"Thanks to your worthy governor, Sir," said Mr. Trotter, "we have half a leg of mutton, baked, at a quarter before three, with the potatoes under it to save boiling."
"Wot! Has HE been a-purwidin" for you?" asked Sam emphatically.
"He has, Sir," replied Job. "More than that, Mr. Weller; my master being very ill, he got us a room--we were in a kennel before--and paid for it, Sir; and come to look at us, at night, when n.o.body should know. Mr. Weller," said Job, with real tears in his eyes, for once, "I could serve that gentleman till I fell down dead at his feet."
"I say!" said Sam, "I"ll trouble you, my friend! None o" that!"
Job Trotter looked amazed.
"None o" that, I say, young feller," repeated Sam firmly. "No man serves him but me. And now we"re upon it, I"ll let you into another secret besides that," said Sam, as he paid for the beer. "I never heerd, mind you, or read of in story-books, nor see in picters, any angel in tights and gaiters--not even in spectacles, as I remember, though that may ha" been done for anythin" I know to the contrairey--but mark my vords, Job Trotter, he"s a reg"lar thoroughbred angel for all that; and let me see the man as wenturs to tell me he knows a better vun." With this defiance, Mr. Weller b.u.t.toned up his change in a side pocket, and, with many confirmatory nods and gestures by the way, proceeded in search of the subject of discourse.
They found Mr. Pickwick, in company with Jingle, talking very earnestly, and not bestowing a look on the groups who were congregated on the racket-ground; they were very motley groups too, and worth the looking at, if it were only in idle curiosity.
"Well," said Mr. Pickwick, as Sam and his companion drew nigh, "you will see how your health becomes, and think about it meanwhile. Make the statement out for me when you feel yourself equal to the task, and I will discuss the subject with you when I have considered it. Now, go to your room. You are tired, and not strong enough to be out long."
Mr. Alfred Jingle, without one spark of his old animation-- with nothing even of the dismal gaiety which he had a.s.sumed when Mr. Pickwick first stumbled on him in his misery--bowed low without speaking, and, motioning to Job not to follow him just yet, crept slowly away.
"Curious scene this, is it not, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick, looking good-humouredly round.
"Wery much so, Sir," replied Sam. "Wonders "ull never cease," added Sam, speaking to himself. "I"m wery much mistaken if that ,ere Jingle worn"t a-doin somethin" in the water-cart way!"
The area formed by the wall in that part of the Fleet in which Mr. Pickwick stood was just wide enough to make a good racket-court; one side being formed, of course, by the wall itself, and the other by that portion of the prison which looked (or rather would have looked, but for the wall) towards St. Paul"s Cathedral. Sauntering or sitting about, in every possible att.i.tude of listless idleness, were a great number of debtors, the major part of whom were waiting in prison until their day of "going up" before the Insolvent Court should arrive; while others had been remanded for various terms, which they were idling away as they best could. Some were shabby, some were smart, many dirty, a few clean; but there they all lounged, and loitered, and slunk about with as little spirit or purpose as the beasts in a menagerie.
Lolling from the windows which commanded a view of this promenade were a number of persons, some in noisy conversation with their acquaintance below, others playing at ball with some adventurous throwers outside, others looking on at the racket- players, or watching the boys as they cried the game. Dirty, slipshod women pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, on their way to the cooking- house in one corner of the yard; children screamed, and fought, and played together, in another; the tumbling of the skittles, and the shouts of the players, mingled perpetually with these and a hundred other sounds; and all was noise and tumult--save in a little miserable shed a few yards off, where lay, all quiet and ghastly, the body of the Chancery prisoner who had died the night before, awaiting the mockery of an inquest. The body! It is the lawyer"s term for the restless, whirling ma.s.s of cares and anxieties, affections, hopes, and griefs, that make up the living man. The law had his body; and there it lay, clothed in grave- clothes, an awful witness to its tender mercy.
"Would you like to see a whistling-shop, Sir?" inquired Job Trotter.
"What do you mean?" was Mr. Pickwick"s counter inquiry.
"A vistlin" shop, Sir," interposed Mr. Weller.
"What is that, Sam?--A bird-fancier"s?" inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Bless your heart, no, Sir," replied Job; "a whistling-shop, Sir, is where they sell spirits." Mr. Job Trotter briefly explained here, that all persons, being prohibited under heavy penalties from conveying spirits into debtors" prisons, and such commodities being highly prized by the ladies and gentlemen confined therein, it had occurred to some speculative turnkey to connive, for certain lucrative considerations, at two or three prisoners retailing the favourite article of gin, for their own profit and advantage.
"This plan, you see, Sir, has been gradually introduced into all the prisons for debt," said Mr. Trotter.
"And it has this wery great advantage," said Sam, "that the turnkeys takes wery good care to seize hold o" ev"rybody but them as pays "em, that attempts the willainy, and wen it gets in the papers they"re applauded for their wigilance; so it cuts two ways--frightens other people from the trade, and elewates their own characters."
"Exactly so, Mr. Weller," observed Job.
"Well, but are these rooms never searched to ascertain whether any spirits are concealed in them?" said Mr. Pickwick.
"Cert"nly they are, Sir," replied Sam; "but the turnkeys knows beforehand, and gives the word to the wistlers, and you may wistle for it wen you go to look."
By this time, Job had tapped at a door, which was opened by a gentleman with an uncombed head, who bolted it after them when they had walked in, and grinned; upon which Job grinned, and Sam also; whereupon Mr. Pickwick, thinking it might be expected of him, kept on smiling to the end of the interview.
The gentleman with the uncombed head appeared quite satisfied with this mute announcement of their business, and, producing a flat stone bottle, which might hold about a couple of quarts, from beneath his bedstead, filled out three gla.s.ses of gin, which Job Trotter and Sam disposed of in a most workmanlike manner.
"Any more?" said the whistling gentleman.
"No more," replied Job Trotter.
Mr. Pickwick paid, the door was unbolted, and out they came; the uncombed gentleman bestowing a friendly nod upon Mr. Roker, who happened to be pa.s.sing at the moment.
From this spot, Mr. Pickwick wandered along all the galleries, up and down all the staircases, and once again round the whole area of the yard. The great body of the prison population appeared to be Mivins, and Smangle, and the parson, and the butcher, and the leg, over and over, and over again. There were the same squalor, the same turmoil and noise, the same general characteristics, in every corner; in the best and the worst alike. The whole place seemed restless and troubled; and the people were crowding and flitting to and fro, like the shadows in an uneasy dream.
"I have seen enough," said Mr. Pickwick, as he threw himself into a chair in his little apartment. "My head aches with these scenes, and my heart too. Henceforth I will be a prisoner in my own room."
And Mr. Pickwick steadfastly adhered to this determination. For three long months he remained shut up, all day; only stealing out at night to breathe the air, when the greater part of his fellow-prisoners were in bed or carousing in their rooms. His health was beginning to suffer from the closeness of the confinement, but neither the often-repeated entreaties of Perker and his friends, nor the still more frequently-repeated warnings and admonitions of Mr. Samuel Weller, could induce him to alter one jot of his inflexible resolution.
CHAPTER XLVI.
RECORDS A TOUCHING ACT OF DELICATE FEELING, NOT UNMIXED WITH PLEASANTRY, ACHIEVED AND PERFORMED BY Messrs. DODSON AND FOGG.
It was within a week of the close of the month of July, that a hackney cabriolet, number unrecorded, was seen to proceed at a rapid pace up Goswell Street; three people were squeezed into it besides the driver, who sat in his own particular little d.i.c.key at the side; over the ap.r.o.n were hung two shawls, belonging to two small vixenish-looking ladies under the ap.r.o.n; between whom, compressed into a very small compa.s.s, was stowed away, a gentleman of heavy and subdued demeanour, who, whenever he ventured to make an observation, was snapped up short by one of the vixenish ladies before-mentioned. Lastly, the two vixenish ladies and the heavy gentleman were giving the driver contradictory directions, all tending to the one point, that he should stop at Mrs. Bardell"s door; which the heavy gentleman, in direct opposition to, and defiance of, the vixenish ladies, contended was a green door and not a yellow one.
"Stop at the house with a green door, driver," said the heavy gentleman.
"Oh! You perwerse creetur!" exclaimed one of the vixenish ladies. "Drive to the "ouse with the yellow door, cabmin."
Upon this the cabman, who in a sudden effort to pull up at the house with the green door, had pulled the horse up so high that he nearly pulled him backward into the cabriolet, let the animal"s fore-legs down to the ground again, and paused.
"Now vere am I to pull up?" inquired the driver. "Settle it among yourselves. All I ask is, vere?"
Here the contest was renewed with increased violence; and the horse being troubled with a fly on his nose, the cabman humanely employed his leisure in lashing him about on the head, on the counter-irritation principle.
"Most wotes carries the day!" said one of the vixenish ladies at length. "The "ouse with the yellow door, cabman."
But after the cabriolet had dashed up, in splendid style, to the house with the yellow door, "making," as one of the vixenish ladies triumphantly said, "acterrally more noise than if one had come in one"s own carriage," and after the driver had dismounted to a.s.sist the ladies in getting out, the small round head of Master Thomas Bardell was thrust out of the one-pair window of a house with a red door, a few numbers off.
"Aggrawatin" thing!" said the vixenish lady last-mentioned, darting a withering glance at the heavy gentleman.
"My dear, it"s not my fault," said the gentleman.
"Don"t talk to me, you creetur, don"t," retorted the lady. "The house with the red door, cabmin. Oh! If ever a woman was troubled with a ruffinly creetur, that takes a pride and a pleasure in disgracing his wife on every possible occasion afore strangers, I am that woman!"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Raddle," said the other little woman, who was no other than Mrs. Cluppins. "What have I been a-doing of?" asked Mr. Raddle.
"Don"t talk to me, don"t, you brute, for fear I should be perwoked to forgit my sect and strike you!" said Mrs. Raddle.
While this dialogue was going on, the driver was most ignominiously leading the horse, by the bridle, up to the house with the red door, which Master Bardell had already opened. Here was a mean and low way of arriving at a friend"s house! No dashing up, with all the fire and fury of the animal; no jumping down of the driver; no loud knocking at the door; no opening of the ap.r.o.n with a crash at the very last moment, for fear of the ladies sitting in a draught; and then the man handing the shawls out, afterwards, as if he were a private coachman! The whole edge of the thing had been taken off--it was flatter than walking.
"Well, Tommy," said Mrs. Cluppins, "how"s your poor dear mother?"
"Oh, she"s very well," replied Master Bardell. "She"s in the front parlour, all ready. I"m ready too, I am." Here Master Bardell put his hands in his pockets, and jumped off and on the bottom step of the door.
"Is anybody else a-goin", Tommy?" said Mrs. Cluppins, arranging her pelerine.
"Mrs. Sanders is going, she is," replied Tommy; "I"m going too, I am."
"Drat the boy," said little Mrs. Cluppins. "He thinks of n.o.body but himself. Here, Tommy, dear."
"Well," said Master Bardell.
"Who else is a-goin", lovey?" said Mrs. Cluppins, in an insinuating manner.
"Oh! Mrs. Rogers is a-goin"," replied Master Bardell, opening his eyes very wide as he delivered the intelligence.
"What? The lady as has taken the lodgings!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Cluppins.
Master Bardell put his hands deeper down into his pockets, and nodded exactly thirty-five times, to imply that it was the lady-lodger, and no other.
"Bless us!" said Mrs. Cluppins. "It"s quite a party!"
"Ah, if you knew what was in the cupboard, you"d say so," replied Master Bardell.
"What is there, Tommy?" said Mrs. Cluppins coaxingly. "You"ll tell ME, Tommy, I know." "No, I won"t," replied Master Bardell, shaking his head, and applying himself to the bottom step again.
"Drat the child!" muttered Mrs. Cluppins. "What a prowokin" little wretch it is! Come, Tommy, tell your dear Cluppy."
"Mother said I wasn"t to," rejoined Master Bardell, "I"m a-goin" to have some, I am." Cheered by this prospect, the precocious boy applied himself to his infantile treadmill, with increased vigour.
The above examination of a child of tender years took place while Mr. and Mrs. Raddle and the cab-driver were having an altercation concerning the fare, which, terminating at this point in favour of the cabman, Mrs. Raddle came up tottering.
"Lauk, Mary Ann! what"s the matter?" said Mrs. Cluppins.
"It"s put me all over in such a tremble, Betsy," replied Mrs. Raddle. "Raddle ain"t like a man; he leaves everythink to me."
This was scarcely fair upon the unfortunate Mr. Raddle, who had been thrust aside by his good lady in the commencement of the dispute, and peremptorily commanded to hold his tongue. He had no opportunity of defending himself, however, for Mrs. Raddle gave unequivocal signs of fainting; which, being perceived from the parlour window, Mrs. Bardell, Mrs. Sanders, the lodger, and the lodger"s servant, darted precipitately out, and conveyed her into the house, all talking at the same time, and giving utterance to various expressions of pity and condolence, as if she were one of the most suffering mortals on earth. Being conveyed into the front parlour, she was there deposited on a sofa; and the lady from the first floor running up to the first floor, returned with a bottle of sal-volatile, which, holding Mrs. Raddle tight round the neck, she applied in all womanly kindness and pity to her nose, until that lady with many plunges and struggles was fain to declare herself decidedly better.
"Ah, poor thing!" said Mrs. Rogers, "I know what her feelin"s is, too well." "Ah, poor thing! so do I," said Mrs. Sanders; and then all the ladies moaned in unison, and said they knew what it was, and they pitied her from their hearts, they did. Even the lodger"s little servant, who was thirteen years old and three feet high, murmured her sympathy.
"But what"s been the matter?" said Mrs. Bardell.
"Ah, what has decomposed you, ma"am?" inquired Mrs. Rogers.
"I have been a good deal flurried," replied Mrs. Raddle, in a reproachful manner. Thereupon the ladies cast indignant glances at Mr. Raddle.
"Why, the fact is," said that unhappy gentleman, stepping forward, "when we alighted at this door, a dispute arose with the driver of the cabrioily--" A loud scream from his wife, at the mention of this word, rendered all further explanation inaudible.
"You"d better leave us to bring her round, Raddle," said Mrs. Cluppins. "She"ll never get better as long as you"re here."
All the ladies concurred in this opinion; so Mr. Raddle was pushed out of the room, and requested to give himself an airing in the back yard. Which he did for about a quarter of an hour, when Mrs. Bardell announced to him with a solemn face that he might come in now, but that he must be very careful how he behaved towards his wife. She knew he didn"t mean to be unkind; but Mary Ann was very far from strong, and, if he didn"t take care, he might lose her when he least expected it, which would be a very dreadful reflection for him afterwards; and so on. All this, Mr. Raddle heard with great submission, and presently returned to the parlour in a most lamb-like manner.
"Why, Mrs. Rogers, ma"am," said Mrs. Bardell, "you"ve never been introduced, I declare! Mr. Raddle, ma"am; Mrs. Cluppins, ma"am; Mrs. Raddle, ma"am."
"Which is Mrs. Cluppins"s sister," suggested Mrs. Sanders.
"Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Rogers graciously; for she was the lodger, and her servant was in waiting, so she was more gracious than intimate, in right of her position. "Oh, indeed!"
Mrs. Raddle smiled sweetly, Mr. Raddle bowed, and Mrs. Cluppins said, "she was sure she was very happy to have an opportunity of being known to a lady which she had heerd so much in favour of, as Mrs. Rogers." A compliment which the last-named lady acknowledged with graceful condescension.
"Well, Mr. Raddle," said Mrs. Bardell; "I"m sure you ought to feel very much honoured at you and Tommy being the only gentlemen to escort so many ladies all the way to the Spaniards, at Hampstead. Don"t you think he ought, Mrs. Rogers, ma"am?" "Oh, certainly, ma"am," replied Mrs. Rogers; after whom all the other ladies responded, "Oh, certainly."
"Of course I feel it, ma"am," said Mr. Raddle, rubbing his hands, and evincing a slight tendency to brighten up a little. "Indeed, to tell you the truth, I said, as we was a-coming along in the cabrioily--"
At the recapitulation of the word which awakened so many painful recollections, Mrs. Raddle applied her handkerchief to her eyes again, and uttered a half-suppressed scream; so that Mrs. Bardell frowned upon Mr. Raddle, to intimate that he had better not say anything more, and desired Mrs. Rogers"s servant, with an air, to "put the wine on."
This was the signal for displaying the hidden treasures of the closet, which comprised sundry plates of oranges and biscuits, and a bottle of old crusted port--that at one-and-nine--with another of the celebrated East India sherry at fourteen-pence, which were all produced in honour of the lodger, and afforded unlimited satisfaction to everybody. After great consternation had been excited in the mind of Mrs. Cluppins, by an attempt on the part of Tommy to recount how he had been cross-examined regarding the cupboard then in action (which was fortunately nipped in the bud by his imbibing half a gla.s.s of the old crusted "the wrong way," and thereby endangering his life for some seconds), the party walked forth in quest of a Hampstead stage. This was soon found, and in a couple of hours they all arrived safely in the Spaniards Tea-gardens, where the luckless Mr. Raddle"s very first act nearly occasioned his good lady a relapse; it being neither more nor less than to order tea for seven, whereas (as the ladies one and all remarked), what could have been easier than for Tommy to have drank out of anybody"s cup--or everybody"s, if that was all--when the waiter wasn"t looking, which would have saved one head of tea, and the tea just as good!
However, there was no help for it, and the tea-tray came, with seven cups and saucers, and bread-and-b.u.t.ter on the same scale. Mrs. Bardell was unanimously voted into the chair, and Mrs. Rogers being stationed on her right hand, and Mrs. Raddle on her left, the meal proceeded with great merriment and success.
"How sweet the country is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived in it always."
"Oh, you wouldn"t like that, ma"am," replied Mrs. Bardell, rather hastily; for it was not at all advisable, with reference to the lodgings, to encourage such notions; "you wouldn"t like it, ma"am."
"Oh! I should think you was a deal too lively and sought after, to be content with the country, ma"am," said little Mrs. Cluppins.
"Perhaps I am, ma"am. Perhaps I am," sighed the first-floor lodger.
"For lone people as have got n.o.body to care for them, or take care of them, or as have been hurt in their mind, or that kind of thing," observed Mr. Raddle, plucking up a little cheerfulness, and looking round, "the country is all very well. The country for a wounded spirit, they say."
Now, of all things in the world that the unfortunate man could have said, any would have been preferable to this. Of course Mrs. Bardell burst into tears, and requested to be led from the table instantly; upon which the affectionate child began to cry too, most dismally.
"Would anybody believe, ma"am," exclaimed Mrs. Raddle, turning fiercely to the first-floor lodger, "that a woman could be married to such a unmanly creetur, which can tamper with a woman"s feelings as he does, every hour in the day, ma"am?"
"My dear," remonstrated Mr. Raddle, "I didn"t mean anything, my dear."
"You didn"t mean!" repeated Mrs. Raddle, with great scorn and contempt. "Go away. I can"t bear the sight on you, you brute."
"You must not flurry yourself, Mary Ann," interposed Mrs. Cluppins. "You really must consider yourself, my dear, which you never do. Now go away, Raddle, there"s a good soul, or you"ll only aggravate her."
"You had better take your tea by yourself, Sir, indeed," said Mrs. Rogers, again applying the smelling-bottle.
Mrs. Sanders, who, according to custom, was very busy with the bread-and-b.u.t.ter, expressed the same opinion, and Mr. Raddle quietly retired.
After this, there was a great hoisting up of Master Bardell, who was rather a large size for hugging, into his mother"s arms, in which operation he got his boots in the tea-board, and occasioned some confusion among the cups and saucers. But that description of fainting fits, which is contagious among ladies, seldom lasts long; so when he had been well kissed, and a little cried over, Mrs. Bardell recovered, set him down again, wondering how she could have been so foolish, and poured out some more tea.
It was at this moment, that the sound of approaching wheels was heard, and that the ladies, looking up, saw a hackney-coach stop at the garden gate.