his books and +letters and things, all sealed up in that brown-paper parcel, for +the Coroner’s inquest to open to-morrow or next day. +He’s been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and +stopping in-doors, for the most part, as if he was ailing. +My girl brought him up his tea at five to-day; and as he was +pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a +compound of both, for anything I know. We could not bring +him to—and I said he was dead. And the doctor +couldn’t bring him to—and the doctor said he was +dead. And there he is. And the Coroner’s +inquest’s coming as soon as it can. And that’s +as much as I know about it.’</p> +<p>Arthur held the candle close to the man’s lips. +The flame still burnt straight up, as steadily as before. +There was a moment of silence; and the rain pattered drearily +through it against the panes of the window.</p> +<p>‘If you haven’t got nothing more to say to +me,’ continued the landlord, ‘I suppose I may +go. You don’t expect your five shillings back, do +you? There’s the bed I promised you, clean and +comfortable. There’s the man I warranted not to +disturb you, quiet in this world for ever. If you’re +frightened to stop alone with him, that’s not my look +out. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, and I mean to +keep the money. I’m not Yorkshire, myself, young +gentleman; but I’ve lived long enough in these parts to +have my wits sharpened; and I shouldn’t wonder if you found +out the way to brighten up yours, next time you come amongst +us.’ With these words, the landlord turned towards +the door, and laughed to himself softly, in high satisfaction at +his own sharpness.</p> +<p>Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time +sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick +that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in which +the landlord exulted in it.</p> +<p>‘Don’t laugh,’ he said sharply, ‘till +you are quite sure you have got the laugh against me. You +shan’t have the five shillings for nothing, my man. +I’ll keep the bed.’</p> +<p>‘Will you?’ said the landlord. ‘Then I +wish you a goodnight’s rest.’ With that brief +farewell, he went out, and shut the door after him.</p> +<p>A good night’s rest! The words had hardly been +spoken, the door had hardly been closed, before Arthur +half-repented the hasty words that had just escaped him. +Though not naturally over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage +of the moral as well as the physical sort, the presence of the +dead man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when +he found himself alone in the room—alone, and bound by his +own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An +older man would have thought nothing of those words, and would +have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer sense +suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the ridicule, +even of his inferiors, with contempt—too young not to fear +the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own foolish boast, +more than he feared the trial of watching out the long night in +the same chamber with the dead.</p> +<p>‘It is but a few hours,’ he thought to himself, +‘and I can get away the first thing in the +morning.’</p> +<p>He was looking towards the occupied bed as that idea passed +through his mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the +clothes by the dead man’s upturned feet again caught his +eye. He advanced and drew the curtains, purposely +abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of the corpse, +lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening some +ghastly impression of it on his mind. He drew the curtain +very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it. +‘Poor fellow,’ he said, almost as sadly as if he had +known the man. ‘Ah, poor fellow!’</p> +<p>He went next to the window. The night was black, and he +could see nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily +against the glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the +window was at the back of the house; remembering that the front +was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings +over it.</p> +<p>While he was still standing at the window—for even the +dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, +also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in +consequence, of life and companionship in it—while he was +standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black +darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike +ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the +house was astir the next morning?</p> +<p>Under any other circumstances, he would have gone down to the +public-house parlour, would have called for his grog, and would +have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly +as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought +of whiling away the time in this manner was distasteful to +him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to +have altered him to himself already. Thus far, his life had +been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous +young man, with no troubles to conquer, and no trials to +face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom +he treasured. Till this night, what share he had of the +immortal inheritance that is divided amongst us all, had laid +dormant within him. Till this night, Death and he had not +once met, even in thought.</p> +<p>He took a few turns up and down the room—then +stopped. The noise made by his boots on the poorly carpeted +floor, jarred on his ear. He hesitated a little, and ended +by taking the boots off, and walking backwards and forwards +noiselessly. All desire to sleep or to rest had left +him. The bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed +instantly drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of +the position of the dead man. Who was he? What was +the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he +would not have stopped at such a place as The Two Robins +Inn—and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could +hardly have died in the manner in which the landlord had +described. Poor, ill, lonely,—dead in a strange +place; dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad +story: truly, on the mere face of it, a very sad story.</p> +<p>While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had +stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot +of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he looked at +it absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on +it; and then, a perverse desire took possession of him to do the +very thing which he had resolved not to do, up to this +time—to look at the dead man.</p> +<p>He stretched out his hand towards the curtains; but checked +himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back +sharply on the bed, and walked towards the chimney-piece, to see +what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the +dead man out of his mind in that way.</p> +<p>There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some +mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two +coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there was a +square of embossed card, dirty and fly-blown, with a collection +of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zig-zag +directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took the +card, and went away, to read it, to the table on which the candle +was placed; sitting down, with his back resolutely turned to the +curtained bed.</p> +<p>He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one +corner of the card—then turned it round impatiently to look +at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles +printed here, the sound of the church-clock stopped him. +Eleven. He had got through an hour of the time, in the room +with the dead man.</p> +<p>Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make +out the letters printed on it, in consequence of the dimness of +the light which the landlord had left him—a common tallow +candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel +snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been too much +occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the +candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than the flame, and +had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which +morsels of the charred cotton fell off, from time to time, in +little flakes. He took up the snuffers now, and trimmed the +wick. The light brightened directly, and the room became +less dismal.</p> +<p>Again he turned to the riddles; reading them doggedly and +resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another. +All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on +them. He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no +sort of impression from what he was reading. It was as if a +shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind and the +gaily printed letters—a shadow that nothing could +dispel. At last, he gave up the struggle, and threw the +card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly up and down +the room again.</p> +<p>The dead man, the dead man, the <i>hidden</i> dead man on the +bed! There was the one persistent idea still haunting +him. Hidden? Was it only the body being there, or was +it the body being there, concealed, that was preying on his +mind? He stopped at the window, with that doubt in him; +once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out +into the black darkness.</p> +<p>Still the dead man! The darkness forced his mind back +upon itself, and set his memory at work, reviving, with a +painfully-vivid distinctness the momentary impression it had +received from the first sight of the corpse. Before long +the face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness, +confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter, +with the dreadful dull line of light between the +imperfectly-closed eyelids broader than he had seen it—with +the parted lips slowly dropping farther and farther away from +each other—with the features growing larger and moving +closer, till they seemed to fill the window and to silence the +rain, and to shut out the night.</p> +<p>The sound of a voice, shouting below-stairs, woke him suddenly +from the dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognised +it as the voice of the landlord. ‘Shut up at twelve, +Ben,’ he heard it say. ‘I’m off to +bed.’</p> +<p>He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead, +reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake +his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it, +by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a moment, the +solemn reality. Without allowing himself an instant to +hesitate, he parted the curtains at the foot of the bed, and +looked through.</p> +<p>There was a sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery +of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no +change there! He only looked at it for a moment before he +closed the curtains again—but that moment steadied him, +calmed him, restored him—mind and body—to +himself.</p> +<p>He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the +room; persevering in it, this time, till the clock struck +again. Twelve.</p> +<p>As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by +the confused noise, down-stairs, of the drinkers in the tap-room +leaving the house. The next sound, after an interval of +silence, was caused by the barring of the door, and the closing +of the shutters, at the back of the Inn. Then the silence +followed again, and was disturbed no more.</p> +<p>He was alone now—absolutely, utterly, alone with the +dead man, till the next morning.</p> +<p>The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up +the snuffers—but paused suddenly on the very point of using +them, and looked attentively at the candle—then back, over +his shoulder, at the curtained bed—then again at the +candle. It had been lighted, for the first time, to show +him the way up-stairs, and three parts of it, at least, were +already consumed. In another hour it would be burnt +out. In another hour—unless he called at once to the +man who had shut up the Inn, for a fresh candle—he would be +left in the dark.</p> +<p>Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered +his room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule, and of +exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost its +influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by +the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the +door, and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut up the +Inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind +of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling +occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a +little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. +When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a hair’s +breadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and the +room was plunged in pitch darkness.</p> +<p>The one impression which the absence of light immediately +produced on his mind, was distrust of the curtained +bed—distrust which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but +which was powerful enough in its very vagueness, to bind him down +to his chair, to make his heart beat fast, and to set him +listening intently. No sound stirred in the room but the +familiar sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper +now than he had heard it yet.</p> +<p>Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed +him, and kept him to his chair. He had put his carpet-bag +on the table, when he first entered the room; and he now took the +key from his pocket, reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, +and groped in it for his travelling writing-case, in which he +knew that there was a small store of matches. When he had +got one of the matches, he waited before he struck it on the +coarse wooden table, and listened intently again, without knowing +why. Still there was no sound in the room but the steady, +ceaseless, rattling sound of the rain.</p> +<p>He lighted the candle again, without another moment of delay +and, on the instant of its burning up, the first object in the +room that his eyes sought for was the curtained bed.</p> +<p>Just before the light had been put out, he had looked in that +direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort, +in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains.</p> +<p>When he looked at the bed, now, he saw, hanging over the side +of it, a long white hand.</p> +<p>It lay perfectly motionless, midway on the side of the bed, +where the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot +met. Nothing more was visible. The clinging curtains +hid everything but the long white hand.</p> +<p>He stood looking at it unable to stir, unable to call out; +feeling nothing, knowing nothing, every faculty he possessed +gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long +that first panic held him he never could tell afterwards. +It might have been only for a moment; it might have been for many +minutes together. How he got to the bed—whether he +ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly—how +he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look in, he +never has remembered, and never will remember to his dying +day. It is enough that he did go to the bed, and that he +did look inside the curtains.</p> +<p>The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the +clothes; his face was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids +were wide open. Changed as to position, and as to one of +the features, the face was, otherwise, fearfully and wonderfully +unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead quiet were on it +still.</p> +<p>One glance showed Arthur this—one glance, before he flew +breathlessly to the door, and alarmed the house.</p> +<p>The man whom the landlord called ‘Ben,’ was the +first to appear on the stairs. In three words, Arthur told +him what had happened, and sent him for the nearest doctor.</p> +<p>I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical +friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his +patients for him, during his absence in London; and I, for the +time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for me +from the Inn, when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon; +but I was not at home, and medical assistance was sought for +elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins rang the +night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed. Naturally +enough, I did not believe a word of his story about ‘a dead +man who had come to life again.’ However, I put on my +hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative +medicine, and ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing more +remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit.</p> +<p>My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal +truth was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment at +finding myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I +entered the bedroom. It was no time then for giving or +seeking explanations. We just shook hands amazedly; and +then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room, and hurried +to the man on the bed.</p> +<p>The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty +of hot water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be +had. With these, with my medicines, and with such help as +Arthur could render under my direction, I dragged the man, +literally, out of the jaws of death. In less than an hour +from the time when I had been called in, he was alive and talking +in the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the +Coroner’s inquest.</p> +<p>You will naturally ask me, what had been the matter with him; +and I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully +sprinkled with, what the children call, hard words. I +prefer telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could not +be satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever. +There are mysteries in life, and the condition of it, which human +science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to you, +that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally +speaking, groping haphazard in the dark. I know (from the +testimony of the doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that +the vital machinery, so far as its action is appreciable by our +senses, had, in this case, unquestionably stopped; and I am +equally certain (seeing that I recovered him) that the vital +principle was not extinct. When I add, that he had suffered +from a long and complicated illness, and that his whole nervous +system was utterly deranged, I have told you all I really know of +the physical condition of my dead-alive patient at The Two Robins +Inn.</p> +<p>When he ‘came to,’ as the phrase goes, he was a +startling object to look at, with his colourless face, his sunken +cheeks, his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The +first question he asked me about himself, when he could speak, +made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my own +profession. I mentioned to him my surmise; and he told me +that I was right.</p> +<p>He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been +attached to a hospital. That he had lately returned to +England, on his way to Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that +he had been taken ill on the journey; and that he had stopped to +rest and recover himself at Doncaster. He did not add a +word about his name, or who he was: and, of course, I did not +question him on the subject. All I inquired, when he ceased +speaking, was what branch of the profession he intended to +follow.</p> +<p>‘Any branch,’ he said, bitterly, ‘which will +put bread into the mouth of a poor man.’</p> +<p>At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent +curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humoured +way:—</p> +<p>‘My dear fellow!’ (everybody was ‘my dear +fellow’ with Arthur) ‘now you have come to life +again, don’t begin by being down-hearted about your +prospects. I’ll answer for it, I can help you to some +capital thing in the medical line—or, if I can’t, I +know my father can.’</p> +<p>The medical student looked at him steadily.</p> +<p>‘Thank you,’ he said, coldly. Then added, +‘May I ask who your father is?’</p> +<p>‘He’s well enough known all about this part of the +country,’ replied Arthur. ‘He is a great +manufacturer, and his name is Holliday.’</p> +<p>My hand was on the man’s wrist during this brief +conversation. The instant the name of Holliday was +pronounced I felt the pulse under my fingers flutter, stop, go on +suddenly with a bound, and beat afterwards, for a minute or two, +at the fever rate.</p> +<p>‘How did you come here?’ asked the stranger, +quickly, excitably, passionately almost.</p> +<p>Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his +first taking the bed at the inn.</p> +<p>‘I am indebted to Mr. Holliday’s son then for the +help that has saved my life,’ said the medical student, +speaking to himself, with a singular sarcasm in his voice. +‘Come here!’</p> +<p>He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony, right +hand.</p> +<p>‘With all my heart,’ said Arthur, taking the +hand-cordially. ‘I may confess it now,’ he +continued, laughing. ‘Upon my honour, you almost +frightened me out of my wits.’</p> +<p>The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes +were fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur’s face, +and his long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur’s +hand. Young Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, +amazed and puzzled by the medical student’s odd language +and manners. The two faces were close together; I looked at +them; and, to my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense +of a likeness between them—not in features, or complexion, +but solely in expression. It must have been a strong +likeness, or I should certainly not have found it out, for I am +naturally slow at detecting resemblances between faces.</p> +<p>‘You have saved my life,’ said the strange man, +still looking hard in Arthur’s face, still holding tightly +by his hand. ‘If you had been my own brother, you +could not have done more for me than that.’</p> +<p>He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words +‘my own brother,’ and a change passed over his face +as he pronounced them,—a change that no language of mine is +competent to describe.</p> +<p>‘I hope I have not done being of service to you +yet,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ll speak to my +father, as soon as I get home.’</p> +<p>‘You seem to be fond and proud of your father,’ +said the medical student. ‘I suppose, in return, he +is fond and proud of you?’</p> +<p>‘Of course, he is!’ answered Arthur, +laughing. ‘Is there anything wonderful in that? +Isn’t <i>your</i> father fond—’</p> +<p>The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday’s hand, and +turned his face away.</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon,’ said Arthur. ‘I +hope I have not unintentionally pained you. I hope you have +not lost your father.’</p> +<p>‘I can’t well lose what I have never had,’ +retorted the medical student, with a harsh, mocking laugh.</p> +<p>‘What you have never had!’</p> +<p>The strange man suddenly caught Arthur’s hand again, +suddenly looked once more hard in his face.</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ he said, with a repetition of the bitter +laugh. ‘You have brought a poor devil back into the +world, who has no business there. Do I astonish you? +Well! I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men in +my situation generally keep a secret. I have no name and no +father. The merciful law of Society tells me I am +Nobody’s Son! Ask your father if he will be my father +too, and help me on in life with the family name.’</p> +<p>Arthur looked at me, more puzzled than ever. I signed to +him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the +man’s wrist. No! In spite of the extraordinary +speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed +to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by +this time, had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin +was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation +about him.</p> +<p>Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and +began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking +my advice about the future course of medical treatment to which +he ought to subject himself. I said the matter required +careful thinking over, and suggested that I should submit certain +prescriptions to him the next morning. He told me to write +them at once, as he would, most likely, be leaving Doncaster, in +the morning, before I was up. It was quite useless to +represent to him the folly and danger of such a proceeding as +this. He heard me politely and patiently, but held to his +resolution, without offering any reasons or any explanations, and +repeated to me, that if I wished to give him a chance of seeing +my prescription, I must write it at once. Hearing this, +Arthur volunteered the loan of a travelling writing-case, which, +he said, he had with him; and, bringing it to the bed, shook the +note-paper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual +careless way. With the paper, there fell out on the +counterpane of the bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a +little water-colour drawing of a landscape.</p> +<p>The medical student took up the drawing and looked at +it. His eye fell on some initials neatly written, in +cypher, in one corner. He started and trembled; his pale +face grew whiter than ever; his wild black eyes turned on Arthur, +and looked through and through him.</p> +<p>‘A pretty drawing,’ he said in a remarkably quiet +tone of voice.</p> +<p>‘Ah! and done by such a pretty girl,’ said +Arthur. ‘Oh, such a pretty girl! I wish it was +not a landscape—I wish it was a portrait of her!’</p> +<p>‘You admire her very much?’</p> +<p>Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for +answer.</p> +<p>‘Love at first sight!’ he said, putting the +drawing away again. ‘But the course of it +doesn’t run smooth. It’s the old story. +She’s monopolised as usual. Trammelled by a rash +engagement to some poor man who is never likely to get money +enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it in time, or +I should certainly have risked a declaration when she gave me +that drawing. Here, doctor! Here is pen, ink, and +paper all ready for you.’</p> +<p>‘When she gave you that drawing? Gave it. +Gave it.’ He repeated the words slowly to himself, +and suddenly closed his eyes. A momentary distortion passed +across his face, and I saw one of his hands clutch up the +bedclothes and squeeze them hard. I thought he was going to +be ill again, and begged that there might be no more +talking. He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once +more searchingly on Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly, +‘You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may +die out of your way. Who can tell that she may not give you +herself as well as her drawing, after all?’</p> +<p>Before young Holliday could answer, he turned to me, and said +in a whisper, ‘Now for the prescription.’ From +that time, though he spoke to Arthur again, he never looked at +him more.</p> +<p>When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved +of it, and then astonished us both by abruptly wishing us good +night. I offered to sit up with him, and he shook his +head. Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he said, +shortly, with his face turned away, ‘No.’ I +insisted on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way +when he found I was determined, and said he would accept the +services of the waiter at the Inn.</p> +<p>‘Thank you, both,’ he said, as we rose to +go. ‘I have one last favour to ask—not of you, +doctor, for I leave you to exercise your professional +discretion—but of Mr. Holliday.’ His eyes, +while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and never once +turned towards Arthur. ‘I beg that Mr. Holliday will +not mention to any one—least of all to his father—the +events that have occurred, and the words that have passed, in +this room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory, as, but +for him, I might have been buried in my grave. I cannot +give my reasons for making this strange request. I can only +implore him to grant it.’</p> +<p>His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on +the pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the +required pledge. I took young Holliday away with me, +immediately afterwards, to the house of my friend; determining to +go back to the Inn, and to see the medical student again before +he had left in the morning.</p> +<p>I returned to the Inn at eight o’clock, purposely +abstaining from waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past +night’s excitement on one of my friend’s sofas. +A suspicion had occurred to me as soon as I was alone in my +bedroom, which made me resolve that Holliday and the stranger +whose life he had saved should not meet again, if I could prevent +it. I have already alluded to certain reports, or scandals, +which I knew of, relating to the early life of Arthur’s +father. While I was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed +at the Inn—of the change in the student’s pulse when +he heard the name of Holliday; of the resemblance of expression +that I had discovered between his face and Arthur’s; of the +emphasis he had laid on those three words, ‘my own +brother;’ and of his incomprehensible acknowledgment of his +own illegitimacy—while I was thinking of these things, the +reports I have mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and linked +themselves fast to the chain of my previous reflections. +Something within me whispered, ‘It is best that those two +young men should not meet again.’ I felt it before I +slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went, as I told you, alone to +the Inn the next morning.</p> +<p>I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient +again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for +him.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>I have now told you everything that I know for certain, in +relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the +double-bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What I have +next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, +strictly speaking, matter of fact.</p> +<p>I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out +to be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more +than probable that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who +had given him the water-colour drawing of the landscape. +That marriage took place a little more than a year after the +events occurred which I have just been relating. The young +couple came to live in the neighbourhood in which I was then +established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and +was rather surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved +with me, both before and after his marriage, on the subject of +the young lady’s prior engagement. He only referred +to it once, when we were alone, merely telling me, on that +occasion, that his wife had done all that honour and duty +required of her in the matter, and that the engagement had been +broken off with the full approval of her parents. I never +heard more from him than this. For three years he and his +wife lived together happily. At the expiration of that +time, the symptoms of a serious illness first declared themselves +in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be a long, +lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her +throughout. We had been great friends when she was well, +and we became more attached to each other than ever when she was +ill. I had many long and interesting conversations with her +in the intervals when she suffered least. The result of one +of these conversations I may briefly relate, leaving you to draw +any inferences from it that you please.</p> +<p>The interview to which I refer, occurred shortly before her +death. I called one evening, as usual, and found her alone, +with a look in her eyes which told me that she had been +crying. She only informed me at first, that she had been +depressed in spirits; but, by little and little, she became more +communicative, and confessed to me that she had been looking over +some old letters, which had been addressed to her, before she had +seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had been engaged to be +married. I asked her how the engagement came to be broken +off. She replied that it had not been broken off, but that +it had died out in a very mysterious way. The person to +whom she was engaged—her first love, she called +him—was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of +their being married. He followed my profession, and went +abroad to study. They had corresponded regularly, until the +time when, as she believed, he had returned to England. +From that period she heard no more of him. He was of a +fretful, sensitive temperament; and she feared that she might +have inadvertently done or said something that offended +him. However that might be, he had never written to her +again; and, after waiting a year, she had married Arthur. I +asked when the first estrangement had begun, and found that the +time at which she ceased to hear anything of her first lover +exactly corresponded with the time at which I had been called in +to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins Inn.</p> +<p>A fortnight after that conversation, she died. In course +of time, Arthur married again. Of late years, he has lived +principally in London, and I have seen little or nothing of +him.</p> +<p>I have many years to pass over before I can approach to +anything like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. +And even when that later period is reached, the little that I +have to say will not occupy your attention for more than a few +minutes. Between six and seven years ago, the gentleman to +whom I introduced you in this room, came to me, with good +professional recommendations, to fill the position of my +assistant. We met, not like strangers, but like +friends—the only difference between us being, that I was +very much surprised to see him, and that he did not appear to be +at all surprised to see me. If he was my son or my brother, +I believe he could not be fonder of me than he is; but he has +never volunteered any confidences since he has been here, on the +subject of his past life. I saw something that was familiar +to me in his face when we first met; and yet it was also +something that suggested the idea of change. I had a notion +once that my patient at the Inn might be a natural son of Mr. +Holliday’s; I had another idea that he might also have been +the man who was engaged to Arthur’s first wife; and I have +a third idea, still clinging to me, that Mr. Lorn is the only man +in England who could really enlighten me, if he chose, on both +those doubtful points. His hair is not black, now, and his +eyes are dimmer than the piercing eyes that I remember, but, for +all that, he is very like the nameless medical student of my +young days—very like him. And, sometimes, when I come +home late at night, and find him asleep, and wake him, he looks, +in coming to, wonderfully like the stranger at Doncaster, as he +raised himself in the bed on that memorable night!</p> +<p>The Doctor paused. Mr. Goodchild, who had been following +every word that fell from his lips up to this time, leaned +forward eagerly to ask a question. Before he could say a +word, the latch of the door was raised, without any warning sound +of footsteps in the passage outside. A long, white, bony +hand appeared through the opening, gently pushing the door, which +was prevented from working freely on its hinges by a fold in the +carpet under it.</p> +<p>‘That hand! Look at that hand, Doctor!’ said +Mr. Goodchild, touching him.</p> +<p>At the same moment, the Doctor looked at Mr. Goodchild, and +whispered to him, significantly:</p> +<p>‘Hush! he has come back.’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Cumberland Doctor’s +mention of Doncaster Races, inspired Mr. Francis Goodchild with +the idea of going down to Doncaster to see the races. +Doncaster being a good way off, and quite out of the way of the +Idle Apprentices (if anything could be out of their way, who had +no way), it necessarily followed that Francis perceived Doncaster +in the race-week to be, of all possible idleness, the particular +idleness that would completely satisfy him.</p> +<p>Thomas, with an enforced idleness grafted on the natural and +voluntary power of his disposition, was not of this mind; +objecting that a man compelled to lie on his back on a floor, a +sofa, a table, a line of chairs, or anything he could get to lie +upon, was not in racing condition, and that he desired nothing +better than to lie where he was, enjoying himself in looking at +the flies on the ceiling. But, Francis Goodchild, who had +been walking round his companion in a circuit of twelve miles for +two days, and had begun to doubt whether it was reserved for him +ever to be idle in his life, not only overpowered this objection, +but even converted Thomas Idle to a scheme he formed (another +idle inspiration), of conveying the said Thomas to the sea-coast, +and putting his injured leg under a stream of salt-water.</p> +<p>Plunging into this happy conception headforemost, Mr. +Goodchild immediately referred to the county-map, and ardently +discovered that the most delicious piece of sea-coast to be found +within the limits of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle +of Man, and the Channel Islands, all summed up together, was +Allonby on the coast of Cumberland. There was the coast of +Scotland opposite to Allonby, said Mr. Goodchild with enthusiasm; +there was a fine Scottish mountain on that Scottish coast; there +were Scottish lights to be seen shining across the glorious +Channel, and at Allonby itself there was every idle luxury (no +doubt) that a watering-place could offer to the heart of idle +man. Moreover, said Mr. Goodchild, with his finger on the +map, this exquisite retreat was approached by a coach-road, from +a railway-station called Aspatria—a name, in a manner, +suggestive of the departed glories of Greece, associated with one +of the most engaging and most famous of Greek women. On +this point, Mr. Goodchild continued at intervals to breathe a +vein of classic fancy and eloquence exceedingly irksome to Mr. +Idle, until it appeared that the honest English pronunciation of +that Cumberland country shortened Aspatria into +‘Spatter.’ After this supplementary discovery, +Mr. Goodchild said no more about it.</p> +<p>By way of Spatter, the crippled Idle was carried, hoisted, +pushed, poked, and packed, into and out of carriages, into and +out of beds, into and out of tavern resting-places, until he was +brought at length within sniff of the sea. And now, behold +the apprentices gallantly riding into Allonby in a one-horse fly, +bent upon staying in that peaceful marine valley until the +turbulent Doncaster time shall come round upon the wheel, in its +turn among what are in sporting registers called the +‘Fixtures’ for the month.</p> +<p>‘Do you see Allonby!’ asked Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>‘I don’t see it yet,’ said Francis, looking +out of window.</p> +<p>‘It must be there,’ said Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>‘I don’t see it,’ returned Francis.</p> +<p>‘It must be there,’ repeated Thomas Idle, +fretfully.</p> +<p>‘Lord bless me!’ exclaimed Francis, drawing in his +head, ‘I suppose this is it!’</p> +<p>‘A watering-place,’ retorted Thomas Idle, with the +pardonable sharpness of an invalid, ‘can’t be five +gentlemen in straw hats, on a form on one side of a door, and +four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a +door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a +boy’s legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy’s body I +suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running +away. What are you talking about?’</p> +<p>‘Allonby, gentlemen,’ said the most comfortable of +landladies as she opened one door of the carriage; +‘Allonby, gentlemen,’ said the most attentive of +landlords, as he opened the other.</p> +<p>Thomas Idle yielded his arm to the ready Goodchild, and +descended from the vehicle. Thomas, now just able to grope +his way along, in a doubled-up condition, with the aid of two +thick sticks, was no bad embodiment of Commodore Trunnion, or of +one of those many gallant Admirals of the stage, who have all +ample fortunes, gout, thick sticks, tempers, wards, and +nephews. With this distinguished naval appearance upon him, +Thomas made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-headed +staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where he slowly +deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either hand of him, +looking exceedingly grim.</p> +<p>‘Francis,’ said Thomas Idle, ‘what do you +think of this place?’</p> +<p>‘I think,’ returned Mr. Goodchild, in a glowing +way, ‘it is everything we expected.’</p> +<p>‘Hah!’ said Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>‘There is the sea,’ cried Mr. Goodchild, pointing +out of window; ‘and here,’ pointing to the lunch on +the table, ‘are shrimps. Let us—’ here +Mr. Goodchild looked out of window, as if in search of something, +and looked in again,—‘let us eat +’em.’</p> +<p>The shrimps eaten and the dinner ordered, Mr. Goodchild went +out to survey the watering-place. As Chorus of the Drama, +without whom Thomas could make nothing of the scenery, he +by-and-by returned, to have the following report screwed out of +him.</p> +<p>In brief, it was the most delightful place ever seen.</p> +<p>‘But,’ Thomas Idle asked, ‘where is +it?’</p> +<p>‘It’s what you may call generally up and down the +beach, here and there,’ said Mr. Goodchild, with a twist of +his hand.</p> +<p>‘Proceed,’ said Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>It was, Mr. Goodchild went on to say, in cross-examination, +what you might call a primitive place. Large? No, it +was not large. Who ever expected it would be large? +Shape? What a question to ask! No shape. What +sort of a street? Why, no street. Shops? Yes, +of course (quite indignant). How many? Who ever went +into a place to count the shops? Ever so many. +Six? Perhaps. A library? Why, of course +(indignant again). Good collection of books? Most +likely—couldn’t say—had seen nothing in it but +a pair of scales. Any reading-room? Of course, there +was a reading-room. Where? Where! why, over +there. Where was over there? Why, <i>there</i>! +Let Mr. Idle carry his eye to that bit of waste ground above +high-water mark, where the rank grass and loose stones were most +in a litter; and he would see a sort of long, ruinous brick loft, +next door to a ruinous brick out-house, which loft had a ladder +outside, to get up by. That was the reading-room, and if +Mr. Idle didn’t like the idea of a weaver’s shuttle +throbbing under a reading-room, that was his look out. +<i>He</i> was not to dictate, Mr. Goodchild supposed (indignant +again), to the company.</p> +<p>‘By-the-by,’ Thomas Idle observed; ‘the +company?’</p> +<p>Well! (Mr. Goodchild went on to report) very nice +company. Where were they? Why, there they were. +Mr. Idle could see the tops of their hats, he supposed. +What? Those nine straw hats again, five gentlemen’s +and four ladies’? Yes, to be sure. Mr. +Goodchild hoped the company were not to be expected to wear +helmets, to please Mr. Idle.</p> +<p>Beginning to recover his temper at about this point, Mr. +Goodchild voluntarily reported that if you wanted to be +primitive, you could be primitive here, and that if you wanted to +be idle, you could be idle here. In the course of some +days, he added, that there were three fishing-boats, but no +rigging, and that there were plenty of fishermen who never +fished. That they got their living entirely by looking at +the ocean. What nourishment they looked out of it to +support their strength, he couldn’t say; but, he supposed +it was some sort of Iodine. The place was full of their +children, who were always upside down on the public buildings +(two small bridges over the brook), and always hurting themselves +or one another, so that their wailings made more continual noise +in the air than could have been got in a busy place. The +houses people lodged in, were nowhere in particular, and were in +capital accordance with the beach; being all more or less cracked +and damaged as its shells were, and all empty—as its shells +were. Among them, was an edifice of destitute appearance, +with a number of wall-eyed windows in it, looking desperately out +to Scotland as if for help, which said it was a Bazaar (and it +ought to know), and where you might buy anything you +wanted—supposing what you wanted, was a little camp-stool +or a child’s wheelbarrow. The brook crawled or +stopped between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always +running away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out +with stones, which never hit him, and which always hit some of +the children who were upside down on the public buildings, and +made their lamentations louder. This donkey was the public +excitement of Allonby, and was probably supported at the public +expense.</p> +<p>The foregoing descriptions, delivered in separate items, on +separate days of adventurous discovery, Mr. Goodchild severally +wound up, by looking out of window, looking in again, and saying, +‘But there is the sea, and here are the shrimps—let +us eat ’em.’</p> +<p>There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach, +with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long +bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and +there were fine views—on fine days—of the Scottish +coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back +upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey +seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious +reasons for wishing to bolt from. Thomas Idle observed, +too, that Mr. Goodchild, with a noble show of disinterestedness, +became every day more ready to walk to Maryport and back, for +letters; and suspicions began to harbour in the mind of Thomas, +that his friend deceived him, and that Maryport was a preferable +place.</p> +<p>Therefore, Thomas said to Francis on a day when they had +looked at the sea and eaten the shrimps, ‘My mind misgives +me, Goodchild, that you go to Maryport, like the boy in the +story-book, to ask <i>it</i> to be idle with you.’</p> +<p>‘Judge, then,’ returned Francis, adopting the +style of the story-book, ‘with what success. I go to +a region which is a bit of water-side Bristol, with a slice of +Wapping, a seasoning of Wolverhampton, and a garnish of +Portsmouth, and I say, “Will <i>you</i> come and be idle +with me?” And it answers, “No; for I am a great +deal too vaporous, and a great deal too rusty, and a great deal +too muddy, and a great deal too dirty altogether; and I have +ships to load, and pitch and tar to boil, and iron to hammer, and +steam to get up, and smoke to make, and stone to quarry, and +fifty other disagreeable things to do, and I can’t be idle +with you.” Then I go into jagged up-hill and +down-hill streets, where I am in the pastrycook’s shop at +one moment, and next moment in savage fastnesses of moor and +morass, beyond the confines of civilisation, and I say to those +murky and black-dusty streets, “Will <i>you</i> come and be +idle with me?” To which they reply, “No, we +can’t, indeed, for we haven’t the spirits, and we are +startled by the echo of your feet on the sharp pavement, and we +have so many goods in our shop-windows which nobody wants, and we +have so much to do for a limited public which never comes to us +to be done for, that we are altogether out of sorts and +can’t enjoy ourselves with any one.” So I go to +the Post-office, and knock at the shutter, and I say to the +Post-master, “Will <i>you</i> come and be idle with +me?” To which he rejoins, “No, I really +can’t, for I live, as you may see, in such a very little +Post-office, and pass my life behind such a very little shutter, +that my hand, when I put it out, is as the hand of a giant +crammed through the window of a dwarf’s house at a fair, +and I am a mere Post-office anchorite in a cell much too small +for him, and I can’t get out, and I can’t get in, and +I have no space to be idle in, even if I would.” So, +the boy,’ said Mr. Goodchild, concluding the tale, +‘comes back with the letters after all, and lives happy +never afterwards.’</p> +<p>But it may, not unreasonably, be asked—while Francis +Goodchild was wandering hither and thither, storing his mind with +perpetual observation of men and things, and sincerely believing +himself to be the laziest creature in existence all the +time—how did Thomas Idle, crippled and confined to the +house, contrive to get through the hours of the day?</p> +<p>Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the +hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through +<i>him</i>. Where other men in his situation would have +read books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his +body. Where other men would have pondered anxiously over +their future prospects, Thomas dreamed lazily of his past +life. The one solitary thing he did, which most other +people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making +certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence, as +soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken him had +all passed away. Remembering that the current of his life +had hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream of laziness, +occasionally troubled on the surface by a slight passing ripple +of industry, his present ideas on the subject of self-reform, +inclined him—not as the reader may be disposed to imagine, +to project schemes for a new existence of enterprise and +exertion—but, on the contrary, to resolve that he would +never, if he could possibly help it, be active or industrious +again, throughout the whole of his future career.</p> +<p>It is due to Mr. Idle to relate that his mind sauntered +towards this peculiar conclusion on distinct and +logically-producible grounds. After reviewing, quite at his +ease, and with many needful intervals of repose, the +generally-placid spectacle of his past existence, he arrived at +the discovery that all the great disasters which had tried his +patience and equanimity in early life, had been caused by his +having allowed himself to be deluded into imitating some +pernicious example of activity and industry that had been set him +by others. The trials to which he here alludes were three +in number, and may be thus reckoned up: First, the disaster of +being an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school; secondly, the +disaster of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of +becoming acquainted with a great bore.</p> +<p>The first disaster occurred after Thomas had been an idle and +a popular boy at school, for some happy years. One +Christmas-time, he was stimulated by the evil example of a +companion, whom he had always trusted and liked, to be untrue to +himself, and to try for a prize at the ensuing half-yearly +examination. He did try, and he got a prize—how, he +did not distinctly know at the moment, and cannot remember +now. No sooner, however, had the book—Moral Hints to +the Young on the Value of Time—been placed in his hands, +than the first troubles of his life began. The idle boys +deserted him, as a traitor to their cause. The industrious +boys avoided him, as a dangerous interloper; one of their number, +who had always won the prize on previous occasions, expressing +just resentment at the invasion of his privileges by calling +Thomas into the play-ground, and then and there administering to +him the first sound and genuine thrashing that he had ever +received in his life. Unpopular from that moment, as a +beaten boy, who belonged to no side and was rejected by all +parties, young Idle soon lost caste with his masters, as he had +previously lost caste with his schoolfellows. He had +forfeited the comfortable reputation of being the one lazy member +of the youthful community whom it was quite hopeless to +punish. Never again did he hear the headmaster say +reproachfully to an industrious boy who had committed a fault, +‘I might have expected this in Thomas Idle, but it is +inexcusable, sir, in you, who know better.’ Never +more, after winning that fatal prize, did he escape the +retributive imposition, or the avenging birch. From that +time, the masters made him work, and the boys would not let him +play. From that time his social position steadily declined, +and his life at school became a perpetual burden to him.</p> +<p>So, again, with the second disaster. While Thomas was +lazy, he was a model of health. His first attempt at active +exertion and his first suffering from severe illness are +connected together by the intimate relations of cause and +effect. Shortly after leaving school, he accompanied a +party of friends to a cricket-field, in his natural and +appropriate character of spectator only. On the ground it +was discovered that the players fell short of the required +number, and facile Thomas was persuaded to assist in making up +the complement. At a certain appointed time, he was roused +from peaceful slumber in a dry ditch, and placed before three +wickets with a bat in his hand. Opposite to him, behind +three more wickets, stood one of his bosom friends, filling the +situation (as he was informed) of bowler. No words can +describe Mr. Idle’s horror and amazement, when he saw this +young man—on ordinary occasions, the meekest and mildest of +human beings—suddenly contract his eye-brows, compress his +lips, assume the aspect of an infuriated savage, run back a few +steps, then run forward, and, without the slightest previous +provocation, hurl a detestably hard ball with all his might +straight at Thomas’s legs. Stimulated to +preternatural activity of body and sharpness of eye by the +instinct of self-preservation, Mr. Idle contrived, by jumping +deftly aside at the right moment, and by using his bat +(ridiculously narrow as it was for the purpose) as a shield, to +preserve his life and limbs from the dastardly attack that had +been made on both, to leave the full force of the deadly missile +to strike his wicket instead of his leg; and to end the innings, +so far as his side was concerned, by being immediately bowled +out. Grateful for his escape, he was about to return to the +dry ditch, when he was peremptorily stopped, and told that the +other side was ‘going in,’ and that he was expected +to ‘field.’ His conception of the whole art and +mystery of ‘fielding,’ may be summed up in the three +words of serious advice which he privately administered to +himself on that trying occasion—avoid the ball. +Fortified by this sound and salutary principle, he took his own +course, impervious alike to ridicule and abuse. Whenever +the ball came near him, he thought of his shins, and got out of +the way immediately. ‘Catch it!’ +‘Stop it!’ ‘Pitch it up!’ were +cries that passed by him like the idle wind that he regarded +not. He ducked under it, he jumped over it, he whisked +himself away from it on either side. Never once, through +the whole innings did he and the ball come together on anything +approaching to intimate terms. The unnatural activity of +body which was necessarily called forth for the accomplishment of +this result threw Thomas Idle, for the first time in his life, +into a perspiration. The perspiration, in consequence of +his want of practice in the management of that particular result +of bodily activity, was suddenly checked; the inevitable chill +succeeded; and that, in its turn, was followed by a fever. +For the first time since his birth, Mr. Idle found himself +confined to his bed for many weeks together, wasted and worn by a +long illness, of which his own disastrous muscular exertion had +been the sole first cause.</p> +<p>The third occasion on which Thomas found reason to reproach +himself bitterly for the mistake of having attempted to be +industrious, was connected with his choice of a calling in +life. Having no interest in the Church, he appropriately +selected the next best profession for a lazy man in +England—the Bar. Although the Benchers of the Inns of +Court have lately abandoned their good old principles, and oblige +their students to make some show of studying, in Mr. Idle’s +time no such innovation as this existed. Young men who +aspired to the honourable title of barrister were, very properly, +not asked to learn anything of the law, but were merely required +to eat a certain number of dinners at the table of their Hall, +and to pay a certain sum of money; and were called to the Bar as +soon as they could prove that they had sufficiently complied with +these extremely sensible regulations. Never did Thomas move +more harmoniously in concert with his elders and betters than +when he was qualifying himself for admission among the barristers +of his native country. Never did he feel more deeply what +real laziness was in all the serene majesty of its nature, than +on the memorable day when he was called to the Bar, after having +carefully abstained from opening his law-books during his period +of probation, except to fall asleep over them. How he could +ever again have become industrious, even for the shortest period, +after that great reward conferred upon his idleness, quite passes +his comprehension. The kind Benchers did everything they +could to show him the folly of exerting himself. They wrote +out his probationary exercise for him, and never expected him +even to take the trouble of reading it through when it was +written. They invited him, with seven other choice spirits +as lazy as himself, to come and be called to the Bar, while they +were sitting over their wine and fruit after dinner. They +put his oaths of allegiance, and his dreadful official +denunciations of the Pope and the Pretender, so gently into his +mouth, that he hardly knew how the words got there. They +wheeled all their chairs softly round from the table, and sat +surveying the young barristers with their backs to their bottles, +rather than stand up, or adjourn to hear the exercises +read. And when Mr. Idle and the seven unlabouring +neophytes, ranged in order, as a class, with their backs +considerately placed against a screen, had begun, in rotation, to +read the exercises which they had not written, even then, each +Bencher, true to the great lazy principle of the whole +proceeding, stopped each neophyte before he had stammered through +his first line, and bowed to him, and told him politely that he +was a barrister from that moment. This was all the +ceremony. It was followed by a social supper, and by the +presentation, in accordance with ancient custom, of a pound of +sweetmeats and a bottle of Madeira, offered in the way of needful +refreshment, by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent +Bencher. It may seem inconceivable that Thomas should ever +have forgotten the great do-nothing principle instilled by such a +ceremony as this; but it is, nevertheless, true, that certain +designing students of industrious habits found him out, took +advantage of his easy humour, persuaded him that it was +discreditable to be a barrister and to know nothing whatever +about the law, and lured him, by the force of their own evil +example, into a conveyancer’s chambers, to make up for lost +time, and to qualify himself for practice at the Bar. After +a fortnight of self-delusion, the curtain fell from his eyes; he +resumed his natural character, and shut up his books. But +the retribution which had hitherto always followed his little +casual errors of industry followed them still. He could get +away from the conveyancer’s chambers, but he could not get +away from one of the pupils, who had taken a fancy to +him,—a tall, serious, raw-boned, hard-working, disputatious +pupil, with ideas of his own about reforming the Law of Real +Property, who has been the scourge of Mr. Idle’s existence +ever since the fatal day when he fell into the mistake of +attempting to study the law. Before that time his friends +were all sociable idlers like himself. Since that time the +burden of bearing with a hard-working young man has become part +of his lot in life. Go where he will now, he can never feel +certain that the raw-boned pupil is not affectionately waiting +for him round a corner, to tell him a little more about the Law +of Real Property. Suffer as he may under the infliction, he +can never complain, for he must always remember, with unavailing +regret, that he has his own thoughtless industry to thank for +first exposing him to the great social calamity of knowing a +bore.</p> +<p>These events of his past life, with the significant results +that they brought about, pass drowsily through Thomas +Idle’s memory, while he lies alone on the sofa at Allonby +and elsewhere, dreaming away the time which his fellow-apprentice +gets through so actively out of doors. Remembering the +lesson of laziness which his past disasters teach, and bearing in +mind also the fact that he is crippled in one leg because he +exerted himself to go up a mountain, when he ought to have known +that his proper course of conduct was to stop at the bottom of +it, he holds now, and will for the future firmly continue to +hold, by his new resolution never to be industrious again, on any +pretence whatever, for the rest of his life. The physical +results of his accident have been related in a previous +chapter. The moral results now stand on record; and, with +the enumeration of these, that part of the present narrative +which is occupied by the Episode of The Sprained Ankle may now +perhaps be considered, in all its aspects, as finished and +complete.</p> +<p>‘How do you propose that we get through this present +afternoon and evening?’ demanded Thomas Idle, after two or +three hours of the foregoing reflections at Allonby.</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild faltered, looked out of window, looked in again, +and said, as he had so often said before, ‘There is the +sea, and here are the shrimps;—let us eat +’em’!’</p> +<p>But, the wise donkey was at that moment in the act of bolting: +not with the irresolution of his previous efforts which had been +wanting in sustained force of character, but with real vigour of +purpose: shaking the dust off his mane and hind-feet at Allonby, +and tearing away from it, as if he had nobly made up his mind +that he never would be taken alive. At sight of this +inspiring spectacle, which was visible from his sofa, Thomas Idle +stretched his neck and dwelt upon it rapturously.</p> +<p>‘Francis Goodchild,’ he then said, turning to his +companion with a solemn air, ‘this is a delightful little +Inn, excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and +the most attentive of landlords, but—the donkey’s +right!’</p> +<p>The words, ‘There is the sea, and here are +the—’ again trembled on the lips of Goodchild, +unaccompanied however by any sound.</p> +<p>‘Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,’ said +Thomas Idle, ‘pay the bill, and order a fly out, with +instructions to the driver to follow the donkey!’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild, who had only wanted encouragement to disclose +the real state of his feelings, and who had been pining beneath +his weary secret, now burst into tears, and confessed that he +thought another day in the place would be the death of him.</p> +<p>So, the two idle apprentices followed the donkey until the +night was far advanced. Whether he was recaptured by the +town-council, or is bolting at this hour through the United +Kingdom, they know not. They hope he may be still bolting; +if so, their best wishes are with him.</p> +<p>It entered Mr. Idle’s head, on the borders of +Cumberland, that there could be no idler place to stay at, except +by snatches of a few minutes each, than a railway station. +‘An intermediate station on a line—a +junction—anything of that sort,’ Thomas +suggested. Mr. Goodchild approved of the idea as eccentric, +and they journeyed on and on, until they came to such a station +where there was an Inn.</p> +<p>‘Here,’ said Thomas, ‘we may be luxuriously +lazy; other people will travel for us, as it were, and we shall +laugh at their folly.’</p> +<p>It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors before +mentioned shaved the air very often, and where the sharp +electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition. +All manner of cross-lines of rails came zig-zagging into it, like +a Congress of iron vipers; and, a little way out of it, a +pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going through +the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer at a +public-house bar. In one direction, confused perspectives +of embankments and arches were to be seen from the platform; in +the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two tracks +and shot away under a bridge, and curved round a corner. +Sidings were there, in which empty luggage-vans and cattle-boxes +often butted against each other as if they couldn’t agree; +and warehouses were there, in which great quantities of goods +seemed to have taken the veil (of the consistency of tarpaulin), +and to have retired from the world without any hope of getting +back to it. Refreshment-rooms were there; one, for the +hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives where their coke and water +were ready, and of good quality, for they were dangerous to play +tricks with; the other, for the hungry and thirsty human +Locomotives, who might take what they could get, and whose chief +consolation was provided in the form of three terrific urns or +vases of white metal, containing nothing, each forming a +breastwork for a defiant and apparently much-injured woman.</p> +<p>Established at this Station, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis +Goodchild resolved to enjoy it. But, its contrasts were +very violent, and there was also an infection in it.</p> +<p>First, as to its contrasts. They were only two, but they +were Lethargy and Madness. The Station was either totally +unconscious, or wildly raving. By day, in its unconscious +state, it looked as if no life could come to it,—as if it +were all rust, dust, and ashes—as if the last train for +ever, had gone without issuing any Return-Tickets—as if the +last Engine had uttered its last shriek and burst. One +awkward shave of the air from the wooden razor, and everything +changed. Tight office-doors flew open, panels yielded, +books, newspapers, travelling-caps and wrappers broke out of +brick walls, money chinked, conveyances oppressed by nightmares +of luggage came careering into the yard, porters started up from +secret places, ditto the much-injured women, the shining bell, +who lived in a little tray on stilts by himself, flew into a +man’s hand and clamoured violently. The pointsman +aloft in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some +difficulty, hogsheads of beer. Down Train! More +bear! Up Train! More beer. Cross junction +Train! More beer! Cattle Train! More +beer. Goods Train! Simmering, whistling, trembling, +rumbling, thundering. Trains on the whole confusion of +intersecting rails, crossing one another, bumping one another, +hissing one another, backing to go forward, tearing into distance +to come close. People frantic. Exiles seeking +restoration to their native carriages, and banished to remoter +climes. More beer and more bell. Then, in a minute, +the Station relapsed into stupor as the stoker of the Cattle +Train, the last to depart, went gliding out of it, wiping the +long nose of his oil-can with a dirty pocket-handkerchief.</p> +<p>By night, in its unconscious state, the Station was not so +much as visible. Something in the air, like an enterprising +chemist’s established in business on one of the boughs of +Jack’s beanstalk, was all that could be discerned of it +under the stars. In a moment it would break out, a +constellation of gas. In another moment, twenty rival +chemists, on twenty rival beanstalks, came into existence. +Then, the Furies would be seen, waving their lurid torches up and +down the confused perspectives of embankments and +arches—would be heard, too, wailing and shrieking. +Then, the Station would be full of palpitating trains, as in the +day; with the heightening difference that they were not so +clearly seen as in the day, whereas the Station walls, starting +forward under the gas, like a hippopotamus’s eyes, dazzled +the human locomotives with the sauce-bottle, the cheap music, the +bedstead, the distorted range of buildings where the patent safes +are made, the gentleman in the rain with the registered umbrella, +the lady returning from the ball with the registered respirator, +and all their other embellishments. And now, the human +locomotives, creased as to their countenances and purblind as to +their eyes, would swarm forth in a heap, addressing themselves to +the mysterious urns and the much-injured women; while the iron +locomotives, dripping fire and water, shed their steam about +plentifully, making the dull oxen in their cages, with heads +depressed, and foam hanging from their mouths as their red looks +glanced fearfully at the surrounding terrors, seem as though they +had been drinking at half-frozen waters and were hung with +icicles. Through the same steam would be caught glimpses of +their fellow-travellers, the sheep, getting their white kid faces +together, away from the bars, and stuffing the interstices with +trembling wool. Also, down among the wheels, of the man +with the sledge-hammer, ringing the axles of the fast +night-train; against whom the oxen have a misgiving that he is +the man with the pole-axe who is to come by-and-by, and so the +nearest of them try to get back, and get a purchase for a thrust +at him through the bars. Suddenly, the bell would ring, the +steam would stop with one hiss and a yell, the chemists on the +beanstalks would be busy, the avenging Furies would bestir +themselves, the fast night-train would melt from eye and ear, the +other trains going their ways more slowly would be heard faintly +rattling in the distance like old-fashioned watches running down, +the sauce-bottle and cheap music retired from view, even the +bedstead went to bed, and there was no such visible thing as the +Station to vex the cool wind in its blowing, or perhaps the +autumn lightning, as it found out the iron rails.</p> +<p>The infection of the Station was this:—When it was in +its raving state, the Apprentices found it impossible to be +there, without labouring under the delusion that they were in a +hurry. To Mr. Goodchild, whose ideas of idleness were so +imperfect, this was no unpleasant hallucination, and accordingly +that gentleman went through great exertions in yielding to it, +and running up and down the platform, jostling everybody, under +the impression that he had a highly important mission somewhere, +and had not a moment to lose. But, to Thomas Idle, this +contagion was so very unacceptable an incident of the situation, +that he struck on the fourth day, and requested to be moved.</p> +<p>‘This place fills me with a dreadful sensation,’ +said Thomas, ‘of having something to do. Remove me, +Francis.’</p> +<p>‘Where would you like to go next?’ was the +question of the ever-engaging Goodchild.</p> +<p>‘I have heard there is a good old Inn at Lancaster, +established in a fine old house: an Inn where they give you +Bride-cake every day after dinner,’ said Thomas Idle. +‘Let us eat Bride-cake without the trouble of being +married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous +dilemma.’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild, with a lover’s sigh, assented. They +departed from the Station in a violent hurry (for which, it is +unnecessary to observe, there was not the least occasion), and +were delivered at the fine old house at Lancaster, on the same +night.</p> +<p>It is Mr. Goodchild’s opinion, that if a visitor on his +arrival at Lancaster could be accommodated with a pole which +would push the opposite side of the street some yards farther +off, it would be better for all parties. Protesting against +being required to live in a trench, and obliged to speculate all +day upon what the people can possibly be doing within a +mysterious opposite window, which is a shop-window to look at, +but not a shop-window in respect of its offering nothing for sale +and declining to give any account whatever of itself, Mr. +Goodchild concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A +place dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with +a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a +place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras +mahogany, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have +got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself, and +to show the visitor, in the depth of its grain, through all its +polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who groaned long ago under +old Lancaster merchants. And Mr. Goodchild adds that the +stones of Lancaster do sometimes whisper, even yet, of rich men +passed away—upon whose great prosperity some of these old +doorways frowned sullen in the brightest weather—that their +slave-gain turned to curses, as the Arabian Wizard’s money +turned to leaves, and that no good ever came of it, even unto the +third and fourth generations, until it was wasted and gone.</p> +<p>It was a gallant sight to behold, the Sunday procession of the +Lancaster elders to Church—all in black, and looking +fearfully like a funeral without the Body—under the escort +of Three Beadles.</p> +<p>‘Think,’ said Francis, as he stood at the Inn +window, admiring, ‘of being taken to the sacred edifice by +three Beadles! I have, in my early time, been taken out of +it by one Beadle; but, to be taken into it by three, O Thomas, is +a distinction I shall never enjoy!’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Mr. Goodchild had looked out +of the Lancaster Inn window for two hours on end, with great +perseverance, he begun to entertain a misgiving that he was +growing industrious. He therefore set himself next, to +explore the country from the tops of all the steep hills in the +neighbourhood.</p> +<p>He came back at dinner-time, red and glowing, to tell Thomas +Idle what he had seen. Thomas, on his back reading, +listened with great composure, and asked him whether he really +had gone up those hills, and bothered himself with those views, +and walked all those miles?</p> +<p>‘Because I want to know,’ added Thomas, +‘what you would say of it, if you were obliged to do +it?’</p> +<p>‘It would be different, then,’ said Francis. +‘It would be work, then; now, it’s play.’</p> +<p>‘Play!’ replied Thomas Idle, utterly repudiating +the reply. ‘Play! Here is a man goes +systematically tearing himself to pieces, and putting himself +through an incessant course of training, as if he were always +under articles to fight a match for the champion’s belt, +and he calls it Play! Play!’ exclaimed Thomas Idle, +scornfully contemplating his one boot in the air. +‘You <i>can’t</i> play. You don’t know +what it is. You make work of everything.’</p> +<p>The bright Goodchild amiably smiled.</p> +<p>‘So you do,’ said Thomas. ‘I mean +it. To me you are an absolutely terrible fellow. You +do nothing like another man. Where another fellow would +fall into a footbath of action or emotion, you fall into a +mine. Where any other fellow would be a painted butterfly, +you are a fiery dragon. Where another man would stake a +sixpence, you stake your existence. If you were to go up in +a balloon, you would make for Heaven; and if you were to dive +into the depths of the earth, nothing short of the other place +would content you. What a fellow you are, +Francis!’ The cheerful Goodchild laughed.</p> +<p>‘It’s all very well to laugh, but I wonder you +don’t feel it to be serious,’ said Idle. +‘A man who can do nothing by halves appears to me to be a +fearful man.’</p> +<p>‘Tom, Tom,’ returned Goodchild, ‘if I can do +nothing by halves, and be nothing by halves, it’s pretty +clear that you must take me as a whole, and make the best of +me.’</p> +<p>With this philosophical rejoinder, the airy Goodchild clapped +Mr. Idle on the shoulder in a final manner, and they sat down to +dinner.</p> +<p>‘By-the-by,’ said Goodchild, ‘I have been +over a lunatic asylum too, since I have been out.’</p> +<p>‘He has been,’ exclaimed Thomas Idle, casting up +his eyes, ‘over a lunatic asylum! Not content with +being as great an Ass as Captain Barclay in the pedestrian way, +he makes a Lunacy Commissioner of himself—for +nothing!’</p> +<p>‘An immense place,’ said Goodchild, +‘admirable offices, very good arrangements, very good +attendants; altogether a remarkable place.’</p> +<p>‘And what did you see there?’ asked Mr. Idle, +adapting Hamlet’s advice to the occasion, and assuming the +virtue of interest, though he had it not.</p> +<p>‘The usual thing,’ said Francis Goodchild, with a +sigh. ‘Long groves of blighted men-and-women-trees; +interminable avenues of hopeless faces; numbers, without the +slightest power of really combining for any earthly purpose; a +society of human creatures who have nothing in common but that +they have all lost the power of being humanly social with one +another.’</p> +<p>‘Take a glass of wine with me,’ said Thomas Idle, +‘and let <i>us</i> be social.’</p> +<p>‘In one gallery, Tom,’ pursued Francis Goodchild, +‘which looked to me about the length of the Long Walk at +Windsor, more or less—’</p> +<p>‘Probably less,’ observed Thomas Idle.</p> +<p>‘In one gallery, which was otherwise clear of patients +(for they were all out), there was a poor little dark-chinned, +meagre man, with a perplexed brow and a pensive face, stooping +low over the matting on the floor, and picking out with his thumb +and forefinger the course of its fibres. The afternoon sun +was slanting in at the large end-window, and there were cross +patches of light and shade all down the vista, made by the unseen +windows and the open doors of the little sleeping-cells on either +side. In about the centre of the perspective, under an +arch, regardless of the pleasant weather, regardless of the +solitude, regardless of approaching footsteps, was the poor +little dark-chinned, meagre man, poring over the matting. +“What are you doing there?” said my conductor, when +we came to him. He looked up, and pointed to the +matting. “I wouldn’t do that, I think,” +said my conductor, kindly; “if I were you, I would go and +read, or I would lie down if I felt tired; but I wouldn’t +do that.” The patient considered a moment, and +vacantly answered, “No, sir, I won’t; +I’ll—I’ll go and read,” and so he lamely +shuffled away into one of the little rooms. I turned my +head before we had gone many paces. He had already come out +again, and was again poring over the matting, and tracking out +its fibres with his thumb and forefinger. I stopped to look +at him, and it came into my mind, that probably the course of +those fibres as they plaited in and out, over and under, was the +only course of things in the whole wide world that it was left to +him to understand—that his darkening intellect had narrowed +down to the small cleft of light which showed him, “This +piece was twisted this way, went in here, passed under, came out +there, was carried on away here to the right where I now put my +finger on it, and in this progress of events, the thing was made +and came to be here.” Then, I wondered whether he +looked into the matting, next, to see if it could show him +anything of the process through which <i>he</i> came to be there, +so strangely poring over it. Then, I thought how all of us, +<span class="smcap">God</span> help us! in our different ways are +poring over our bits of matting, blindly enough, and what +confusions and mysteries we make in the pattern. I had a +sadder fellow-feeling with the little dark-chinned, meagre man, +by that time, and I came away.’</p> +<p>Mr. Idle diverting the conversation to grouse, custards, and +bride-cake, Mr. Goodchild followed in the same direction. +The bride-cake was as bilious and indigestible as if a real Bride +had cut it, and the dinner it completed was an admirable +performance.</p> +<p>The house was a genuine old house of a very quaint +description, teeming with old carvings, and beams, and panels, +and having an excellent old staircase, with a gallery or upper +staircase, cut off from it by a curious fence-work of old oak, or +of the old Honduras Mahogany wood. It was, and is, and will +be, for many a long year to come, a remarkably picturesque house; +and a certain grave mystery lurking in the depth of the old +mahogany panels, as if they were so many deep pools of dark +water—such, indeed, as they had been much among when they +were trees—gave it a very mysterious character after +nightfall.</p> +<p>When Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle had first alighted at the +door, and stepped into the sombre, handsome old hall, they had +been received by half-a-dozen noiseless old men in black, all +dressed exactly alike, who glided up the stairs with the obliging +landlord and waiter—but without appearing to get into their +way, or to mind whether they did or no—and who had filed +off to the right and left on the old staircase, as the guests +entered their sitting-room. It was then broad, bright +day. But, Mr. Goodchild had said, when their door was shut, +‘Who on earth are those old men?’ And +afterwards, both on going out and coming in, he had noticed that +there were no old men to be seen.</p> +<p>Neither, had the old men, or any one of the old men, +reappeared since. The two friends had passed a night in the +house, but had seen nothing more of the old men. Mr. +Goodchild, in rambling about it, had looked along passages, and +glanced in at doorways, but had encountered no old men; neither +did it appear that any old men were, by any member of the +establishment, missed or expected.</p> +<p>Another odd circumstance impressed itself on their +attention. It was, that the door of their sitting-room was +never left untouched for a quarter of an hour. It was +opened with hesitation, opened with confidence, opened a little +way, opened a good way,—always clapped-to again without a +word of explanation. They were reading, they were writing, +they were eating, they were drinking, they were talking, they +were dozing; the door was always opened at an unexpected moment, +and they looked towards it, and it was clapped-to again, and +nobody was to be seen. When this had happened fifty times +or so, Mr. Goodchild had said to his companion, jestingly: +‘I begin to think, Tom, there was something wrong with +those six old men.’</p> +<p>Night had come again, and they had been writing for two or +three hours: writing, in short, a portion of the lazy notes from +which these lazy sheets are taken. They had left off +writing, and glasses were on the table between them. The +house was closed and quiet. Around the head of Thomas Idle, +as he lay upon his sofa, hovered light wreaths of fragrant +smoke. The temples of Francis Goodchild, as he leaned back +in his chair, with his two hands clasped behind his head, and his +legs crossed, were similarly decorated.</p> +<p>They had been discussing several idle subjects of speculation, +not omitting the strange old men, and were still so occupied, +when Mr. Goodchild abruptly changed his attitude to wind up his +watch. They were just becoming drowsy enough to be stopped +in their talk by any such slight check. Thomas Idle, who +was speaking at the moment, paused and said, ‘How goes +it?’</p> +<p>‘One,’ said Goodchild.</p> +<p>As if he had ordered One old man, and the order were promptly +executed (truly, all orders were so, in that excellent hotel), +the door opened, and One old man stood there.</p> +<p>He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand.</p> +<p>‘One of the six, Tom, at last!’ said Mr. +Goodchild, in a surprised whisper.—‘Sir, your +pleasure?’</p> +<p>‘Sir, <i>your</i> pleasure?’ said the One old +man.</p> +<p>‘I didn’t ring.’</p> +<p>‘The bell did,’ said the One old man.</p> +<p>He said <span class="smcap">Bell</span>, in a deep, strong +way, that would have expressed the church Bell.</p> +<p>‘I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, +yesterday?’ said Goodchild.</p> +<p>‘I cannot undertake to say for certain,’ was the +grim reply of the One old man.</p> +<p>‘I think you saw me? Did you not?’</p> +<p>‘Saw <i>you</i>?’ said the old man. ‘O +yes, I saw you. But, I see many who never see +me.’</p> +<p>A chilled, slow, earthy, fixed old man. A cadaverous old +man of measured speech. An old man who seemed as unable to +wink, as if his eyelids had been nailed to his forehead. An +old man whose eyes—two spots of fire—had no more +motion than if they had been connected with the back of his skull +by screws driven through it, and rivetted and bolted outside, +among his grey hair.</p> +<p>The night had turned so cold, to Mr. Goodchild’s +sensations, that he shivered. He remarked lightly, and half +apologetically, ‘I think somebody is walking over my +grave.’</p> +<p>‘No,’ said the weird old man, ‘there is no +one there.’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild looked at Idle, but Idle lay with his head +enwreathed in smoke.</p> +<p>‘No one there?’ said Goodchild.</p> +<p>‘There is no one at your grave, I assure you,’ +said the old man.</p> +<p>He had come in and shut the door, and he now sat down. +He did not bend himself to sit, as other people do, but seemed to +sink bolt upright, as if in water, until the chair stopped +him.</p> +<p>‘My friend, Mr. Idle,’ said Goodchild, extremely +anxious to introduce a third person into the conversation.</p> +<p>‘I am,’ said the old man, without looking at him, +‘at Mr. Idle’s service.’</p> +<p>‘If you are an old inhabitant of this place,’ +Francis Goodchild resumed.</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Perhaps you can decide a point my friend and I were in +doubt upon, this morning. They hang condemned criminals at +the Castle, I believe?’</p> +<p>‘<i>I</i> believe so,’ said the old man.</p> +<p>‘Are their faces turned towards that noble +prospect?’</p> +<p>‘Your face is turned,’ replied the old man, +‘to the Castle wall. When you are tied up, you see +its stones expanding and contracting violently, and a similar +expansion and contraction seem to take place in your own head and +breast. Then, there is a rush of fire and an earthquake, +and the Castle springs into the air, and you tumble down a +precipice.’</p> +<p>His cravat appeared to trouble him. He put his hand to +his throat, and moved his neck from side to side. He was an +old man of a swollen character of face, and his nose was +immoveably hitched up on one side, as if by a little hook +inserted in that nostril. Mr. Goodchild felt exceedingly +uncomfortable, and began to think the night was hot, and not +cold.</p> +<p>‘A strong description, sir,’ he observed.</p> +<p>‘A strong sensation,’ the old man rejoined.</p> +<p>Again, Mr. Goodchild looked to Mr. Thomas Idle; but Thomas lay +on his back with his face attentively turned towards the One old +man, and made no sign. At this time Mr. Goodchild believed +that he saw threads of fire stretch from the old man’s eyes +to his own, and there attach themselves. (Mr. Goodchild +writes the present account of his experience, and, with the +utmost solemnity, protests that he had the strongest sensation +upon him of being forced to look at the old man along those two +fiery films, from that moment.)</p> +<p>‘I must tell it to you,’ said the old man, with a +ghastly and a stony stare.</p> +<p>‘What?’ asked Francis Goodchild.</p> +<p>‘You know where it took place. Yonder!’</p> +<p>Whether he pointed to the room above, or to the room below, or +to any room in that old house, or to a room in some other old +house in that old town, Mr. Goodchild was not, nor is, nor ever +can be, sure. He was confused by the circumstance that the +right forefinger of the One old man seemed to dip itself in one +of the threads of fire, light itself, and make a fiery start in +the air, as it pointed somewhere. Having pointed somewhere, +it went out.</p> +<p>‘You know she was a Bride,’ said the old man.</p> +<p>‘I know they still send up Bride-cake,’ Mr. +Goodchild faltered. ‘This is a very oppressive +air.’</p> +<p>‘She was a Bride,’ said the old man. +‘She was a fair, flaxen-haired, large-eyed girl, who had no +character, no purpose. A weak, credulous, incapable, +helpless nothing. Not like her mother. No, no. +It was her father whose character she reflected.</p> +<p>‘Her mother had taken care to secure everything to +herself, for her own life, when the father of this girl (a child +at that time) died—of sheer helplessness; no other +disorder—and then He renewed the acquaintance that had once +subsisted between the mother and Him. He had been put aside +for the flaxen-haired, large-eyed man (or nonentity) with +Money. He could overlook that for Money. He wanted +compensation in Money.</p> +<p>‘So, he returned to the side of that woman the mother, +made love to her again, danced attendance on her, and submitted +himself to her whims. She wreaked upon him every whim she +had, or could invent. He bore it. And the more he +bore, the more he wanted compensation in Money, and the more he +was resolved to have it.</p> +<p>‘But, lo! Before he got it, she cheated him. +In one of her imperious states, she froze, and never thawed +again. She put her hands to her head one night, uttered a +cry, stiffened, lay in that attitude certain hours, and +died. And he had got no compensation from her in Money, +yet. Blight and Murrain on her! Not a penny.</p> +<p>‘He had hated her throughout that second pursuit, and +had longed for retaliation on her. He now counterfeited her +signature to an instrument, leaving all she had to leave, to her +daughter—ten years old then—to whom the property +passed absolutely, and appointing himself the daughter’s +Guardian. When He slid it under the pillow of the bed on +which she lay, He bent down in the deaf ear of Death, and +whispered: “Mistress Pride, I have determined a long time +that, dead or alive, you must make me compensation in +Money.”’</p> +<p>‘So, now there were only two left. Which two were, +He, and the fair flaxen-haired, large-eyed foolish daughter, who +afterwards became the Bride.</p> +<p>‘He put her to school. In a secret, dark, +oppressive, ancient house, he put her to school with a watchful +and unscrupulous woman. “My worthy lady,” he +said, “here is a mind to be formed; will you help me to +form it?” She accepted the trust. For which +she, too, wanted compensation in Money, and had it.</p> +<p>‘The girl was formed in the fear of him, and in the +conviction, that there was no escape from him. She was +taught, from the first, to regard him as her future +husband—the man who must marry her—the destiny that +overshadowed her—the appointed certainty that could never +be evaded. The poor fool was soft white wax in their hands, +and took the impression that they put upon her. It hardened +with time. It became a part of herself. Inseparable +from herself, and only to be torn away from her, by tearing life +away from her.</p> +<p>‘Eleven years she had lived in the dark house and its +gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air +getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the +wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed +ivy to wander where it would over the house-front, the moss to +accumulate on the untrimmed fruit-trees in the red-walled garden, +the weeds to over-run its green and yellow walks. He +surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He +caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the +stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting +them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in +the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of +terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from +which he overlooked her, and present himself as her sole +resource.</p> +<p>‘Thus, by being from her childhood the one embodiment +her life presented to her of power to coerce and power to +relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency over +her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years and +twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the gloomy +house, his half-witted, frightened, and submissive Bride of three +weeks.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p408b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"A submissive bride" +title= +"A submissive bride" + src="images/p408s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>‘He had dismissed the governess by that time—what +he had left to do, he could best do alone—and they came +back, upon a rain night, to the scene of her long +preparation. She turned to him upon the threshold, as the +rain was dripping from the porch, and said:</p> +<p>‘“O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for +me!”</p> +<p>‘“Well!” he answered. “And if it +were?”</p> +<p>‘“O sir!” she returned to him, “look +kindly on me, and be merciful to me! I beg your +pardon. I will do anything you wish, if you will only +forgive me!”</p> +<p>‘That had become the poor fool’s constant song: +“I beg your pardon,” and “Forgive +me!”</p> +<p>‘She was not worth hating; he felt nothing but contempt +for her. But, she had long been in the way, and he had long +been weary, and the work was near its end, and had to be worked +out.</p> +<p>‘“You fool,” he said. “Go up the +stairs!”</p> +<p>‘She obeyed very quickly, murmuring, “I will do +anything you wish!” When he came into the +Bride’s Chamber, having been a little retarded by the heavy +fastenings of the great door (for they were alone in the house, +and he had arranged that the people who attended on them should +come and go in the day), he found her withdrawn to the furthest +corner, and there standing pressed against the paneling as if she +would have shrunk through it: her flaxen hair all wild about her +face, and her large eyes staring at him in vague terror.</p> +<p>‘“What are you afraid of? Come and sit down +by me.”</p> +<p>‘“I will do anything you wish. I beg your +pardon, sir. Forgive me!” Her monotonous tune +as usual.</p> +<p>‘“Ellen, here is a writing that you must write out +to-morrow, in your own hand. You may as well be seen by +others, busily engaged upon it. When you have written it +all fairly, and corrected all mistakes, call in any two people +there may be about the house, and sign your name to it before +them. Then, put it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when +I sit here again to-morrow night, give it to me.”</p> +<p>‘“I will do it all, with the greatest care. +I will do anything you wish.”</p> +<p>‘“Don’t shake and tremble, then.”</p> +<p>‘“I will try my utmost not to do it—if you +will only forgive me!”</p> +<p>‘Next day, she sat down at her desk, and did as she had +been told. He often passed in and out of the room, to +observe her, and always saw her slowly and laboriously writing: +repeating to herself the words she copied, in appearance quite +mechanically, and without caring or endeavouring to comprehend +them, so that she did her task. He saw her follow the +directions she had received, in all particulars; and at night, +when they were alone again in the same Bride’s Chamber, and +he drew his chair to the hearth, she timidly approached him from +her distant seat, took the paper from her bosom, and gave it into +his hand.</p> +<p>‘It secured all her possessions to him, in the event of +her death. He put her before him, face to face, that he +might look at her steadily; and he asked her, in so many plain +words, neither fewer nor more, did she know that?</p> +<p>‘There were spots of ink upon the bosom of her white +dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look +larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon +the hand with which she stood before him, nervously plaiting and +folding her white skirts.</p> +<p>‘He took her by the arm, and looked her, yet more +closely and steadily, in the face. “Now, die! I +have done with you.”</p> +<p>‘She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed cry.</p> +<p>‘“I am not going to kill you. I will not +endanger my life for yours. Die!”</p> +<p>‘He sat before her in the gloomy Bride’s Chamber, +day after day, night after night, looking the word at her when he +did not utter it. As often as her large unmeaning eyes were +raised from the hands in which she rocked her head, to the stern +figure, sitting with crossed arms and knitted forehead, in the +chair, they read in it, “Die!” When she dropped +asleep in exhaustion, she was called back to shuddering +consciousness, by the whisper, “Die!” When she +fell upon her old entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered +“Die!” When she had out-watched and +out-suffered the long night, and the rising sun flamed into the +sombre room, she heard it hailed with, “Another day and not +dead?—Die!”</p> +<p>‘Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof from all +mankind, and engaged alone in such a struggle without any +respite, it came to this—that either he must die, or +she. He knew it very well, and concentrated his strength +against her feebleness. Hours upon hours he held her by the +arm when her arm was black where he held it, and bade her +Die!</p> +<p>‘It was done, upon a windy morning, before +sunrise. He computed the time to be half-past four; but, +his forgotten watch had run down, and he could not be sure. +She had broken away from him in the night, with loud and sudden +cries—the first of that kind to which she had given +vent—and he had had to put his hands over her mouth. +Since then, she had been quiet in the corner of the paneling +where she had sunk down; and he had left her, and had gone back +with his folded arms and his knitted forehead to his chair.</p> +<p>‘Paler in the pale light, more colourless than ever in +the leaden dawn, he saw her coming, trailing herself along the +floor towards him—a white wreck of hair, and dress, and +wild eyes, pushing itself on by an irresolute and bending +hand.</p> +<p>‘“O, forgive me! I will do anything. +O, sir, pray tell me I may live!”</p> +<p>‘“Die!”</p> +<p>‘“Are you so resolved? Is there no hope for +me?”</p> +<p>‘“Die!”</p> +<p>‘Her large eyes strained themselves with wonder and +fear; wonder and fear changed to reproach; reproach to blank +nothing. It was done. He was not at first so sure it +was done, but that the morning sun was hanging jewels in her +hair—he saw the diamond, emerald, and ruby, glittering +among it in little points, as he stood looking down at +her—when he lifted her and laid her on her bed.</p> +<p>‘She was soon laid in the ground. And now they +were all gone, and he had compensated himself well.</p> +<p>‘He had a mind to travel. Not that he meant to +waste his Money, for he was a pinching man and liked his Money +dearly (liked nothing else, indeed), but, that he had grown tired +of the desolate house and wished to turn his back upon it and +have done with it. But, the house was worth Money, and +Money must not be thrown away. He determined to sell it +before he went. That it might look the less wretched and +bring a better price, he hired some labourers to work in the +overgrown garden; to cut out the dead wood, trim the ivy that +drooped in heavy masses over the windows and gables, and clear +the walks in which the weeds were growing mid-leg high.</p> +<p>‘He worked, himself, along with them. He worked +later than they did, and, one evening at dusk, was left working +alone, with his bill-hook in his hand. One autumn evening, +when the Bride was five weeks dead.</p> +<p>‘“It grows too dark to work longer,” he said +to himself, “I must give over for the night.”</p> +<p>‘He detested the house, and was loath to enter it. +He looked at the dark porch waiting for him like a tomb, and felt +that it was an accursed house. Near to the porch, and near +to where he stood, was a tree whose branches waved before the old +bay-window of the Bride’s Chamber, where it had been +done. The tree swung suddenly, and made him start. It +swung again, although the night was still. Looking up into +it, he saw a figure among the branches.</p> +<p>‘It was the figure of a young man. The face looked +down, as his looked up; the branches cracked and swayed; the +figure rapidly descended, and slid upon its feet before +him. A slender youth of about her age, with long light +brown hair.</p> +<p>‘“What thief are you?” he said, seizing the +youth by the collar.</p> +<p>‘The young man, in shaking himself free, swung him a +blow with his arm across the face and throat. They closed, +but the young man got from him and stepped back, crying, with +great eagerness and horror, “Don’t touch me! I +would as lieve be touched by the Devil!”</p> +<p>‘He stood still, with his bill-hook in his hand, looking +at the young man. For, the young man’s look was the +counterpart of her last look, and he had not expected ever to see +that again.</p> +<p>‘“I am no thief. Even if I were, I would not +have a coin of your wealth, if it would buy me the Indies. +You murderer!”</p> +<p>‘“What!”</p> +<p>‘“I climbed it,” said the young man, +pointing up into the tree, “for the first time, nigh four +years ago. I climbed it, to look at her. I saw +her. I spoke to her. I have climbed it, many a time, +to watch and listen for her. I was a boy, hidden among its +leaves, when from that bay-window she gave me this!”</p> +<p>‘He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning +ribbon.</p> +<p>‘“Her life,” said the young man, “was +a life of mourning. She gave me this, as a token of it, and +a sign that she was dead to every one but you. If I had +been older, if I had seen her sooner, I might have saved her from +you. But, she was fast in the web when I first climbed the +tree, and what could I do then to break it!”</p> +<p>‘In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing +and crying: weakly at first, then passionately.</p> +<p>‘“Murderer! I climbed the tree on the night +when you brought her back. I heard her, from the tree, +speak of the Death-watch at the door. I was three times in +the tree while you were shut up with her, slowly killing +her. I saw her, from the tree, lie dead upon her bed. +I have watched you, from the tree, for proofs and traces of your +guilt. The manner of it, is a mystery to me yet, but I will +pursue you until you have rendered up your life to the +hangman. You shall never, until then, be rid of me. I +loved her! I can know no relenting towards you. +Murderer, I loved her!”</p> +<p>‘The youth was bare-headed, his hat having fluttered +away in his descent from the tree. He moved towards the +gate. He had to pass—Him—to get to it. +There was breadth for two old-fashioned carriages abreast; and +the youth’s abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature +of his face and limb of his body, and very hard to bear, had +verge enough to keep itself at a distance in. He (by which +I mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had +stood still to look at the boy. He faced round, now, to +follow him with his eyes. As the back of the bare +light-brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch +from his hand to it. He knew, before he threw the +bill-hook, where it had alighted—I say, had alighted, and +not, would alight; for, to his clear perception the thing was +done before he did it. It cleft the head, and it remained +there, and the boy lay on his face.</p> +<p>‘He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the +tree. As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at +turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing +at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When the +labourers came, there was nothing suspicious, and nothing +suspected.</p> +<p>‘But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions, +and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted, +and so successfully worked out. He had got rid of the +Bride, and had acquired her fortune without endangering his life; +but now, for a death by which he had gained nothing, he had +evermore to live with a rope around his neck.</p> +<p>‘Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and +horror, which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it +or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced to +live in it. He hired two old people, man and wife, for his +servants; and dwelt in it, and dreaded it. His great +difficulty, for a long time, was the garden. Whether he +should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into its +former state of neglect, what would be the least likely way of +attracting attention to it?</p> +<p>‘He took the middle course of gardening, himself, in his +evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving-man to help +him; but, of never letting him work there alone. And he +made himself an arbour over against the tree, where he could sit +and see that it was safe.</p> +<p>‘As the seasons changed, and the tree changed, his mind +perceived dangers that were always changing. In the leafy +time, he perceived that the upper boughs were growing into the +form of the young man—that they made the shape of him +exactly, sitting in a forked branch swinging in the wind. +In the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came +down from the tree, forming tell-tale letters on the path, or +that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a churchyard +mound above the grave. In the winter, when the tree was +bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the ghost of the +blow the young man had given, and that they threatened him +openly. In the spring, when the sap was mounting in the +trunk, he asked himself, were the dried-up particles of blood +mounting with it: to make out more obviously this year than last, +the leaf-screened figure of the young man, swinging in the +wind?</p> +<p>‘However, he turned his Money over and over, and still +over. He was in the dark trade, the gold-dust trade, and +most secret trades that yielded great returns. In ten +years, he had turned his Money over, so many times, that the +traders and shippers who had dealings with him, absolutely did +not lie—for once—when they declared that he had +increased his fortune, Twelve Hundred Per Cent.</p> +<p>‘He possessed his riches one hundred years ago, when +people could be lost easily. He had heard who the youth +was, from hearing of the search that was made after him; but, it +died away, and the youth was forgotten.</p> +<p>‘The annual round of changes in the tree had been +repeated ten times since the night of the burial at its foot, +when there was a great thunder-storm over this place. It +broke at midnight, and roared until morning. The first +intelligence he heard from his old serving-man that morning, was, +that the tree had been struck by Lightning.</p> +<p>‘It had been riven down the stem, in a very surprising +manner, and the stem lay in two blighted shafts: one resting +against the house, and one against a portion of the old red +garden-wall in which its fall had made a gap. The fissure +went down the tree to a little above the earth, and there +stopped. There was great curiosity to see the tree, and, +with most of his former fears revived, he sat in his +arbour—grown quite an old man—watching the people who +came to see it.</p> +<p>‘They quickly began to come, in such dangerous numbers, +that he closed his garden-gate and refused to admit any +more. But, there were certain men of science who travelled +from a distance to examine the tree, and, in an evil hour, he let +them in!—Blight and Murrain on them, let them in!</p> +<p>‘They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots, and +closely examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he +lived! They offered money for it. They! Men of +science, whom he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch +of his pen! He showed them the garden-gate again, and +locked and barred it.</p> +<p>‘But they were bent on doing what they wanted to do, and +they bribed the old serving-man—a thankless wretch who +regularly complained when he received his wages, of being +underpaid—and they stole into the garden by night with +their lanterns, picks, and shovels, and fell to at the +tree. He was lying in a turret-room on the other side of +the house (the Bride’s Chamber had been unoccupied ever +since), but he soon dreamed of picks and shovels, and got up.</p> +<p>‘He came to an upper window on that side, whence he +could see their lanterns, and them, and the loose earth in a heap +which he had himself disturbed and put back, when it was last +turned to the air. It was found! They had that minute +lighted on it. They were all bending over it. One of +them said, “The skull is fractured;” and another, +“See here the bones;” and another, “See here +the clothes;” and then the first struck in again, and said, +“A rusty bill-hook!”</p> +<p>‘He became sensible, next day, that he was already put +under a strict watch, and that he could go nowhere without being +followed. Before a week was out, he was taken and laid in +hold. The circumstances were gradually pieced together +against him, with a desperate malignity, and an appalling +ingenuity. But, see the justice of men, and how it was +extended to him! He was further accused of having poisoned +that girl in the Bride’s Chamber. He, who had +carefully and expressly avoided imperilling a hair of his head +for her, and who had seen her die of her own incapacity!</p> +<p>‘There was doubt for which of the two murders he should +be first tried; but, the real one was chosen, and he was found +Guilty, and cast for death. Bloodthirsty wretches! +They would have made him Guilty of anything, so set they were +upon having his life.</p> +<p>‘His money could do nothing to save him, and he was +hanged. <i>I</i> am He, and I was hanged at Lancaster +Castle with my face to the wall, a hundred years ago!’</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>At this terrific announcement, Mr. Goodchild tried to rise and +cry out. But, the two fiery lines extending from the old +man’s eyes to his own, kept him down, and he could not +utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute, +and he could hear the clock strike Two. No sooner had he +heard the clock strike Two, than he saw before him Two old +men!</p> +<p>Two.</p> +<p>The eyes of each, connected with his eyes by two films of +fire: each, exactly like the other: each, addressing him at +precisely one and the same instant: each, gnashing the same teeth +in the same head, with the same twitched nostril above them, and +the same suffused expression around it. Two old men. +Differing in nothing, equally distinct to the sight, the copy no +fainter than the original, the second as real as the first.</p> +<p>‘At what time,’ said the Two old men, ‘did +you arrive at the door below?’</p> +<p>‘At Six.’</p> +<p>‘And there were Six old men upon the stairs!’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration from his brow, or +tried to do it, the Two old men proceeded in one voice, and in +the singular number:</p> +<p>‘I had been anatomised, but had not yet had my skeleton +put together and re-hung on an iron hook, when it began to be +whispered that the Bride’s Chamber was haunted. It +<i>was</i> haunted, and I was there.</p> +<p>‘<i>We</i> were there. She and I were there. +I, in the chair upon the hearth; she, a white wreck again, +trailing itself towards me on the floor. But, I was the +speaker no more, and the one word that she said to me from +midnight until dawn was, ‘Live!’</p> +<p>‘The youth was there, likewise. In the tree +outside the window. Coming and going in the moonlight, as +the tree bent and gave. He has, ever since, been there, +peeping in at me in my torment; revealing to me by snatches, in +the pale lights and slatey shadows where he comes and goes, +bare-headed—a bill-hook, standing edgewise in his hair.</p> +<p>‘In the Bride’s Chamber, every night from midnight +until dawn—one month in the year excepted, as I am going to +tell you—he hides in the tree, and she comes towards me on +the floor; always approaching; never coming nearer; always +visible as if by moon-light, whether the moon shines or no; +always saying, from mid-night until dawn, her one word, +“Live!”</p> +<p>‘But, in the month wherein I was forced out of this +life—this present month of thirty days—the +Bride’s Chamber is empty and quiet. Not so my old +dungeon. Not so the rooms where I was restless and afraid, +ten years. Both are fitfully haunted then. At One in +the morning. I am what you saw me when the clock struck +that hour—One old man. At Two in the morning, I am +Two old men. At Three, I am Three. By Twelve at noon, +I am Twelve old men, One for every hundred per cent. of old +gain. Every one of the Twelve, with Twelve times my old +power of suffering and agony. From that hour until Twelve +at night, I, Twelve old men in anguish and fearful foreboding, +wait for the coming of the executioner. At Twelve at night, +I, Twelve old men turned off, swing invisible outside Lancaster +Castle, with Twelve faces to the wall!</p> +<p>‘When the Bride’s Chamber was first haunted, it +was known to me that this punishment would never cease, until I +could make its nature, and my story, known to two living men +together. I waited for the coming of two living men +together into the Bride’s Chamber, years upon years. +It was infused into my knowledge (of the means I am ignorant) +that if two living men, with their eyes open, could be in the +Bride’s Chamber at One in the morning, they would see me +sitting in my chair.</p> +<p>‘At length, the whispers that the room was spiritually +troubled, brought two men to try the adventure. I was +scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight (I come there as if +the Lightning blasted me into being), when I heard them ascending +the stairs. Next, I saw them enter. One of them was a +bold, gay, active man, in the prime of life, some five and forty +years of age; the other, a dozen years younger. They +brought provisions with them in a basket, and bottles. A +young woman accompanied them, with wood and coals for the +lighting of the fire. When she had lighted it, the bold, +gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery outside the +room, to see her safely down the staircase, and came back +laughing.</p> +<p>‘He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the +contents of the basket on the table before the fire—little +recking of me, in my appointed station on the hearth, close to +him—and filled the glasses, and ate and drank. His +companion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as he: +though he was the leader. When they had supped, they laid +pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to smoke +their pipes of foreign make.</p> +<p>‘They had travelled together, and had been much +together, and had an abundance of subjects in common. In +the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man made a +reference to the leader’s being always ready for any +adventure; that one, or any other. He replied in these +words:</p> +<p>‘“Not quite so, Dick; if I am afraid of nothing +else, I am afraid of myself.”</p> +<p>‘His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him, +in what sense? How?</p> +<p>‘“Why, thus,” he returned. “Here +is a Ghost to be disproved. Well! I cannot answer for +what my fancy might do if I were alone here, or what tricks my +senses might play with me if they had me to themselves. +But, in company with another man, and especially with Dick, I +would consent to outface all the Ghosts that were ever of in the +universe.”</p> +<p>‘“I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so +much importance to-night,” said the other.</p> +<p>‘“Of so much,” rejoined the leader, more +seriously than he had spoken yet, “that I would, for the +reason I have given, on no account have undertaken to pass the +night here alone.”</p> +<p>‘It was within a few minutes of One. The head of +the younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and it +drooped lower now.</p> +<p>‘“Keep awake, Dick!” said the leader, +gaily. “The small hours are the worst.”</p> +<p>‘He tried, but his head drooped again.</p> +<p>‘“Dick!” urged the leader. “Keep +awake!”</p> +<p>‘“I can’t,” he indistinctly +muttered. “I don’t know what strange influence +is stealing over me. I can’t.”</p> +<p>‘His companion looked at him with a sudden horror, and +I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on +the stroke of One, and I felt that the second watcher was +yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send +him to sleep.</p> +<p>‘“Get up and walk, Dick!” cried the +leader. “Try!”</p> +<p>‘It was in vain to go behind the slumber’s chair +and shake him. One o’clock sounded, and I was present +to the elder man, and he stood transfixed before me.</p> +<p>‘To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story, without +hope of benefit. To him alone, I was an awful phantom +making a quite useless confession. I foresee it will ever +be the same. The two living men together will never come to +release me. When I appear, the senses of one of the two +will be locked in sleep; he will neither see nor hear me; my +communication will ever be made to a solitary listener, and will +ever be unserviceable. Woe! Woe! +Woe!’</p> +<p>As the Two old men, with these words, wrung their hands, it +shot into Mr. Goodchild’s mind that he was in the terrible +situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr. +Idle’s immoveability was explained by his having been +charmed asleep at One o’clock. In the terror of this +sudden discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he +struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that +he snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great +width. Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idle from +the sofa and rushed down-stairs with him.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>‘What are you about, Francis?’ demanded Mr. +Idle. ‘My bedroom is not down here. What the +deuce are you carrying me at all for? I can walk with a +stick now. I don’t want to be carried. Put me +down.’</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked about +him wildly.</p> +<p>‘What are you doing? Idiotically plunging at your +own sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?’ +asked Mr. Idle, in a highly petulant state.</p> +<p>‘The One old man!’ cried Mr. Goodchild, +distractedly,—‘and the Two old men!’</p> +<p>Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than ‘The One old woman, +I think you mean,’ as he began hobbling his way back up the +staircase, with the assistance of its broad balustrade.</p> +<p>‘I assure you, Tom,’ began Mr. Goodchild, +attending at his side, ‘that since you fell +asleep—’</p> +<p>‘Come, I like that!’ said Thomas Idle, ‘I +haven’t closed an eye!’</p> +<p>With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the +disgraceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot +of all mankind, Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The +same peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being +taxed with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable +resentment. The settlement of the question of The One old +man and The Two old men was thus presently complicated, and soon +made quite impracticable. Mr. Idle said it was all +Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of things seen and +thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said how could that +be, when he hadn’t been asleep, and what right could Mr. +Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr. Idle said he +had never been asleep, and never did go to sleep, and that Mr. +Goodchild, as a general rule, was always asleep. They +consequently parted for the rest of the night, at their bedroom +doors, a little ruffled. Mr. Goodchild’s last words +were, that he had had, in that real and tangible old sitting-room +of that real and tangible old Inn (he supposed Mr. Idle denied +its existence?), every sensation and experience, the present +record of which is now within a line or two of completion; and +that he would write it out and print it every word. Mr. +Idle returned that he might if he liked—and he did like, +and has now done it.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Two</span> of the many passengers by a +certain late Sunday evening train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. +Francis Goodchild, yielded up their tickets at a little rotten +platform (converted into artificial touchwood by smoke and +ashes), deep in the manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire. A +mysterious bosom it appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night, +dashed through in the train to the music of the whirling wheels, +the panting of the engine, and the part-singing of hundreds of +third-class excursionists, whose vocal efforts ‘bobbed +arayound’ from sacred to profane, from hymns, to our +transatlantic sisters the Yankee Gal and Mairy Anne, in a +remarkable way. There seemed to have been some large vocal +gathering near to every lonely station on the line. No town +was visible, no village was visible, no light was visible; but, a +multitude got out singing, and a multitude got in singing, and +the second multitude took up the hymns, and adopted our +transatlantic sisters, and sang of their own egregious +wickedness, and of their bobbing arayound, and of how the ship it +was ready and the wind it was fair, and they were bayound for the +sea, Mairy Anne, until they in their turn became a getting-out +multitude, and were replaced by another getting-in multitude, who +did the same. And at every station, the getting-in +multitude, with an artistic reference to the completeness of +their chorus, incessantly cried, as with one voice while +scuffling into the carriages, ‘We mun aa’ gang +toogither!’</p> +<p>The singing and the multitudes had trailed off as the lonely +places were left and the great towns were neared, and the way had +lain as silently as a train’s way ever can, over the vague +black streets of the great gulfs of towns, and among their +branchless woods of vague black chimneys. These towns +looked, in the cinderous wet, as though they had one and all been +on fire and were just put out—a dreary and quenched +panorama, many miles long.</p> +<p>Thus, Thomas and Francis got to Leeds; of which enterprising +and important commercial centre it may be observed with delicacy, +that you must either like it very much or not at all. Next +day, the first of the Race-Week, they took train to +Doncaster.</p> +<p>And instantly the character, both of travellers and of +luggage, entirely changed, and no other business than +race-business any longer existed on the face of the earth. +The talk was all of horses and ‘John Scott.’ +Guards whispered behind their hands to station-masters, of horses +and John Scott. Men in cut-away coats and speckled cravats +fastened with peculiar pins, and with the large bones of their +legs developed under tight trousers, so that they should look as +much as possible like horses’ legs, paced up and down by +twos at junction-stations, speaking low and moodily of horses and +John Scott. The young clergyman in the black +strait-waistcoat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, +expounded in his peculiar pulpit-accent to the young and lovely +Reverend Mrs. Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a +few passages of rumour relative to ‘Oartheth, my love, and +Mithter John Eth-<span class="GutSmall">COTT</span>.’ +A bandy vagabond, with a head like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian +stable-suit, attending on a horse-box and going about the +platforms with a halter hanging round his neck like a Calais +burgher of the ancient period much degenerated, was courted by +the best society, by reason of what he had to hint, when not +engaged in eating straw, concerning ‘t’harses and +Joon Scott.’ The engine-driver himself, as he applied +one eye to his large stationary double-eye-glass on the engine, +seemed to keep the other open, sideways, upon horses and John +Scott.</p> +<p>Breaks and barriers at Doncaster Station to keep the crowd +off; temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help the +crowd on. Forty extra porters sent down for this present +blessed Race-Week, and all of them making up their betting-books +in the lamp-room or somewhere else, and none of them to come and +touch the luggage. Travellers disgorged into an open space, +a howling wilderness of idle men. All work but race-work at +a stand-still; all men at a stand-still. ‘Ey my +word! Deant ask noon o’ us to help wi’ +t’luggage. Bock your opinion loike a mon. +Coom! Dang it, coom, t’harses and Joon +Scott!’ In the midst of the idle men, all the fly +horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts adjacent, +rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying—apparently the +result of their hearing of nothing but their own order and John +Scott.</p> +<p>Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-Week. +Poses Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up the Stable-Yard at +seven and nine each evening, for the Race-Week. Grand +Alliance Circus in the field beyond the bridge, for the +Race-Week. Grand Exhibition of Aztec Lilliputians, +important to all who want to be horrified cheap, for the +Race-Week. Lodgings, grand and not grand, but all at grand +prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the Grand +Race-Week!</p> +<p>Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle and +Goodchild repaired to the quarters they had secured beforehand, +and Mr. Goodchild looked down from the window into the surging +street.</p> +<p>‘By Heaven, Tom!’ cried he, after contemplating +it, ‘I am in the Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all +mad people under the charge of a body of designing +keepers!’</p> +<p>All through the Race-Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested +himself of this idea. Every day he looked out of window, +with something of the dread of Lemuel Gulliver looking down at +men after he returned home from the horse-country; and every day +he saw the Lunatics, horse-mad, betting-mad, drunken-mad, +vice-mad, and the designing Keepers always after them. The +idea pervaded, like the second colour in shot-silk, the whole of +Mr. Goodchild’s impressions. They were much as +follows:</p> +<p>Monday, mid-day. Races not to begin until to-morrow, but +all the mob-Lunatics out, crowding the pavements of the one main +street of pretty and pleasant Doncaster, crowding the road, +particularly crowding the outside of the Betting Rooms, whooping +and shouting loudly after all passing vehicles. Frightened +lunatic horses occasionally running away, with infinite +clatter. All degrees of men, from peers to paupers, betting +incessantly. Keepers very watchful, and taking all good +chances. An awful family likeness among the Keepers, to Mr. +Palmer and Mr. Thurtell. With some knowledge of expression +and some acquaintance with heads (thus writes Mr. Goodchild), I +never have seen anywhere, so many repetitions of one class of +countenance and one character of head (both evil) as in this +street at this time. Cunning, covetousness, secrecy, cold +calculation, hard callousness and dire insensibility, are the +uniform Keeper characteristics. Mr. Palmer passes me five +times in five minutes, and, so I go down the street, the back of +Mr. Thurtell’s skull is always going on before me.</p> +<p>Monday evening. Town lighted up; more Lunatics out than +ever; a complete choke and stoppage of the thoroughfare outside +the Betting Rooms. Keepers, having dined, pervade the +Betting Rooms, and sharply snap at the moneyed Lunatics. +Some Keepers flushed with drink, and some not, but all close and +calculating. A vague echoing roar of +‘t’harses’ and ‘t’races’ +always rising in the air, until midnight, at about which period +it dies away in occasional drunken songs and straggling +yells. But, all night, some unmannerly drinking-house in +the neighbourhood opens its mouth at intervals and spits out a +man too drunk to be retained: who thereupon makes what uproarious +protest may be left in him, and either falls asleep where he +tumbles, or is carried off in custody.</p> +<p>Tuesday morning, at daybreak. A sudden rising, as it +were out of the earth, of all the obscene creatures, who sell +‘correct cards of the races.’ They may have +been coiled in corners, or sleeping on door-steps, and, having +all passed the night under the same set of circumstances, may all +want to circulate their blood at the same time; but, however that +may be, they spring into existence all at once and together, as +though a new Cadmus had sown a race-horse’s teeth. +There is nobody up, to buy the cards; but, the cards are madly +cried. There is no patronage to quarrel for; but, they +madly quarrel and fight. Conspicuous among these +hyænas, as breakfast-time discloses, is a fearful creature +in the general semblance of a man: shaken off his next-to-no legs +by drink and devilry, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a great +shock of hair like a horrible broom, and nothing on him but a +ragged pair of trousers and a pink glazed-calico coat—made +on him—so very tight that it is as evident that he could +never take it off, as that he never does. This hideous +apparition, inconceivably drunk, has a terrible power of making a +gong-like imitation of the braying of an ass: which feat requires +that he should lay his right jaw in his begrimed right paw, +double himself up, and shake his bray out of himself, with much +staggering on his next-to-no legs, and much twirling of his +horrible broom, as if it were a mop. From the present +minute, when he comes in sight holding up his cards to the +windows, and hoarsely proposing purchase to My Lord, Your +Excellency, Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honourable +Worship—from the present minute until the Grand Race-Week +is finished, at all hours of the morning, evening, day, and +night, shall the town reverberate, at capricious intervals, to +the brays of this frightful animal the Gong-donkey.</p> +<p>No very great racing to-day, so no very great amount of +vehicles: though there is a good sprinkling, too: from +farmers’ carts and gigs, to carriages with post-horses and +to fours-in-hand, mostly coming by the road from York, and +passing on straight through the main street to the Course. +A walk in the wrong direction may be a better thing for Mr. +Goodchild to-day than the Course, so he walks in the wrong +direction. Everybody gone to the races. Only children +in the street. Grand Alliance Circus deserted; not one +Star-Rider left; omnibus which forms the Pay-Place, having on +separate panels Pay here for the Boxes, Pay here for the Pit, Pay +here for the Gallery, hove down in a corner and locked up; nobody +near the tent but the man on his knees on the grass, who is +making the paper balloons for the Star young gentlemen to jump +through to-night. A pleasant road, pleasantly wooded. +No labourers working in the fields; all gone +‘t’races.’ The few late wenders of their +way ‘t’races,’ who are yet left driving on the +road, stare in amazement at the recluse who is not going +‘t’races.’ Roadside innkeeper has gone +‘t’races.’ Turnpike-man has gone +‘t’races.’ His thrifty wife, washing +clothes at the toll-house door, is going +‘t’races’ to-morrow. Perhaps there may be +no one left to take the toll to-morrow; who knows? Though +assuredly that would be neither turnpike-like nor +Yorkshire-like. The very wind and dust seem to be hurrying +‘t’races,’ as they briskly pass the only +wayfarer on the road. In the distance, the Railway Engine, +waiting at the town-end, shrieks despairingly. Nothing but +the difficulty of getting off the Line, restrains that Engine +from going ‘t’races,’ too, it is very +clear.</p> +<p>At night, more Lunatics out than last night—and more +Keepers. The latter very active at the Betting Rooms, the +street in front of which is now impassable. Mr. Palmer as +before. Mr. Thurtell as before. Roar and uproar as +before. Gradual subsidence as before. Unmannerly +drinking-house expectorates as before. Drunken +negro-melodists, Gong-donkey, and correct cards, in the +night.</p> +<p>On Wednesday morning, the morning of the great St. Leger, it +becomes apparent that there has been a great influx since +yesterday, both of Lunatics and Keepers. The families of +the tradesmen over the way are no longer within human ken; their +places know them no more; ten, fifteen, and twenty guinea-lodgers +fill them. At the pastry-cook’s second-floor window, +a Keeper is brushing Mr. Thurtell’s hair—thinking it +his own. In the wax-chandler’s attic, another Keeper +is putting on Mr. Palmer’s braces. In the +gunsmith’s nursery, a Lunatic is shaving himself. In +the serious stationer’s best sitting-room, three Lunatics +are taking a combination-breakfast, praising the (cook’s) +devil, and drinking neat brandy in an atmosphere of last +midnight’s cigars. No family sanctuary is free from +our Angelic messengers—we put up at the Angel—who in +the guise of extra waiters for the grand Race-Week, rattle in and +out of the most secret chambers of everybody’s house, with +dishes and tin covers, decanters, soda-water bottles, and +glasses. An hour later. Down the street and up the +street, as far as eyes can see and a good deal farther, there is +a dense crowd; outside the Betting Rooms it is like a great +struggle at a theatre door—in the days of theatres; or at +the vestibule of the Spurgeon temple—in the days of +Spurgeon. An hour later. Fusing into this crowd, and +somehow getting through it, are all kinds of conveyances, and all +kinds of foot-passengers; carts, with brick-makers and +brick-makeresses jolting up and down on planks; drags, with the +needful grooms behind, sitting cross-armed in the needful manner, +and slanting themselves backward from the soles of their boots at +the needful angle; postboys, in the shining hats and smart +jackets of the olden time, when stokers were not; beautiful +Yorkshire horses, gallantly driven by their own breeders and +masters. Under every pole, and every shaft, and every +horse, and every wheel as it would seem, the +Gong-donkey—metallically braying, when not struggling for +life, or whipped out of the way.</p> +<p>By one o’clock, all this stir has gone out of the +streets, and there is no one left in them but Francis +Goodchild. Francis Goodchild will not be left in them long; +for, he too is on his way, ‘t’races.’</p> +<p>A most beautiful sight, Francis Goodchild finds +‘t’races’ to be, when he has left fair +Doncaster behind him, and comes out on the free course, with its +agreeable prospect, its quaint Red House oddly changing and +turning as Francis turns, its green grass, and fresh heath. +A free course and an easy one, where Francis can roll smoothly +where he will, and can choose between the start, or the +coming-in, or the turn behind the brow of the hill, or any +out-of-the-way point where he lists to see the throbbing horses +straining every nerve, and making the sympathetic earth throb as +they come by. Francis much delights to be, not in the Grand +Stand, but where he can see it, rising against the sky with its +vast tiers of little white dots of faces, and its last high rows +and corners of people, looking like pins stuck into an enormous +pincushion—not quite so symmetrically as his orderly eye +could wish, when people change or go away. When the race is +nearly run out, it is as good as the race to him to see the +flutter among the pins, and the change in them from dark to +light, as hats are taken off and waved. Not less full of +interest, the loud anticipation of the winner’s name, the +swelling, and the final, roar; then, the quick dropping of all +the pins out of their places, the revelation of the shape of the +bare pincushion, and the closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics +and Keepers, in the rear of the three horses with bright-coloured +riders, who have not yet quite subdued their gallop though the +contest is over.</p> +<p>Mr. Goodchild would appear to have been by no means free from +lunacy himself at ‘t’races,’ though not of the +prevalent kind. He is suspected by Mr. Idle to have fallen +into a dreadful state concerning a pair of little lilac gloves +and a little bonnet that he saw there. Mr. Idle asserts, +that he did afterwards repeat at the Angel, with an appearance of +being lunatically seized, some rhapsody to the following effect: +‘O little lilac gloves! And O winning little bonnet, +making in conjunction with her golden hair quite a Glory in the +sunlight round the pretty head, why anything in the world but you +and me! Why may not this day’s running-of horses, to +all the rest: of precious sands of life to me—be prolonged +through an everlasting autumn-sunshine, without a sunset! +Slave of the Lamp, or Ring, strike me yonder gallant equestrian +Clerk of the Course, in the scarlet coat, motionless on the green +grass for ages! Friendly Devil on Two Sticks, for ten times +ten thousands years, keep Blink-Bonny jibbing at the post, and +let us have no start! Arab drums, powerful of old to summon +Genii in the desert, sound of yourselves and raise a troop for me +in the desert of my heart, which shall so enchant this dusty +barouche (with a conspicuous excise-plate, resembling the +Collector’s door-plate at a turnpike), that I, within it, +loving the little lilac gloves, the winning little bonnet, and +the dear unknown-wearer with the golden hair, may wait by her +side for ever, to see a Great St. Leger that shall never be +run!’</p> +<p>Thursday morning. After a tremendous night of crowding, +shouting, drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and correct +cards. Symptoms of yesterday’s gains in the way of +drink, and of yesterday’s losses in the way of money, +abundant. Money-losses very great. As usual, nobody +seems to have won; but, large losses and many losers are +unquestionable facts. Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general +very low. Several of both kinds look in at the +chemist’s while Mr. Goodchild is making a purchase there, +to be ‘picked up.’ One red-eyed Lunatic, +flushed, faded, and disordered, enters hurriedly and cries +savagely, ‘Hond us a gloss of sal volatile in wather, or +soom dommed thing o’ thot sart!’ Faces at the +Betting Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails +observable. Keepers likewise given this morning to standing +about solitary, with their hands in their pockets, looking down +at their boots as they fit them into cracks of the pavement, and +then looking up whistling and walking away. Grand Alliance +Circus out, in procession; buxom lady-member of Grand Alliance, +in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look at, even in her paint +under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics or Keepers. +Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday, and jingles his +bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were paying. Reaction +also apparent at the Guildhall opposite, whence certain +pickpockets come out handcuffed together, with that peculiar walk +which is never seen under any other circumstances—a walk +expressive of going to jail, game, but still of jails being in +bad taste and arbitrary, and how would <i>you</i> like it if it +was you instead of me, as it ought to be! Mid-day. +Town filled as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as +yesterday, but not so empty. In the evening, Angel ordinary +where every Lunatic and Keeper has his modest daily meal of +turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as yesterday, and not +so noisy. At night, the theatre. More abstracted +faces in it than one ever sees at public assemblies; such faces +wearing an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the +boys at school who were ‘going up next,’ with their +arithmetic or mathematics. These boys are, no doubt, going +up to-morrow with <i>their</i> sums and figures. Mr. Palmer +and Mr. Thurtell in the boxes O. P. Mr. Thurtell and Mr. +Palmer in the boxes P. S. The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and +Thurtell, in the boxes Centre. A most odious tendency +observable in these distinguished gentlemen to put vile +constructions on sufficiently innocent phrases in the play, and +then to applaud them in a Satyr-like manner. Behind Mr. +Goodchild, with a party of other Lunatics and one Keeper, the +express incarnation of the thing called a +‘gent.’ A gentleman born; a gent +manufactured. A something with a scarf round its neck, and +a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more depraved, +more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe in any noble +or good thing of any kind, than the stupidest Bosjesman. +The thing is but a boy in years, and is addled with drink. +To do its company justice, even its company is ashamed of it, as +it drawls its slang criticisms on the representation, and +inflames Mr. Goodchild with a burning ardour to fling it into the +pit. Its remarks are so horrible, that Mr. Goodchild, for +the moment, even doubts whether that <i>is</i> a wholesome Art, +which sets women apart on a high floor before such a thing as +this, though as good as its own sisters, or its own +mother—whom Heaven forgive for bringing it into the +world! But, the consideration that a low nature must make a +low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials, or +it could no more exist than any of us could without the sense of +touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason: the rather, because the +thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf, and slobbers +itself asleep.</p> +<p>Friday Morning. Early fights. Gong-donkey, and +correct cards. Again, a great set towards the races, though +not so great a set as on Wednesday. Much packing going on +too, upstairs at the gun-smith’s, the wax-chandler’s, +and the serious stationer’s; for there will be a heavy +drift of Lunatics and Keepers to London by the afternoon +train. The course as pretty as ever; the great pincushion +as like a pincushion, but not nearly so full of pins; whole rows +of pins wanting. On the great event of the day, both +Lunatics and Keepers become inspired with rage; and there is a +violent scuffling, and a rushing at the losing jockey, and an +emergence of the said jockey from a swaying and menacing crowd, +protected by friends, and looking the worse for wear; which is a +rough proceeding, though animating to see from a pleasant +distance. After the great event, rills begin to flow from +the pincushion towards the railroad; the rills swell into rivers; +the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake floats Mr. +Goodchild into Doncaster, past the Itinerant personage in black, +by the way-side telling him from the vantage ground of a legibly +printed placard on a pole that for all these things the Lord will +bring him to judgment. No turtle and venison ordinary this +evening; that is all over. No Betting at the rooms; nothing +there but the plants in pots, which have, all the week, been +stood about the entry to give it an innocent appearance, and +which have sorely sickened by this time.</p> +<p>Saturday. Mr. Idle wishes to know at breakfast, what +were those dreadful groanings in his bedroom doorway in the +night? Mr. Goodchild answers, Nightmare. Mr. Idle +repels the calumny, and calls the waiter. The Angel is very +sorry—had intended to explain; but you see, gentlemen, +there was a gentleman dined down-stairs with two more, and he had +lost a deal of money, and he would drink a deal of wine, and in +the night he ‘took the horrors,’ and got up; and as +his friends could do nothing with him he laid himself down and +groaned at Mr. Idle’s door. ‘And he <span +class="GutSmall">DID</span> groan there,’ Mr. Idle says; +‘and you will please to imagine me inside, “taking +the horrors” too!’</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>So far, the picture of Doncaster on the occasion of its great +sporting anniversary, offers probably a general representation of +the social condition of the town, in the past as well as in the +present time. The sole local phenomenon of the current +year, which may be considered as entirely unprecedented in its +way, and which certainly claims, on that account, some slight +share of notice, consists in the actual existence of one +remarkable individual, who is sojourning in Doncaster, and who, +neither directly nor indirectly, has anything at all to do, in +any capacity whatever, with the racing amusements of the +week. Ranging throughout the entire crowd that fills the +town, and including the inhabitants as well as the visitors, +nobody is to be found altogether disconnected with the business +of the day, excepting this one unparalleled man. He does +not bet on the races, like the sporting men. He does not +assist the races, like the jockeys, starters, judges, and +grooms. He does not look on at the races, like Mr. +Goodchild and his fellow-spectators. He does not profit by +the races, like the hotel-keepers and the tradespeople. He +does not minister to the necessities of the races, like the +booth-keepers, the postilions, the waiters, and the hawkers of +Lists. He does not assist the attractions of the races, +like the actors at the theatre, the riders at the circus, or the +posturers at the Poses Plastiques. Absolutely and +literally, he is the only individual in Doncaster who stands by +the brink of the full-flowing race-stream, and is not swept away +by it in common with all the rest of his species. Who is +this modern hermit, this recluse of the St. Leger-week, this +inscrutably ungregarious being, who lives apart from the +amusements and activities of his fellow-creatures? Surely, +there is little difficulty in guessing that clearest and easiest +of all riddles. Who could he be, but Mr. Thomas Idle?</p> +<p>Thomas had suffered himself to be taken to Doncaster, just as +he would have suffered himself to be taken to any other place in +the habitable globe which would guarantee him the temporary +possession of a comfortable sofa to rest his ankle on. Once +established at the hotel, with his leg on one cushion and his +back against another, he formally declined taking the slightest +interest in any circumstance whatever connected with the races, +or with the people who were assembled to see them. Francis +Goodchild, anxious that the hours should pass by his crippled +travelling-companion as lightly as possible, suggested that his +sofa should be moved to the window, and that he should amuse +himself by looking out at the moving panorama of humanity, which +the view from it of the principal street presented. Thomas, +however, steadily declined profiting by the suggestion.</p> +<p>‘The farther I am from the window,’ he said, +‘the better, Brother Francis, I shall be pleased. I +have nothing in common with the one prevalent idea of all those +people who are passing in the street. Why should I care to +look at them?’</p> +<p>‘I hope I have nothing in common with the prevalent idea +of a great many of them, either,’ answered Goodchild, +thinking of the sporting gentlemen whom he had met in the course +of his wanderings about Doncaster. ‘But, surely, +among all the people who are walking by the house, at this very +moment, you may find—’</p> +<p>‘Not one living creature,’ interposed Thomas, +‘who is not, in one way or another, interested in horses, +and who is not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of +them. Now, I hold opinions in reference to these particular +members of the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I +believe) to the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any +other human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of +the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract, +Francis, I cordially despise him from every point of +view.’</p> +<p>‘Thomas,’ said Goodchild, ‘confinement to +the house has begun to affect your biliary secretions. I +shall go to the chemist’s and get you some +physic.’</p> +<p>‘I object,’ continued Thomas, quietly possessing +himself of his friend’s hat, which stood on a table near +him,—‘I object, first, to the personal appearance of +the horse. I protest against the conventional idea of +beauty, as attached to that animal. I think his nose too +long, his forehead too low, and his legs (except in the case of +the cart-horse) ridiculously thin by comparison with the size of +his body. Again, considering how big an animal he is, I +object to the contemptible delicacy of his constitution. Is +he not the sickliest creature in creation? Does any child +catch cold as easily as a horse? Does he not sprain his +fetlock, for all his appearance of superior strength, as easily +as I sprained my ankle! Furthermore, to take him from +another point of view, what a helpless wretch he is! No +fine lady requires more constant waiting-on than a horse. +Other animals can make their own toilette: he must have a +groom. You will tell me that this is because we want to +make his coat artificially glossy. Glossy! Come home +with me, and see my cat,—my clever cat, who can groom +herself! Look at your own dog! see how the intelligent +creature curry-combs himself with his own honest teeth! +Then, again, what a fool the horse is, what a poor, nervous +fool! He will start at a piece of white paper in the road +as if it was a lion. His one idea, when he hears a noise +that he is not accustomed to, is to run away from it. What +do you say to those two common instances of the sense and courage +of this absurdly overpraised animal? I might multiply them +to two hundred, if I chose to exert my mind and waste my breath, +which I never do. I prefer coming at once to my last charge +against the horse, which is the most serious of all, because it +affects his moral character. I accuse him boldly, in his +capacity of servant to man, of slyness and treachery. I +brand him publicly, no matter how mild he may look about the +eyes, or how sleek he may be about the coat, as a systematic +betrayer, whenever he can get the chance, of the confidence +reposed in him. What do you mean by laughing and shaking +your head at me?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, Thomas, Thomas!’ said Goodchild. +‘You had better give me my hat; you had better let me get +you that physic.’</p> +<p>‘I will let you get anything you like, including a +composing draught for yourself,’ said Thomas, irritably +alluding to his fellow-apprentice’s inexhaustible activity, +‘if you will only sit quiet for five minutes longer, and +hear me out. I say again the horse is a betrayer of the +confidence reposed in him; and that opinion, let me add, is drawn +from my own personal experience, and is not based on any fanciful +theory whatever. You shall have two instances, two +overwhelming instances. Let me start the first of these by +asking, what is the distinguishing quality which the Shetland +Pony has arrogated to himself, and is still perpetually +trumpeting through the world by means of popular report and books +on Natural History? I see the answer in your face: it is +the quality of being Sure-Footed. He professes to have +other virtues, such as hardiness and strength, which you may +discover on trial; but the one thing which he insists on your +believing, when you get on his back, is that he may be safely +depended on not to tumble down with you. Very good. +Some years ago, I was in Shetland with a party of friends. +They insisted on taking me with them to the top of a precipice +that overhung the sea. It was a great distance off, but +they all determined to walk to it except me. I was wiser +then than I was with you at Carrock, and I determined to be +carried to the precipice. There was no carriage-road in the +island, and nobody offered (in consequence, as I suppose, of the +imperfectly-civilised state of the country) to bring me a +sedan-chair, which is naturally what I should have liked +best. A Shetland pony was produced instead. I +remembered my Natural History, I recalled popular report, and I +got on the little beast’s back, as any other man would have +done in my position, placing implicit confidence in the sureness +of his feet. And how did he repay that confidence? +Brother Francis, carry your mind on from morning to noon. +Picture to yourself a howling wilderness of grass and bog, +bounded by low stony hills. Pick out one particular spot in +that imaginary scene, and sketch me in it, with outstretched +arms, curved back, and heels in the air, plunging headforemost +into a black patch of water and mud. Place just behind me +the legs, the body, and the head of a sure-footed Shetland pony, +all stretched flat on the ground, and you will have produced an +accurate representation of a very lamentable fact. And the +moral device, Francis, of this picture will be to testify that +when gentlemen put confidence in the legs of Shetland ponies, +they will find to their cost that they are leaning on nothing but +broken reeds. There is my first instance—and what +have you got to say to that?’</p> +<p>‘Nothing, but that I want my hat,’ answered +Goodchild, starting up and walking restlessly about the room.</p> +<p>‘You shall have it in a minute,’ rejoined +Thomas. ‘My second instance’—(Goodchild +groaned, and sat down again)—‘My second instance is +more appropriate to the present time and place, for it refers to +a race-horse. Two years ago an excellent friend of mine, +who was desirous of prevailing on me to take regular exercise, +and who was well enough acquainted with the weakness of my legs +to expect no very active compliance with his wishes on their +part, offered to make me a present of one of his horses. +Hearing that the animal in question had started in life on the +turf, I declined accepting the gift with many thanks; adding, by +way of explanation, that I looked on a race-horse as a kind of +embodied hurricane, upon which no sane man of my character and +habits could be expected to seat himself. My friend replied +that, however appropriate my metaphor might be as applied to +race-horses in general, it was singularly unsuitable as applied +to the particular horse which he proposed to give me. From +a foal upwards this remarkable animal had been the idlest and +most sluggish of his race. Whatever capacities for speed he +might possess he had kept so strictly to himself, that no amount +of training had ever brought them out. He had been found +hopelessly slow as a racer, and hopelessly lazy as a hunter, and +was fit for nothing but a quiet, easy life of it with an old +gentleman or an invalid. When I heard this account of the +horse, I don’t mind confessing that my heart warmed to +him. Visions of Thomas Idle ambling serenely on the back of +a steed as lazy as himself, presenting to a restless world the +soothing and composite spectacle of a kind of sluggardly Centaur, +too peaceable in his habits to alarm anybody, swam attractively +before my eyes. I went to look at the horse in the +stable. Nice fellow! he was fast asleep with a kitten on +his back. I saw him taken out for an airing by the +groom. If he had had trousers on his legs I should not have +known them from my own, so deliberately were they lifted up, so +gently were they put down, so slowly did they get over the +ground. From that moment I gratefully accepted my +friend’s offer. I went home; the horse followed +me—by a slow train. Oh, Francis, how devoutly I +believed in that horse I how carefully I looked after all his +little comforts! I had never gone the length of hiring a +man-servant to wait on myself; but I went to the expense of +hiring one to wait upon him. If I thought a little of +myself when I bought the softest saddle that could be had for +money, I thought also of my horse. When the man at the shop +afterwards offered me spurs and a whip, I turned from him with +horror. When I sallied out for my first ride, I went +purposely unarmed with the means of hurrying my steed. He +proceeded at his own pace every step of the way; and when he +stopped, at last, and blew out both his sides with a heavy sigh, +and turned his sleepy head and looked behind him, I took him home +again, as I might take home an artless child who said to me, +“If you please, sir, I am tired.” For a week +this complete harmony between me and my horse lasted +undisturbed. At the end of that time, when he had made +quite sure of my friendly confidence in his laziness, when he had +thoroughly acquainted himself with all the little weaknesses of +my seat (and their name is Legion), the smouldering treachery and +ingratitude of the equine nature blazed out in an instant. +Without the slightest provocation from me, with nothing passing +him at the time but a pony-chaise driven by an old lady, he +started in one instant from a state of sluggish depression to a +state of frantic high spirits. He kicked, he plunged, he +shied, he pranced, he capered fearfully. I sat on him as +long as I could, and when I could sit no longer, I fell +off. No, Francis! this is not a circumstance to be laughed +at, but to be wept over. What would be said of a Man who +had requited my kindness in that way? Range over all the +rest of the animal creation, and where will you find me an +instance of treachery so black as this? The cow that kicks +down the milking-pail may have some reason for it; she may think +herself taxed too heavily to contribute to the dilution of human +tea and the greasing of human bread. The tiger who springs +out on me unawares has the excuse of being hungry at the time, to +say nothing of the further justification of being a total +stranger to me. The very flea who surprises me in my sleep +may defend his act of assassination on the ground that I, in my +turn, am always ready to murder him when I am awake. I defy +the whole body of Natural Historians to move me, logically, off +the ground that I have taken in regard to the horse. +Receive back your hat, Brother Francis, and go to the +chemist’s, if you please; for I have now done. Ask me +to take anything you like, except an interest in the Doncaster +races. Ask me to look at anything you like, except an +assemblage of people all animated by feelings of a friendly and +admiring nature towards the horse. You are a remarkably +well-informed man, and you have heard of hermits. Look upon +me as a member of that ancient fraternity, and you will sensibly +add to the many obligations which Thomas Idle is proud to owe to +Francis Goodchild.’</p> +<p>Here, fatigued by the effort of excessive talking, +disputatious Thomas waved one hand languidly, laid his head back +on the sofa-pillow, and calmly closed his eyes.</p> +<p>At a later period, Mr. Goodchild assailed his travelling +companion boldly from the impregnable fortress of common +sense. But Thomas, though tamed in body by drastic +discipline, was still as mentally unapproachable as ever on the +subject of his favourite delusion.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>The view from the window after Saturday’s breakfast is +altogether changed. The tradesmen’s families have all +come back again. The serious stationer’s young woman +of all work is shaking a duster out of the window of the +combination breakfast-room; a child is playing with a doll, where +Mr. Thurtell’s hair was brushed; a sanitary scrubbing is in +progress on the spot where Mr. Palmer’s braces were put +on. No signs of the Races are in the streets, but the +tramps and the tumble-down-carts and trucks laden with +drinking-forms and tables and remnants of booths, that are making +their way out of the town as fast as they can. The Angel, +which has been cleared for action all the week, already begins +restoring every neat and comfortable article of furniture to its +own neat and comfortable place. The Angel’s daughters +(pleasanter angels Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never saw, nor more +quietly expert in their business, nor more superior to the common +vice of being above it), have a little time to rest, and to air +their cheerful faces among the flowers in the yard. It is +market-day. The market looks unusually natural, +comfortable, and wholesome; the market-people too. The town +seems quite restored, when, hark! a metallic bray—The +Gong-donkey!</p> +<p>The wretched animal has not cleared off with the rest, but is +here, under the window. How much more inconceivably drunk +now, how much more begrimed of paw, how much more tight of calico +hide, how much more stained and daubed and dirty and dunghilly, +from his horrible broom to his tender toes, who shall say! +He cannot even shake the bray out of himself now, without laying +his cheek so near to the mud of the street, that he pitches over +after delivering it. Now, prone in the mud, and now backing +himself up against shop-windows, the owners of which come out in +terror to remove him; now, in the drinking-shop, and now in the +tobacconist’s, where he goes to buy tobacco, and makes his +way into the parlour, and where he gets a cigar, which in +half-a-minute he forgets to smoke; now dancing, now dozing, now +cursing, and now complimenting My Lord, the Colonel, the Noble +Captain, and Your Honourable Worship, the Gong-donkey kicks up +his heels, occasionally braying, until suddenly, he beholds the +dearest friend he has in the world coming down the street.</p> +<p>The dearest friend the Gong-donkey has in the world, is a sort +of Jackall, in a dull, mangy, black hide, of such small pieces +that it looks as if it were made of blacking bottles turned +inside out and cobbled together. The dearest friend in the +world (inconceivably drunk too) advances at the Gong-donkey, with +a hand on each thigh, in a series of humorous springs and stops, +wagging his head as he comes. The Gong-donkey regarding him +with attention and with the warmest affection, suddenly perceives +that he is the greatest enemy he has in the world, and hits him +hard in the countenance. The astonished Jackall closes with +the Donkey, and they roll over and over in the mud, pummelling +one another. A Police Inspector, supernaturally endowed +with patience, who has long been looking on from the +Guildhall-steps, says, to a myrmidon, ‘Lock ’em +up! Bring ’em in!’</p> +<p>Appropriate finish to the Grand Race-Week. The +Gong-donkey, captive and last trace of it, conveyed into limbo, +where they cannot do better than keep him until next +Race-Week. The Jackall is wanted too, and is much looked +for, over the way and up and down. But, having had the good +fortune to be undermost at the time of the capture, he has +vanished into air.</p> +<p>On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Goodchild walks out and looks at +the Course. It is quite deserted; heaps of broken crockery +and bottles are raised to its memory; and correct cards and other +fragments of paper are blowing about it, as the regulation little +paper-books, carried by the French soldiers in their breasts, +were seen, soon after the battle was fought, blowing idly about +the plains of Waterloo.</p> +<p>Where will these present idle leaves be blown by the idle +winds, and where will the last of them be one day lost and +forgotten? An idle question, and an idle thought.; and with +it Mr. Idle fitly makes his bow, and Mr. Goodchild his, and thus +ends the Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE +APPRENTICES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 888-h.htm or 888-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/8/888 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/888-h/images/coverb.jpg b/888-h/images/coverb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c50c538 --- /dev/null +++ b/888-h/images/coverb.jpg diff --git a/888-h/images/covers.jpg b/888-h/images/covers.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bee2d47 --- /dev/null +++ b/888-h/images/covers.jpg diff --git a/888-h/images/p408b.jpg b/888-h/images/p408b.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..05a85f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/888-h/images/p408b.jpg diff --git a/888-h/images/p408s.jpg b/888-h/images/p408s.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..201e387 --- /dev/null +++ b/888-h/images/p408s.jpg |
