"But if common report be true for once, Mark, as I think it is, being able to confirm it by what I know myself," said Mr Pinch, "you are the cause of half this merriment, and set it going."
"There may be something in that, too, sir," answered Mark. "But that"s no consolation."
"Well!" said Mr Pinch, after a short silence, his usually subdued tone being even now more subdued than ever. "I can hardly think enough of what you tell me. Why, what will become of Mrs Lupin, Mark?"
Mark looked more fixedly before him, and further off still, as he answered that he didn"t suppose it would be much of an object to her.
There were plenty of smart young fellows as would be glad of the place.
He knew a dozen himself.
"That"s probable enough," said Mr Pinch, "but I am not at all sure that Mrs Lupin would be glad of them. Why, I always supposed that Mrs Lupin and you would make a match of it, Mark; and so did every one, as far as I know."
"I never," Mark replied, in some confusion, "said nothing as was in a direct way courting-like to her, nor she to me, but I don"t know what I mightn"t do one of these odd times, and what she mightn"t say in answer.
Well, sir, THAT wouldn"t suit."
"Not to be landlord of the Dragon, Mark?" cried Mr Pinch.
"No, sir, certainly not," returned the other, withdrawing his gaze from the horizon, and looking at his fellow-traveller. "Why that would be the ruin of a man like me. I go and sit down comfortably for life, and no man never finds me out. What would be the credit of the landlord of the Dragon"s being jolly? Why, he couldn"t help it, if he tried."
"Does Mrs Lupin know you are going to leave her?" Mr Pinch inquired.
"I haven"t broke it to her yet, sir, but I must. I"m looking out this morning for something new and suitable," he said, nodding towards the city.
"What kind of thing now?" Mr Pinch demanded.
"I was thinking," Mark replied, "of something in the grave-digging.
way."
"Good gracious, Mark?" cried Mr Pinch.
"It"s a good damp, wormy sort of business, sir," said Mark, shaking his head argumentatively, "and there might be some credit in being jolly, with one"s mind in that pursuit, unless grave-diggers is usually given that way; which would be a drawback. You don"t happen to know how that is in general, do you, sir?"
"No," said Mr Pinch, "I don"t indeed. I never thought upon the subject."
"In case of that not turning out as well as one could wish, you know,"
said Mark, musing again, "there"s other businesses. Undertaking now.
That"s gloomy. There might be credit to be gained there. A broker"s man in a poor neighbourhood wouldn"t be bad perhaps. A jailor sees a deal of misery. A doctor"s man is in the very midst of murder. A bailiff"s an"t a lively office nat"rally. Even a tax-gatherer must find his feelings rather worked upon, at times. There"s lots of trades in which I should have an opportunity, I think."
Mr Pinch was so perfectly overwhelmed by these remarks that he could do nothing but occasionally exchange a word or two on some indifferent subject, and cast sidelong glances at the bright face of his odd friend (who seemed quite unconscious of his observation), until they reached a certain corner of the road, close upon the outskirts of the city, when Mark said he would jump down there, if he pleased.
"But bless my soul, Mark," said Mr Pinch, who in the progress of his observation just then made the discovery that the bosom of his companion"s shirt was as much exposed as if it was Midsummer, and was ruffled by every breath of air, "why don"t you wear a waistcoat?"
"What"s the good of one, sir?" asked Mark.
"Good of one?" said Mr Pinch. "Why, to keep your chest warm."
"Lord love you, sir!" cried Mark, "you don"t know me. My chest don"t want no warming. Even if it did, what would no waistcoat bring it to?
Inflammation of the lungs, perhaps? Well, there"d be some credit in being jolly, with a inflammation of the lungs."
As Mr Pinch returned no other answer than such as was conveyed in his breathing very hard, and opening his eyes very wide, and nodding his head very much, Mark thanked him for his ride, and without troubling him to stop, jumped lightly down. And away he fluttered, with his red neckerchief, and his open coat, down a cross-lane; turning back from time to time to nod to Mr Pinch, and looking one of the most careless, good-humoured comical fellows in life. His late companion, with a thoughtful face pursued his way to Salisbury.
Mr Pinch had a shrewd notion that Salisbury was a very desperate sort of place; an exceeding wild and dissipated city; and when he had put up the horse, and given the hostler to understand that he would look in again in the course of an hour or two to see him take his corn, he set forth on a stroll about the streets with a vague and not unpleasant idea that they teemed with all kinds of mystery and bedevilment. To one of his quiet habits this little delusion was greatly a.s.sisted by the circ.u.mstance of its being market-day, and the thoroughfares about the market-place being filled with carts, horses, donkeys, baskets, waggons, garden-stuff, meat, tripe, pies, poultry and huckster"s wares of every opposite description and possible variety of character. Then there were young farmers and old farmers with smock-frocks, brown great-coats, drab great-coats, red worsted comforters, leather-leggings, wonderful shaped hats, hunting-whips, and rough sticks, standing about in groups, or talking noisily together on the tavern steps, or paying and receiving huge amounts of greasy wealth, with the a.s.sistance of such bulky pocket-books that when they were in their pockets it was apoplexy to get them out, and when they were out it was spasms to get them in again.
Also there were farmers" wives in beaver bonnets and red cloaks, riding s.h.a.ggy horses purged of all earthly pa.s.sions, who went soberly into all manner of places without desiring to know why, and who, if required, would have stood stock still in a china shop, with a complete dinner-service at each hoof. Also a great many dogs, who were strongly interested in the state of the market and the bargains of their masters; and a great confusion of tongues, both brute and human.
Mr Pinch regarded everything exposed for sale with great delight, and was particularly struck by the itinerant cutlery, which he considered of the very keenest kind, insomuch that he purchased a pocket knife with seven blades in it, and not a cut (as he afterwards found out) among them. When he had exhausted the market-place, and watched the farmers safe into the market dinner, he went back to look after the horse.
Having seen him eat unto his heart"s content he issued forth again, to wander round the town and regale himself with the shop windows; previously taking a long stare at the bank, and wondering in what direction underground the caverns might be where they kept the money; and turning to look back at one or two young men who pa.s.sed him, whom he knew to be articled to solicitors in the town; and who had a sort of fearful interest in his eyes, as jolly dogs who knew a thing or two, and kept it up tremendously.
But the shops. First of all there were the jewellers" shops, with all the treasures of the earth displayed therein, and such large silver watches hanging up in every pane of gla.s.s, that if they were anything but first-rate goers it certainly was not because the works could decently complain of want of room. In good sooth they were big enough, and perhaps, as the saying is, ugly enough, to be the most correct of all mechanical performers; in Mr Pinch"s eyes, however they were smaller than Geneva ware; and when he saw one very bloated watch announced as a repeater, gifted with the uncommon power of striking every quarter of an hour inside the pocket of its happy owner, he almost wished that he were rich enough to buy it.
But what were even gold and silver, precious stones and clockwork, to the bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed came issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new grammar had at school, long time ago, with "Master Pinch, Grove House Academy,"
inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes neatly ranged within--what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the t.i.tle-pages, and sometimes even the first page of the first chapter, laid wide open; tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and then, in the impossibility of turning over, to rush blindly in, and buy it! Here too were the dainty frontispiece and trim vignette, pointing like handposts on the outskirts of great cities, to the rich stock of incident beyond; and store of books, with many a grave portrait and time-honoured name, whose matter he knew well, and would have given mines to have, in any form, upon the narrow sh.e.l.l beside his bed at Mr Pecksniff"s. What a heart-breaking shop it was!
There was another; not quite so bad at first, but still a trying shop; where children"s books were sold, and where poor Robinson Crusoe stood alone in his might, with dog and hatchet, goat-skin cap and fowling-pieces; calmly surveying Philip Quarn and the host of imitators round him, and calling Mr Pinch to witness that he, of all the crowd, impressed one solitary footprint on the sh.o.r.e of boyish memory, whereof the tread of generations should not stir the lightest grain of sand.
And there too were the Persian tales, with flying chests and students of enchanted books shut up for years in caverns; and there too was Abudah, the merchant, with the terrible little old woman hobbling out of the box in his bedroom; and there the mighty talisman, the rare Arabian Nights, with Ca.s.sim Baba, divided by four, like the ghost of a dreadful sum, hanging up, all gory, in the robbers" cave. Which matchless wonders, coming fast on Mr Pinch"s mind, did so rub up and chafe that wonderful lamp within him, that when he turned his face towards the busy street, a crowd of phantoms waited on his pleasure, and he lived again, with new delight, the happy days before the Pecksniff era.
He had less interest now in the chemists" shops, with their great glowing bottles (with smaller repositories of brightness in their very stoppers); and in their agreeable compromises between medicine and perfumery, in the shape of toothsome lozenges and virgin honey. Neither had he the least regard (but he never had much) for the tailors", where the newest metropolitan waistcoat patterns were hanging up, which by some strange transformation always looked amazing there, and never appeared at all like the same thing anywhere else. But he stopped to read the playbill at the theatre and surveyed the doorway with a kind of awe, which was not diminished when a sallow gentleman with long dark hair came out, and told a boy to run home to his lodgings and bring down his broadsword. Mr Pinch stood rooted to the spot on hearing this, and might have stood there until dark, but that the old cathedral bell began to ring for vesper service, on which he tore himself away.
Now, the organist"s a.s.sistant was a friend of Mr Pinch"s, which was a good thing, for he too was a very quiet gentle soul, and had been, like Tom, a kind of old-fashioned boy at school, though well liked by the noisy fellow too. As good luck would have it (Tom always said he had great good luck) the a.s.sistant chanced that very afternoon to be on duty by himself, with no one in the dusty organ loft but Tom; so while he played, Tom helped him with the stops; and finally, the service being just over, Tom took the organ himself. It was then turning dark, and the yellow light that streamed in through the ancient windows in the choir was mingled with a murky red. As the grand tones resounded through the church, they seemed, to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart. Great thoughts and hopes came crowding on his mind as the rich music rolled upon the air and yet among them--something more grave and solemn in their purpose, but the same--were all the images of that day, down to its very lightest recollection of childhood. The feeling that the sounds awakened, in the moment of their existence, seemed to include his whole life and being; and as the surrounding realities of stone and wood and gla.s.s grew dimmer in the darkness, these visions grew so much the brighter that Tom might have forgotten the new pupil and the expectant master, and have sat there pouring out his grateful heart till midnight, but for a very earthy old verger insisting on locking up the cathedral forthwith. So he took leave of his friend, with many thanks, groped his way out, as well as he could, into the now lamp-lighted streets, and hurried off to get his dinner.
All the farmers being by this time jogging homewards, there was n.o.body in the sanded parlour of the tavern where he had left the horse; so he had his little table drawn out close before the fire, and fell to work upon a well-cooked steak and smoking hot potatoes, with a strong appreciation of their excellence, and a very keen sense of enjoyment.
Beside him, too, there stood a jug of most stupendous Wiltshire beer; and the effect of the whole was so transcendent, that he was obliged every now and then to lay down his knife and fork, rub his hands, and think about it. By the time the cheese and celery came, Mr Pinch had taken a book out of his pocket, and could afford to trifle with the viands; now eating a little, now drinking a little, now reading a little, and now stopping to wonder what sort of a young man the new pupil would turn out to be. He had pa.s.sed from this latter theme and was deep in his book again, when the door opened, and another guest came in, bringing with him such a quant.i.ty of cold air, that he positively seemed at first to put the fire out.
"Very hard frost to-night, sir," said the newcomer, courteously acknowledging Mr Pinch"s withdrawal of the little table, that he might have place: "Don"t disturb yourself, I beg."
Though he said this with a vast amount of consideration for Mr Pinch"s comfort, he dragged one of the great leather-bottomed chairs to the very centre of the hearth, notwithstanding; and sat down in front of the fire, with a foot on each hob.
"My feet are quite numbed. Ah! Bitter cold to be sure."
"You have been in the air some considerable time, I dare say?" said Mr Pinch.
"All day. Outside a coach, too."
"That accounts for his making the room so cool," thought Mr Pinch. "Poor fellow! How thoroughly chilled he must be!"
The stranger became thoughtful likewise, and sat for five or ten minutes looking at the fire in silence. At length he rose and divested himself of his shawl and great-coat, which (far different from Mr Pinch"s) was a very warm and thick one; but he was not a whit more conversational out of his great-coat than in it, for he sat down again in the same place and att.i.tude, and leaning back in his chair, began to bite his nails. He was young--one-and-twenty, perhaps--and handsome; with a keen dark eye, and a quickness of look and manner which made Tom sensible of a great contrast in his own bearing, and caused him to feel even more shy than usual.
There was a clock in the room, which the stranger often turned to look at. Tom made frequent reference to it also; partly from a nervous sympathy with its taciturn companion; and partly because the new pupil was to inquire for him at half after six, and the hands were getting on towards that hour. Whenever the stranger caught him looking at this clock, a kind of confusion came upon Tom as if he had been found out in something; and it was a perception of his uneasiness which caused the younger man to say, perhaps, with a smile:
"We both appear to be rather particular about the time. The fact is, I have an engagement to meet a gentleman here."
"So have I," said Mr Pinch.
"At half-past six," said the stranger.
"At half-past six," said Tom in the very same breath; whereupon the other looked at him with some surprise.
"The young gentleman, I expect," remarked Tom, timidly, "was to inquire at that time for a person by the name of Pinch."
"Dear me!" cried the other, jumping up. "And I have been keeping the fire from you all this while! I had no idea you were Mr Pinch. I am the Mr Martin for whom you were to inquire. Pray excuse me. How do you do?
Oh, do draw nearer, pray!"