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diff --git a/old/lttia10.txt b/old/lttia10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94fe806 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lttia10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4600 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices +by Charles Dickens +(#23 in our series by Charles Dickens) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #888] +[This file was first posted on April 28, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 11, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1905 edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +In 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. + +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 HOGARTH), 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. + +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. + +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 HIS idea of walking +down into the North; while Francis was walking a mile due South +against time--which was HIS idea of walking down into the North. +In the meantime the day waned, and the milestones remained +unconquered. + +'Tom,' said Goodchild, 'the sun is getting low. Up, and let us go +forward!' + +'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. + +'What an ass that fellow was!' cried Goodchild, with the bitter +emphasis of contempt. + +'Which fellow?' asked Thomas Idle. + +'The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he'd show +off before the girl by doing THAT. A sniveller! Why couldn't he +get up, and punch somebody's head!' + +'Whose?' asked Thomas Idle. + +'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?' + +'I wouldn't have anything to do with her,' yawned Thomas Idle. +'Why should I take the trouble?' + +'It's no trouble, Tom, to fall in love,' said Goodchild, shaking +his head. + +'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.' + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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 MR. SPURGEON, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.) + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +The 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Brother Francis, brother Francis,' cried Thomas Idle, 'What do you +see from the turret?' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'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, BANK.' + +'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?' + +'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 Illustrated London +News 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.' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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--' + +'Brother Francis, brother Francis,' cried Thomas Idle, 'tell me +quickly what you see of the two men of Wigton!' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'Ey, my word!' said the landlady, glancing doubtfully at the ankle +for herself; 'there's Doctor Speddie.' + +'Is he a good Doctor?' + +'Ey!' said the landlady, 'I ca' him so. A' cooms efther nae doctor +that I ken. Mair nor which, a's just THE doctor heer.' + +'Do you think he is at home?' + +Her reply was, 'Gang awa', Jock, and bring him.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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.) + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'Mr. Lorn,' said the Doctor. 'Mr. Goodchild.' + +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. + +'Mr. Goodchild's friend has met with accident, Lorn,' said Doctor +Speddie. 'We want the lotion for a bad sprain.' + +A pause. + +'My dear fellow, you are more than usually absent to-night. The +lotion for a bad sprain.' + +'Ah! yes! Directly.' + +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.' + +'Is he ill?' + +'No, not ill.' + +'Unhappy?' + +'I have my suspicions that he was,' assented the Doctor, 'once.' + +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. + +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: + +'Lorn!' + +'My dear Doctor.' + +'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.' + +'With pleasure.' + +The Assistant took his hat, and passed like a shadow to the door. + +'Lorn!' said the Doctor, calling after him. + +He returned. + +'Mr. Goodchild will keep me company till you come home. Don't +hurry. Excuse my calling you back.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'He fascinates me. I must apologise to you, but he has quite +bewildered and mastered me.' + +'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?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:- + + +THE TWO ROBINS. + + +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. + +On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a +knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house. + +'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 THAT.' + +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. + +'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.' + +The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur. + +'Will you, sir?' he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way. + +'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?' + +'Are you game for five shillings?' inquired the landlord, rubbing +his stubbly double chin, and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling +above him. + +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. + +'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?' + +'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?' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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?' + +'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.' + +'Is he asleep, do you think?' asked Arthur. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'He's a very quiet sleeper,' said Arthur. + +'Yes,' said the landlord, 'very quiet.' + +Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at the man +cautiously. + +'How pale he is!' said Arthur. + +'Yes,' returned the landlord, 'pale enough, isn't he?' + +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. + +'Come here,' he whispered, under his breath. 'Come here, for God's +sake! The man's not asleep--he is dead!' + +'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.' + +'How did he die? Who is he?' asked Arthur, staggered, for a +moment, by the audacious coolness of the answer. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'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. + +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. + +'It is but a few hours,' he thought to himself, 'and I can get away +the first thing in the morning.' + +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!' + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The dead man, the dead man, the HIDDEN 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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the room; +persevering in it, this time, till the clock struck again. Twelve. + +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. + +He was alone now--absolutely, utterly, alone with the dead man, +till the next morning. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +When he looked at the bed, now, he saw, hanging over the side of +it, a long white hand. + +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. + +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. + +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 + +One glance showed Arthur this--one glance, before he flew +breathlessly to the door, and alarmed the house. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Any branch,' he said, bitterly, 'which will put bread into the +mouth of a poor man.' + +At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent +curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humoured way:- + +'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.' + +The medical student looked at him steadily. + +'Thank you,' he said, coldly. Then added, 'May I ask who your +father is?' + +'He's well enough known all about this part of the country,' +replied Arthur. 'He is a great manufacturer, and his name is +Holliday.' + +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. + +'How did you come here?' asked the stranger, quickly, excitably, +passionately almost. + +Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his first +taking the bed at the inn. + +'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!' + +He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony, right hand. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'Of course, he is!' answered Arthur, laughing. 'Is there anything +wonderful in that? Isn't YOUR father fond--' + +The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday's hand, and turned his +face away. + +'I beg your pardon,' said Arthur. 'I hope I have not +unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your father.' + +'I can't well lose what I have never had,' retorted the medical +student, with a harsh, mocking laugh. + +'What you have never had!' + +The strange man suddenly caught Arthur's hand again, suddenly +looked once more hard in his face. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'A pretty drawing,' he said in a remarkably quiet tone of voice. + +'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!' + +'You admire her very much?' + +Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for answer. + +'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.' + +'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?' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient +again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +'That hand! Look at that hand, Doctor!' said Mr. Goodchild, +touching him. + +At the same moment, the Doctor looked at Mr. Goodchild, and +whispered to him, significantly: + +'Hush! he has come back.' + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +The 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Do you see Allonby!' asked Thomas Idle. + +'I don't see it yet,' said Francis, looking out of window. + +'It must be there,' said Thomas Idle. + +'I don't see it,' returned Francis. + +'It must be there,' repeated Thomas Idle, fretfully. + +'Lord bless me!' exclaimed Francis, drawing in his head, 'I suppose +this is it!' + +'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?' + +'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. + +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. + +'Francis,' said Thomas Idle, 'what do you think of this place?' + +'I think,' returned Mr. Goodchild, in a glowing way, 'it is +everything we expected.' + +'Hah!' said Thomas Idle. + +'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.' + +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. + +In brief, it was the most delightful place ever seen. + +'But,' Thomas Idle asked, 'where is it?' + +'It's what you may call generally up and down the beach, here and +there,' said Mr. Goodchild, with a twist of his hand. + +'Proceed,' said Thomas Idle. + +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, +THERE! 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. HE was not to dictate, Mr. +Goodchild supposed (indignant again), to the company. + +'By-the-by,' Thomas Idle observed; 'the company?' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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 IT +to be idle with you.' + +'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 YOU +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 YOU 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 YOU 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.' + +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? + +Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours, +but passively allowed the hours to get through HIM. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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'!' + +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. + +'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!' + +The words, 'There is the sea, and here are the--' again trembled on +the lips of Goodchild, unaccompanied however by any sound. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Here,' said Thomas, 'we may be luxuriously lazy; other people will +travel for us, as it were, and we shall laugh at their folly.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'This place fills me with a dreadful sensation,' said Thomas, 'of +having something to do. Remove me, Francis.' + +'Where would you like to go next?' was the question of the ever- +engaging Goodchild. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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!' + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +When 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. + +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? + +'Because I want to know,' added Thomas, 'what you would say of it, +if you were obliged to do it?' + +'It would be different, then,' said Francis. 'It would be work, +then; now, it's play.' + +'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 CAN'T play. +You don't know what it is. You make work of everything.' + +The bright Goodchild amiably smiled. + +'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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +With this philosophical rejoinder, the airy Goodchild clapped Mr. +Idle on the shoulder in a final manner, and they sat down to +dinner. + +'By-the-by,' said Goodchild, 'I have been over a lunatic asylum +too, since I have been out.' + +'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!' + +'An immense place,' said Goodchild, 'admirable offices, very good +arrangements, very good attendants; altogether a remarkable place.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'Take a glass of wine with me,' said Thomas Idle, 'and let US be +social.' + +'In one gallery, Tom,' pursued Francis Goodchild, 'which looked to +me about the length of the Long Walk at Windsor, more or less--' + +'Probably less,' observed Thomas Idle. + +'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 HE came to be there, so +strangely poring over it. Then, I thought how all of us, GOD 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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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?' + +'One,' said Goodchild. + +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. + +He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand. + +'One of the six, Tom, at last!' said Mr. Goodchild, in a surprised +whisper.--'Sir, your pleasure?' + +'Sir, YOUR pleasure?' said the One old man. + +'I didn't ring.' + +'The bell did,' said the One old man. + +He said BELL, in a deep, strong way, that would have expressed the +church Bell. + +'I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, yesterday?' said +Goodchild. + +'I cannot undertake to say for certain,' was the grim reply of the +One old man. + +'I think you saw me? Did you not?' + +'Saw YOU?' said the old man. 'O yes, I saw you. But, I see many +who never see me.' + +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. + +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.' + +'No,' said the weird old man, 'there is no one there.' + +Mr. Goodchild looked at Idle, but Idle lay with his head enwreathed +in smoke. + +'No one there?' said Goodchild. + +'There is no one at your grave, I assure you,' said the old man. + +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. + +'My friend, Mr. Idle,' said Goodchild, extremely anxious to +introduce a third person into the conversation. + +'I am,' said the old man, without looking at him, 'at Mr. Idle's +service.' + +'If you are an old inhabitant of this place,' Francis Goodchild +resumed. + +'Yes.' + +'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?' + +'_I_ believe so,' said the old man. + +'Are their faces turned towards that noble prospect?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'A strong description, sir,' he observed. + +'A strong sensation,' the old man rejoined. + +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.) + +'I must tell it to you,' said the old man, with a ghastly and a +stony stare. + +'What?' asked Francis Goodchild. + +'You know where it took place. Yonder!' + +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. + +'You know she was a Bride,' said the old man. + +'I know they still send up Bride-cake,' Mr. Goodchild faltered. +'This is a very oppressive air.' + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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: + +'"O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for me!" + +'"Well!" he answered. "And if it were?" + +'"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!" + +'That had become the poor fool's constant song: "I beg your +pardon," and "Forgive me!" + +'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. + +'"You fool," he said. "Go up the stairs!" + +'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. + +'"What are you afraid of? Come and sit down by me." + +'"I will do anything you wish. I beg your pardon, sir. Forgive +me!" Her monotonous tune as usual. + +'"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." + +'"I will do it all, with the greatest care. I will do anything you +wish." + +'"Don't shake and tremble, then." + +'"I will try my utmost not to do it--if you will only forgive me!" + +'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. + +'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? + +'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. + +'He took her by the arm, and looked her, yet more closely and +steadily, in the face. "Now, die! I have done with you." + +'She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed cry. + +'"I am not going to kill you. I will not endanger my life for +yours. Die!" + +'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!" + +'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! + +'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. + +'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. + +'"O, forgive me! I will do anything. O, sir, pray tell me I may +live!" + +'"Die!" + +'"Are you so resolved? Is there no hope for me?" + +'"Die!" + +'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. + +'She was soon laid in the ground. And now they were all gone, and +he had compensated himself well. + +'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. + +'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. + +'"It grows too dark to work longer," he said to himself, "I must +give over for the night." + +'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. + +'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. + +'"What thief are you?" he said, seizing the youth by the collar. + +'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!" + +'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. + +'"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!" + +'"What!" + +'"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!" + +'He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning ribbon. + +'"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!" + +'In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and crying: +weakly at first, then passionately. + +'"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!" + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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? + +'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. + +'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? + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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! + +'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. + +'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. + +'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!" + +'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! + +'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. + +'His money could do nothing to save him, and he was hanged. _I_ am +He, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to the wall, +a hundred years ago!' + + +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! + +TWO. + +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. + +'At what time,' said the Two old men, 'did you arrive at the door +below?' + +'At Six.' + +'And there were Six old men upon the stairs!' + +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: + +'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 WAS haunted, and I was +there. + +'WE 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!' + +'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. + +'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!" + +'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! + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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: + +'"Not quite so, Dick; if I am afraid of nothing else, I am afraid +of myself." + +'His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him, in what +sense? How? + +'"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." + +'"I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much importance +to-night," said the other. + +'"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." + +'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. + +'"Keep awake, Dick!" said the leader, gaily. "The small hours are +the worst." + +'He tried, but his head drooped again. + +'"Dick!" urged the leader. "Keep awake!" + +'"I can't," he indistinctly muttered. "I don't know what strange +influence is stealing over me. I can't." + +'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. + +'"Get up and walk, Dick!" cried the leader. "Try!" + +'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. + +'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!' + +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. + + +'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.' + +Mr. Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked about him +wildly. + +'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. + +'The One old man!' cried Mr. Goodchild, distractedly,--'and the Two +old men!' + +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. + +'I assure you, Tom,' began Mr. Goodchild, attending at his side, +'that since you fell asleep--' + +'Come, I like that!' said Thomas Idle, 'I haven't closed an eye!' + +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. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +Two 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!' + +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. + +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. + +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-COTT.' +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +'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!' + +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: + +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. + +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. + +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 hyaenas, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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!' + +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 YOU +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 THEIR 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 IS 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. + +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. + +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 DID groan +there,' Mr. Idle says; 'and you will please to imagine me inside, +"taking the horrors" too!' + + +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? + +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. + +'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?' + +'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--' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'Oh, Thomas, Thomas!' said Goodchild. 'You had better give me my +hat; you had better let me get you that physic.' + +'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?' + +'Nothing, but that I want my hat,' answered Goodchild, starting up +and walking restlessly about the room. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + + +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! + +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. + +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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES *** + +This file should be named lttia10.txt or lttia10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, lttia11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lttia10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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