commit 3fc1b694e2379ce1831867ff73b4536fe5d7e911 Author: dozens Date: Mon May 19 22:46:50 2025 -0600 init diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc511a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +# serial + +> a book serializer + +this is the worst thingie i can imagine that sends you an email at a scheduled +interval containing a snippet of a book, length of your choosing. + +## requirements + +- recutils +- awk +- postfix: configuring postfix (or some other mail transfer agent) is up to you! + i successfully did it after a lot of trial and error. see: `/doc/postfix.txt` +- jq +- fzf (optional) +- just (optional) + +## usage + +1. update the recepient's email address in `justfile` + +2. put plain text ebooks in `/src`. + (check out https://www.gutenberg.org/) + +3. create a new entry for each new book in `config.rec` + (see `config.rec` for details) + +4. either run `just process` every day, or set up a cron job to run it + (https://crontab.guru/#12_*_*_*_*) + +## details + +All variables and values mentioned below exist in each record of `config.rec` + +1. Iterate over the records in config.rec. If today is not present in `delivery`, continue. + +2. Iterate over paragraphs (sep = '\n\n') starting with paragraph number + `progress` and ending when the running word count exceeds `WPM * minutes`. + +3. Pipe those paragraphs to postfix mail + +4. Increment `iter` and update `progress` to be the final paragraph number (plus one) diff --git a/config.rec b/config.rec new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1ceee8 --- /dev/null +++ b/config.rec @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +%rec: doc +%doc: a document +%key: id +%type: id,iter,progress,minutes int +%type: title,author,file,delivery line +%type: created,updated date +%auto: id created updated + +## FURTHER DETAILS +## id : just an id +## title, author : you know what to do +## file : the path and filename +## iter (iteration) : how many times the file has been processed; how many emails have been sent. default = 1 +## progress : the "current index" or paragraph number; where to start the next serial. default = 0 +## delivery : must be a json array of days of the week, capitalized (so it matched `date +'%A'`) +## minutes : how many minutes you want each serial to be (multiplied by +## 240 which I read on the internet is roughly how many words +## per minute a person reads) +## created, updated : timestamps + +id: 1 +title: Bleak House +author: Charles Dickens +file: src/bleak.txt +iter: 2 +progress: 10 +delivery: [ "Monday", "Wednesdsay", "Thursday" ] +minutes: 5 +created: 2025-05-14 +updated: 2025-05-19 + +id: 2 +title: Moby Dick +author: Herman Melville +file: src/mobydick.txt +iter: 1 +progress: 0 +delivery: [ "Friday" ] +minutes: 15 +created: 2025-05-16 +updated: 2025-05-16 diff --git a/doc/postfix.txt b/doc/postfix.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..788f8f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/postfix.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +whew this thing is hard to understand and configure + +- https://www.postfix.org/documentation.html +- https://blog.konoson.com/set-up-macos-to-use-postfix-for-sending-automated-emails-from-cron +- https://knazarov.com/posts/setting_up_postfix_on_os_x/ +- https://altoplace.com/macos/create-a-send-only-smtp-server-on-macos/ diff --git a/justfile b/justfile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b71ac43 --- /dev/null +++ b/justfile @@ -0,0 +1,59 @@ +set quiet + +conf:="config.rec" +email:="pooper@bigpoop.com" + +# list all recipes +default: + just --list --unsorted + +# add new book +new: + #!/usr/bin/env sh + read -p "Title: " title + read -p "Author: " author + read -p "File: " file + read -p "Minutes of reading per email: " minutes + delivery=$(echo "Monday\nTuesday\nWednesday\nThursday\nFriday\nSaturday\nSunday" | fzf --no-preview --multi | jq --raw-input --slurp 'split("\n")[:-1]' | tr -d '\n') + recins {{conf}} -t doc \ + -f title -v "$title" \ + -f author -v "$author" \ + -f file -v "$file" \ + -f iter -v 1 \ + -f progress -v 0 \ + -f minutes -v "$minutes" \ + -f delivery -v "$delivery" +alias n:= new + +# process books +process: + #!/usr/bin/env sh + WPM=240 + recs=$(recsel {{conf}} -c) + for rec in $(seq 0 $(($recs - 1))) + do + deliver=$(recsel {{conf}} -P delivery -n "$rec" | jq --arg today $(gdate +'%A') 'any(. == $today)) + if ! $deliver; then continue; fi + idx=$(recsel {{conf}} -P progress -n "$rec") + minutes=$(recsel {{conf}} -P minutes -n "$rec") + words=$((minutes * WPM)) + file=$(recsel {{conf}} -P file -n "$rec") + title=$(recsel {{conf}} -P title -n "$rec") + author=$(recsel {{conf}} -P author -n "$rec") + iter=$(recsel {{conf}} -P iter -n "$rec") + awk -v start="$idx" -v rec="$rec" -v title="$title" -v author="$author" -v iter="$iter" 'BEGIN { + RS="\n\n"; ORS="\n\n"; Limit=1200 + } + NR >= start && total < Limit { + out = out "\n\n" $0; + total = total + NF; par = NR; + } + END { + cmd = "recset {{conf}} -n " rec " -f progress -s " par + 1; + cmd | getline + print out + }' "$file" \ + | mail -s "$title, by $author Part $iter" {{email}} + recset {{conf}} -n "$rec" -f iter -s $((iter + 1)) + recset {{conf}} -n "$rec" -f updated -s $(gdate -I) + done diff --git a/src/bleak.txt b/src/bleak.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..591c6f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/bleak.txt @@ -0,0 +1,39378 @@ +CHAPTER I + +In Chancery + +London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting +in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in +the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of +the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, +forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn +Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black +drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown +snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of +the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; +splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one +another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing +their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other +foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke +(if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust +of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and +accumulating at compound interest. + +Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and +meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers +of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. +Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping +into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and +hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales +of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient +Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog +in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, +down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of +his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the +bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog +all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the +misty clouds. + +Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as +the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman +and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their +time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling +look. + +The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the +muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, +appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old +corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn +Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in +his High Court of Chancery. + +Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire +too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which +this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds +this day in the sight of heaven and earth. + +On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be +sitting here—as here he is—with a foggy glory round his head, +softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a +large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an +interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the +lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an +afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar +ought to be—as here they are—mistily engaged in one of the ten +thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on +slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running +their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and +making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On +such an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or +three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a +fortune by it, ought to be—as are they not?—ranged in a line, in a +long matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom +of it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with +bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, +issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly +nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting +candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it +would never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their +colour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the +uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in +the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the +drawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the +Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it +and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the +Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted +lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every +madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined +suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and +begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to +monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so +exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain +and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its +practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the +warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come +here!" + +Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon +besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three +counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before +mentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown; +and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or +whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning, +for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the +cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The +short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of +the newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when +Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on +a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained +sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is +always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting +some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say +she really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for +certain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a +reticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of +paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in +custody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application "to +purge himself of his contempt," which, being a solitary surviving +executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts +of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is +not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life +are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from +Shropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at +the close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to +understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence +after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself +in a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out "My +Lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising. +A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger +on the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal +weather a little. + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in +course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it +means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been +observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five +minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the +premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; +innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people +have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found +themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how +or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the +suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new +rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown +up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the +other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and +grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone +out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere +bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth +perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a +coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags +its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless. + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good +that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke +in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out +of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he +was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by +blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee +after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of +fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it +neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said +that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he +observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. +Blowers"—a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and +purses. + +How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched +forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide +question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty +warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many +shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has +copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that +eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In +trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under +false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never +come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched +suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, +Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments +until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into +themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause +has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a +distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, +Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising +themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter +and see what can be done for Drizzle—who was not well used—when +Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and +sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the +ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history +from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted +into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad +course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some +off-hand manner never meant to go right. + +Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the +Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. + +"Mr. Tangle," says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something +restless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman. + +"Mlud," says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and +Jarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it—supposed never to have +read anything else since he left school. + +"Have you nearly concluded your argument?" + +"Mlud, no—variety of points—feel it my duty tsubmit—ludship," is +the reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle. + +"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?" says +the Chancellor with a slight smile. + +Eighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little +summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a +pianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places +of obscurity. + +"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight," says the +Chancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a +mere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come +to a settlement one of these days. + +The Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward +in a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, "My lord!" Maces, bags, +and purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from +Shropshire. + +"In reference," proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and +Jarndyce, "to the young girl—" + +"Begludship's pardon—boy," says Mr. Tangle prematurely. "In +reference," proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, "to the +young girl and boy, the two young people"—Mr. Tangle crushed—"whom +I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private +room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of +making the order for their residing with their uncle." + +Mr. Tangle on his legs again. "Begludship's pardon—dead." + +"With their"—Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the +papers on his desk—"grandfather." + +"Begludship's pardon—victim of rash action—brains." + +Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, +fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will +your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several +times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in +what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin." + +Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in +the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog +knows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him. + +"I will speak with both the young people," says the Chancellor anew, +"and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their +cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my +seat." + +The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is +presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration +but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from +Shropshire ventures another remonstrative "My lord!" but the +Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody +else quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with +heavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old +woman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up. +If all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has +caused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a +great funeral pyre—why so much the better for other parties than the +parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! + +CHAPTER II + +In Fashion + +It is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same +miry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we +may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the +world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent +and usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange +games through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the +knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen +shall begin to turn prodigiously! + +It is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which +has its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made +the tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a +very little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and +true people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is +that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine +wool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot +see them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and +its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air. + +My Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days +previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to +stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The +fashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians, +and it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to +be unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in +familiar conversation, her "place" in Lincolnshire. The waters are +out in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been +sapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile +in breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in +it and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain. +My Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for +many a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through, +and the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no +crash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave +quagmires where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in +the moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards +the green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the +falling rain. The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is +alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases +on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and +the heavy drops fall—drip, drip, drip—upon the broad flagged +pavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On +Sundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit +breaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste +as of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is +childless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a +keeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed +panes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a +woman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a +wrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of +temper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been "bored to death." + +Therefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in +Lincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the +rabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The pictures +of the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp +walls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along +the old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come +forth again, the fashionable intelligence—which, like the fiend, is +omniscient of the past and present, but not the future—cannot yet +undertake to say. + +Sir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier +baronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely +more respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get +on without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would on +the whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when +not enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its +execution on your great county families. He is a gentleman of strict +conscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on +the shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather +than give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is +an honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely +prejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man. + +Sir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. He +will never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet +sixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a +little stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair +and whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his +blue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. He is ceremonious, +stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her +personal attractions in the highest estimation. His gallantry to my +Lady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little +touch of romantic fancy in him. + +Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she +had not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that +perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But she had +beauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to +portion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to +these, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has +been at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of +the fashionable tree. + +How Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody +knows—or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having +been rather frequently mentioned. My Lady Dedlock, having conquered +HER world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing, +mood. An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of +fatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the +trophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. If she could be +translated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend +without any rapture. + +She has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet +in its autumn. She has a fine face—originally of a character that +would be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into +classicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her +figure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is +so, but that "the most is made," as the Honourable Bob Stables has +frequently asserted upon oath, "of all her points." The same +authority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in +commendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed +woman in the whole stud. + +With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up +from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable +intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her +departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, +after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, +upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned +old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of +Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the +Dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name +outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's +trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across +the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the +rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of +it—fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in—the old gentleman +is conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence. + +The old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made +good thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic +wills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of +family confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository. +There are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of +parks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer +noble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of +Mr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called the old school—a phrase +generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young—and +wears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One +peculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they +silk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive +to any glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses +when not professionally consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless +but quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country +houses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the +fashionable intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and +where half the Peerage stops to say "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" +He receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with +the rest of his knowledge. + +Sir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr. +Tulkinghorn. There is an air of prescription about him which is +always agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of +tribute. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of tribute +in that too. It is eminently respectable, and likewise, in a general +way, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the steward of the +legal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of the Dedlocks. + +Has Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it may +not, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in +everything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class—as one +of the leaders and representatives of her little world. She supposes +herself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of +ordinary mortals—seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks +so. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to +the manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices, +follies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a +calculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her +dressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new +custom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new +dwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? There are +deferential people in a dozen callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects +of nothing but prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage +her as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their +lives, who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience, +lead her and her whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook +all and bear them off as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet +of the majestic Lilliput. "If you want to address our people, sir," +say Blaze and Sparkle, the jewellers—meaning by our people Lady +Dedlock and the rest—"you must remember that you are not dealing +with the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest +place, and their weakest place is such a place." "To make this +article go down, gentlemen," say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to +their friends the manufacturers, "you must come to us, because we +know where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it +fashionable." "If you want to get this print upon the tables of my +high connexion, sir," says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, "or if you +want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion, +sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of +my high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for +I have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, +sir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my +finger"—in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not +exaggerate at all. + +Therefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the +Dedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may. + +"My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr. +Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand. + +"Yes. It has been on again to-day," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, making +one of his quiet bows to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the fire, +shading her face with a hand-screen. + +"It would be useless to ask," says my Lady with the dreariness of the +place in Lincolnshire still upon her, "whether anything has been +done." + +"Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day," replies +Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Nor ever will be," says my Lady. + +Sir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It +is a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing. To be +sure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part +in which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has a +shadowy impression that for his name—the name of Dedlock—to be in a +cause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous +accident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should +involve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of +confusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of +other somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal +settlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is upon the whole +of a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to +any complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the +lower classes to rise up somewhere—like Wat Tyler. + +"As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file," says Mr. +Tulkinghorn, "and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the +troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any +new proceedings in a cause"—cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no +more responsibility than necessary—"and further, as I see you are +going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket." + +(Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight of +the fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.) + +Mr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them +on a golden talisman of a table at my Lady's elbow, puts on his +spectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp. + +"‘In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce—'" + +My Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal +horrors as he can. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower +down. My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. Sir +Leicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a +stately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging +among the national bulwarks. It happens that the fire is hot where my +Lady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful, +being priceless but small. My Lady, changing her position, sees the +papers on the table—looks at them nearer—looks at them nearer +still—asks impulsively, "Who copied that?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady's animation and her +unusual tone. + +"Is it what you people call law-hand?" she asks, looking full at him +in her careless way again and toying with her screen. + +"Not quite. Probably"—Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks—"the +legal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was +formed. Why do you ask?" + +"Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens her +face. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, "Eh? What +do you say?" + +"I say I am afraid," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily, +"that Lady Dedlock is ill." + +"Faint," my Lady murmurs with white lips, "only that; but it is like +the faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me to my +room!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet +shuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mercury at last begs Mr. +Tulkinghorn to return. + +"Better now," quoth Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down +and read to him alone. "I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my +Lady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she +really has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire." + +CHAPTER III + +A Progress + +I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of +these pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I can +remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my +doll when we were alone together, "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you +know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" And so +she used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful +complexion and rosy lips, staring at me—or not so much at me, I +think, as at nothing—while I busily stitched away and told her every +one of my secrets. + +My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared +to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. +It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me +when I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and +say, "Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!" +and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great +chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always +rather a noticing way—not a quick way, oh, no!—a silent way of +noticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to +understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding. +When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But +even that may be my vanity. + +I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance—like some of the +princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming—by my +godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good +woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning +prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there +were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had +ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel—but she +never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good +herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown +all her life. I felt so different from her, even making every +allowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so +poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained +with her—no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very +sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and +I used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I +talked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved +my godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have +loved her if I had been a better girl. + +This made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally +was and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at +ease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing +that helped it very much. + +I had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa +either, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a +black frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama's +grave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been +taught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than +once approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our +only servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very +good woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, "Esther, good +night!" and gone away and left me. + +Although there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I +was a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther +Summerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than +I, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there +seemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and +besides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more +than I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school +(I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my +great joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me, +and I never went. I never went out at all. + +It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other +birthdays—none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other +birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one +another—there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy +day at home in the whole year. + +I have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know +it may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I +don't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My +disposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such +a wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the +quickness of that birthday. + +Dinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table +before the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another +sound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don't know how +long. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the +table at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me, +"It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no +birthday, that you had never been born!" + +I broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, "Oh, dear godmother, tell +me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?" + +"No," she returned. "Ask me no more, child!" + +"Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear +godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her? +Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, +dear godmother? No, no, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to me!" + +I was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her +dress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while, +"Let me go!" But now she stood still. + +Her darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the +midst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp +hers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew +it as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She +raised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly +in a cold, low voice—I see her knitted brow and pointed +finger—"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. +The time will come—and soon enough—when you will understand this +better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have +forgiven her"—but her face did not relent—"the wrong she did to me, +and I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever +know—than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself, +unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil +anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon +your head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave +all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that +greatest kindness. Now, go!" + +She checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her—so frozen +as I was!—and added this, "Submission, self-denial, diligent work, +are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You +are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, +like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart." + +I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek +against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my +bosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my +sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody's +heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me. + +Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together +afterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my +birthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could +to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt +guilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be +industrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some +one, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not +self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very +thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to +my eyes. + +There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly. + +I felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more +after the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her +house which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult +of approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than +ever. I felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in +the same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards +her daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a +fortnight! I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very +diligent. + +One sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books +and portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was +gliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the +parlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found—which was +very unusual indeed—a stranger. A portly, important-looking +gentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold +watch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon +his little finger. + +"This," said my godmother in an undertone, "is the child." Then she +said in her naturally stern way of speaking, "This is Esther, sir." + +The gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, "Come +here, my dear!" He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my +bonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said, +"Ah!" and afterwards "Yes!" And then, taking off his eye-glasses and +folding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair, +turning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod. +Upon that, my godmother said, "You may go upstairs, Esther!" And I +made him my curtsy and left him. + +It must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen, +when one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I was +reading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine o'clock +as I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading from St. +John how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the +dust, when they brought the sinful woman to him. + +"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said +unto them, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a +stone at her!'" + +I was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head, +and crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book, +"‘Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And +what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'" + +In an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she +fell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had +sounded through the house and been heard in the street. + +She was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, little +altered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that I so +well knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the day and +in the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers +might be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her, +asked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me +the least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was +immovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained +unsoftened. + +On the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in +black with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs. +Rachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone +away. + +"My name is Kenge," he said; "you may remember it, my child; Kenge +and Carboy, Lincoln's Inn." + +I replied that I remembered to have seen him once before. + +"Pray be seated—here near me. Don't distress yourself; it's of no +use. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you who were acquainted with the +late Miss Barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and that +this young lady, now her aunt is dead—" + +"My aunt, sir!" + +"It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to +be gained by it," said Mr. Kenge smoothly, "Aunt in fact, though not +in law. Don't distress yourself! Don't weep! Don't tremble! Mrs. +Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of—the—a—Jarndyce and +Jarndyce." + +"Never," said Mrs. Rachael. + +"Is it possible," pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses, +"that our young friend—I BEG you won't distress yourself!—never +heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!" + +I shook my head, wondering even what it was. + +"Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his +glasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he +were petting something. "Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits +known? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce—the—a—in itself a monument of +Chancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every +contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known +in that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause +that could not exist out of this free and great country. I should +say that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs. +Rachael"—I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I appeared +inattentive—"amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty +THOUSAND POUNDS!" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair. + +I felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely +unacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it even +then. + +"And she really never heard of the cause!" said Mr. Kenge. +"Surprising!" + +"Miss Barbary, sir," returned Mrs. Rachael, "who is now among the +Seraphim—" + +"I hope so, I am sure," said Mr. Kenge politely. + +"—Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And +she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more." + +"Well!" said Mr. Kenge. "Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the +point," addressing me. "Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact +that is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being +deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs. +Rachael—" + +"Oh, dear no!" said Mrs. Rachael quickly. + +"Quite so," assented Mr. Kenge; "—that Mrs. Rachael should charge +herself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won't distress +yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer +which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and +which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the +lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow +that I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly +humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself +by any stretch of my professional caution?" said Mr. Kenge, leaning +back in his chair again and looking calmly at us both. + +He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I +couldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great +importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with +obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music +with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much +impressed by him—even then, before I knew that he formed himself on +the model of a great lord who was his client and that he was +generally called Conversation Kenge. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he pursued, "being aware of the—I would say, +desolate—position of our young friend, offers to place her at a +first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, +where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall +be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge +her duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased—shall I +say Providence?—to call her." + +My heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his +affecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though I +tried. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he went on, "makes no condition beyond expressing his +expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself +from the establishment in question without his knowledge and +concurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the +acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she +will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of +virtue and honour, and—the—a——so forth." + +I was still less able to speak than before. + +"Now, what does our young friend say?" proceeded Mr. Kenge. "Take +time, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!" + +What the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need not +repeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were worth +the telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, I could +never relate. + +This interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I +knew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all +necessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading. + +Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was +not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known +her better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough +of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one +cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone +porch—it was a very frosty day—I felt so miserable and +self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I +knew, that she could say good-bye so easily! + +"No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!" + +The coach was at the little lawn-gate—we had not come out until we +heard the wheels—and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She +went in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the +door. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the +window through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the +little property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old +hearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first +thing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost +and snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her +own shawl and quietly laid her—I am half ashamed to tell it—in the +garden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no +companion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage. + +When the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the +straw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high +window, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of +spar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and +the sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like +metal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There +was a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked +very large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the +other window and took no notice of me. + +I thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of +her frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place +I was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they +would be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the +coach gave me a terrible start. + +It said, "What the de-vil are you crying for?" + +I was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a +whisper, "Me, sir?" For of course I knew it must have been the +gentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking +out of his window. + +"Yes, you," he said, turning round. + +"I didn't know I was crying, sir," I faltered. + +"But you are!" said the gentleman. "Look here!" He came quite +opposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his +large furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed +me that it was wet. + +"There! Now you know you are," he said. "Don't you?" + +"Yes, sir," I said. + +"And what are you crying for?" said the gentleman, "Don't you want to +go there?" + +"Where, sir?" + +"Where? Why, wherever you are going," said the gentleman. + +"I am very glad to go there, sir," I answered. + +"Well, then! Look glad!" said the gentleman. + +I thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of +him was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face +was almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of +his head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, and not +afraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying +because of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. Rachael's not +being sorry to part with me. + +"Confound Mrs. Rachael!" said the gentleman. "Let her fly away in a +high wind on a broomstick!" + +I began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the +greatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes, +although he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and +calling Mrs. Rachael names. + +After a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to +me large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into +a deep pocket in the side. + +"Now, look here!" he said. "In this paper," which was nicely folded, +"is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money—sugar on +the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here's a little +pie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And +what do you suppose it's made of? Livers of fat geese. There's a pie! +Now let's see you eat 'em." + +"Thank you, sir," I replied; "thank you very much indeed, but I hope +you won't be offended—they are too rich for me." + +"Floored again!" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all +understand, and threw them both out of window. + +He did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a +little way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and +to be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved by +his departure. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it +afterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and +half expecting to meet him. But I never did; and so, as time went on, +he passed out of my mind. + +When the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and +said, "Miss Donny." + +"No, ma'am, Esther Summerson." + +"That is quite right," said the lady, "Miss Donny." + +I now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged +Miss Donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her +request. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put +outside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the maid, +and I got inside and were driven away. + +"Everything is ready for you, Esther," said Miss Donny, "and the +scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with +the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Of—did you say, ma'am?" + +"Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce," said Miss Donny. + +I was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too +severe for me and lent me her smelling-bottle. + +"Do you know my—guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?" I asked after a good +deal of hesitation. + +"Not personally, Esther," said Miss Donny; "merely through his +solicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior +gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods +quite majestic!" + +I felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. Our +speedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover +myself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the +uncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny's +house) that afternoon! + +But I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of +Greenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great while +and almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my +godmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than +Greenleaf. There was a time for everything all round the dial of the +clock, and everything was done at its appointed moment. + +We were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It +was understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my +qualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in +everything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in +helping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other +respect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made +in my case from the first. As I began to know more, I taught more, +and so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I was very fond of +doing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a +new pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so +sure—indeed I don't know why—to make a friend of me that all +new-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I +am sure THEY were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my +birthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to +do some good to some one and win some love if I could; and indeed, +indeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so +much. + +I passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face +there, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better +if I had never been born. When the day came round, it brought me so +many tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful +with them from New Year's Day to Christmas. + +In those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday +time in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had +taken Miss Donny's advice in reference to the propriety of writing to +Mr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with her approval +I had written such a letter. I had received a formal answer +acknowledging its receipt and saying, "We note the contents thereof, +which shall be duly communicated to our client." After that I +sometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regular my +accounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to write a +similar letter. I always received by return of post exactly the same +answer in the same round hand, with the signature of Kenge and Carboy +in another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. Kenge's. + +It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about +myself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my +little body will soon fall into the background now. + +Six quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had +passed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a +looking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when, +one November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date. + + Old Square, Lincoln's Inn + + Madam, + + Jarndyce and Jarndyce + + Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house, + under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this + cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn, + directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your + serces in the afsd capacity. + + We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr + eight o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next, + to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of + our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as + above. + + We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts, + + Kenge and Carboy + + Miss Esther Summerson + +Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused +in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was +so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my +orphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful +natures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would +have had them less sorry—I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, +and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble +regret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking +while it was full of rapture. + +The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every +minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in +those five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took +me through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time, and +when some cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my +bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others +asked me only to write their names, "With Esther's love," and when +they all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me +weeping and cried, "What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!" +and when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had +all been to me and how I blessed and thanked them every one, what a +heart I had! + +And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the +least among them, and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, wherever +you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had +hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to +give me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the +light of his eyes—indeed the old man said so!—what a heart I had +then! + +And could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little +school, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving +their hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady +whose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I had visited +(who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring +for nothing but calling out, "Good-bye, Esther. May you be very +happy!"—could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by +myself and said "Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!" many times +over! + +But of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I +was going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of course, +I made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying +very often, "Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!" I +cheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was +longer about it than I ought to have been; and when I had cooled my +eyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for London. + +I was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off, +and when we really were there, that we should never get there. +However, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and +particularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into +us, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began +to believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey. +Very soon afterwards we stopped. + +A young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from +the pavement and said, "I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of +Lincoln's Inn." + +"If you please, sir," said I. + +He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after +superintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was +a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown +smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen. + +"Oh, dear no, miss," he said. "This is a London particular." + +I had never heard of such a thing. + +"A fog, miss," said the young gentleman. + +"Oh, indeed!" said I. + +We drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever +were seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of +confusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we +passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through +a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there +was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance +to a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some +cloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window. + +This was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me through an +outer office into Mr. Kenge's room—there was no one in it—and +politely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my +attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side +of the chimney-piece. + +"In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the +journey, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's +requisite, I am sure," said the young gentleman civilly. + +"Going before the Chancellor?" I said, startled for a moment. + +"Only a matter of form, miss," returned the young gentleman. "Mr. +Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake +of some refreshment"—there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a +small table—"and look over the paper," which the young gentleman +gave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left me. + +Everything was so strange—the stranger from its being night in the +day-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and +cold—that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what +they meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it +was of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep +at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the +room, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables, +and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most +inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for +themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the +fire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on +flickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers—until the young +gentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair—for two hours. + +At last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised to +see how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. "As you are going +to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's +private room, Miss Summerson," he said, "we thought it well that you +should be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord +Chancellor, I dare say?" + +"No, sir," I said, "I don't think I shall," really not seeing on +consideration why I should be. + +So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a +colonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage, +into a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young +gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was +interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen, +talking. + +They both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with +the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such rich +golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, +trusting face! + +"Miss Ada," said Mr. Kenge, "this is Miss Summerson." + +She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, +but seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short, +she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few +minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the +fire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be. + +What a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could +confide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging +to me! + +The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name +Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and +a most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we +sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a +light-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if +quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were +both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had +never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the +first time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we +talked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its +red eyes at us—as Richard said—like a drowsy old Chancery lion. + +We conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag +wig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a +drawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel +in our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that +the Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a +bustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had +risen and his lordship was in the next room. + +The gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and +requested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next +room, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling—it is so natural to me now +that I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and +sitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship, +whose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another +chair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was +both courtly and kind. + +The gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship's +table, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the +leaves. + +"Miss Clare," said the Lord Chancellor. "Miss Ada Clare?" + +Mr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near +him. That he admired her and was interested by her even I could see +in a moment. It touched me that the home of such a beautiful young +creature should be represented by that dry, official place. The Lord +High Chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the +love and pride of parents. + +"The Jarndyce in question," said the Lord Chancellor, still turning +over leaves, "is Jarndyce of Bleak House." + +"Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +"A dreary name," said the Lord Chancellor. + +"But not a dreary place at present, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +"And Bleak House," said his lordship, "is in—" + +"Hertfordshire, my lord." + +"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?" said his lordship. + +"He is not, my lord," said Mr. Kenge. + +A pause. + +"Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?" said the Lord Chancellor, +glancing towards him. + +Richard bowed and stepped forward. + +"Hum!" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves. + +"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord," Mr. Kenge observed in a low +voice, "if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable +companion for—" + +"For Mr. Richard Carstone?" I thought (but I am not quite sure) I +heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile. + +"For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson." + +His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy +very graciously. + +"Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?" + +"No, my lord." + +Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His +lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or +thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again +until we were going away. + +Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the +door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't help +it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a +little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had +well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she +would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why +she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and +then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated, +but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if +he still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to +the candour of a boy. + +"Very well!" said his lordship aloud. "I shall make the order. Mr. +Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge," and this +was when he looked at me, "a very good companion for the young lady, +and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the +circumstances admit." + +He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to +him for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost +no dignity but seemed to us to have gained some. + +When we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must go +back for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the +Lord Chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come out. + +"Well!" said Richard Carstone. "THAT'S over! And where do we go next, +Miss Summerson?" + +"Don't you know?" I said. + +"Not in the least," said he. + +"And don't YOU know, my love?" I asked Ada. + +"No!" said she. "Don't you?" + +"Not at all!" said I. + +We looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the +children in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed +bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us +with an air of great ceremony. + +"Oh!" said she. "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to +have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty +when they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to +come of it." + +"Mad!" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him. + +"Right! Mad, young gentleman," she returned so quickly that he was +quite abashed. "I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time," +curtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. "I had youth +and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of +the three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court +regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the +Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in +the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray +accept my blessing." + +As Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady, +that we were much obliged to her. + +"Ye-es!" she said mincingly. "I imagine so. And here is Conversation +Kenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?" + +"Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good +soul!" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back. + +"By no means," said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me. +"Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both—which is +not being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the +Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!" + +She stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but +we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still +with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, "Youth. And +hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray +accept my blessing!" + +CHAPTER IV + +Telescopic Philanthropy + +We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his +room, at Mrs. Jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took it +for granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was. + +"I really don't, sir," I returned. "Perhaps Mr. Carstone—or Miss +Clare—" + +But no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. "In-deed! Mrs. +Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and +casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs. +Jellyby's biography, "is a lady of very remarkable strength of +character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted +herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times +and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the +subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the +coffee berry—AND the natives—and the happy settlement, on the banks +of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr. +Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely +to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, +has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby." + +Mr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us. + +"And Mr. Jellyby, sir?" suggested Richard. + +"Ah! Mr. Jellyby," said Mr. Kenge, "is—a—I don't know that I can +describe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of +Mrs. Jellyby." + +"A nonentity, sir?" said Richard with a droll look. + +"I don't say that," returned Mr. Kenge gravely. "I can't say that, +indeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my +knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very +superior man, but he is, so to speak, merged—merged—in the more +shining qualities of his wife." Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that +as the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and +tedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already, +Mr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would +be at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early in the forenoon +of to-morrow. + +He then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in. +Addressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether Miss +Summerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been "sent round." +Mr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting +to take us round too as soon as we pleased. + +"Then it only remains," said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, "for +me to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the +arrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss +Summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the +(glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr. +Carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all +concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there." + +"Where IS ‘there,' Mr. Guppy?" said Richard as we went downstairs. + +"No distance," said Mr. Guppy; "round in Thavies Inn, you know." + +"I can't say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am +strange in London." + +"Only round the corner," said Mr. Guppy. "We just twist up Chancery +Lane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four minutes' time, +as near as a toucher. This is about a London particular NOW, ain't +it, miss?" He seemed quite delighted with it on my account. + +"The fog is very dense indeed!" said I. + +"Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure," said Mr. Guppy, putting +up the steps. "On the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss, +judging from your appearance." + +I knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at +myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the +box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and +the strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our +destination—a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to +hold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people, +principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, +which had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription +JELLYBY. + +"Don't be frightened!" said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the +coach-window. "One of the young Jellybys been and got his head +through the area railings!" + +"Oh, poor child," said I; "let me out, if you please!" + +"Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up +to something," said Mr. Guppy. + +I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little +unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and +crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a +milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were +endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression +that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after +pacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head, +I thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could +follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to +push him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and +beadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I +had not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down +through the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last +he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to +beat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner. + +Nobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in +pattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I +don't know with what object, and I don't think she did. I therefore +supposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised +when the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and +going up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me, +announced us as, "Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!" We passed +several more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid +treading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby's presence, +one of the poor little things fell downstairs—down a whole flight +(as it sounded to me), with a great noise. + +Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we +could not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head +recorded its passage with a bump on every stair—Richard afterwards +said he counted seven, besides one for the landing—received us with +perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of +from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious +habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if—I am quoting Richard +again—they could see nothing nearer than Africa! + +"I am very glad indeed," said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, "to +have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. +Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of +indifference to me." + +We expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where +there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair +but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The +shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair +when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we +could not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back +and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of +stay-lace—like a summer-house. + +The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great +writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only +very untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that +with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we +followed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the +back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him. + +But what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking +though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting +the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was +in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, +which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden +down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, +from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right +place. + +"You find me, my dears," said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great +office candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste +strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing +in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), "you find me, +my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African +project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in +correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals +anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am +happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have +from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating +coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank +of the Niger." + +As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very +gratifying. + +"It IS gratifying," said Mrs. Jellyby. "It involves the devotion of +all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it +succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, +Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts +to Africa." + +This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that I +was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate— + +"The finest climate in the world!" said Mrs. Jellyby. + +"Indeed, ma'am?" + +"Certainly. With precaution," said Mrs. Jellyby. "You may go into +Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into +Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with +Africa." + +I said, "No doubt." I meant as to Holborn. + +"If you would like," said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers +towards us, "to look over some remarks on that head, and on the +general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I +finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my +amanuensis—" + +The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to +our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky. + +"—I shall then have finished for the present," proceeded Mrs. +Jellyby with a sweet smile, "though my work is never done. Where are +you, Caddy?" + +"‘Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs—'" said Caddy. + +"‘And begs,'" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, "‘to inform him, in +reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project—' No, +Peepy! Not on my account!" + +Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen +downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting +himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his +wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity +most—the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the +serene composure with which she said everything, "Go along, you +naughty Peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again. + +However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I +interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor +Peepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked very +much astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell fast +asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he +was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in +detail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the +momentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all +other places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so +little about it. + +"Six o'clock!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "And our dinner hour is nominally +(for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss +Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps? +You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad +child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!" + +I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at +all troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada +and I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. They +were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window +was fastened up with a fork. + +"You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?" said Miss Jellyby, +looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain. + +"If it is not being troublesome," said we. + +"Oh, it's not the trouble," returned Miss Jellyby; "the question is, +if there IS any." + +The evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell +that I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half +crying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss +Jellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water, +but they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order. + +We begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to +get down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up +to the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my +bed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of +noses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the +doors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my +lock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and +though the handle of Ada's went round and round with the greatest +smoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door. +Therefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be +very good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red +Riding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as +mice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of +the wolf. + +When we went downstairs we found a mug with "A Present from Tunbridge +Wells" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick, +and a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage +blowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door +with Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that +degree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the +windows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the +same sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so +employed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us +that he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found +the kettle on his dressing-table, and he made Ada laugh so that they +made me laugh in the most ridiculous manner. + +Soon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs. +Jellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient +in stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine +cod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an +excellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was +almost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and +dropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never +moved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen +in pattens, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and +skirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will +between them. + +All through dinner—which was long, in consequence of such accidents +as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the +handle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in +the chin—Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. She +told us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and +the natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by +her, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters +were proceedings of ladies' committees or resolutions of ladies' +meetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people +excited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives; +others required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from +the table three or four times to write. She was full of business and +undoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause. + +I was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in +spectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or +bottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed +passively to submit himself to Borrioboola-Gha but not to be actively +interested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might +have been a native but for his complexion. It was not until we left +the table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of +his being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he WAS Mr. Jellyby; +and a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs +for temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who +came in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthropist, also +informed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby +with Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter. + +This young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about +Africa and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to +teach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export +trade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, "I believe +now, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and +fifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have +you not?" or, "If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you +once mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one +post-office at one time?"—always repeating Mrs. Jellyby's answer to +us like an interpreter. During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in +a corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low +spirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when +alone with Richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind, +but had always shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without +saying anything. + +Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee +all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She +also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to +be—if I understood it—the brotherhood of humanity, and gave +utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an +auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the +other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the +drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and +told them in whispers "Puss in Boots" and I don't know what else +until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed. +As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, +where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst +of the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs. + +After that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in +coaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at +last it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt that +Mrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and I +was sorry for it, though at the same time I knew that I had no higher +pretensions. + +It was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to +bed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking +coffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen. + +"What a strange house!" said Ada when we got upstairs. "How curious +of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!" + +"My love," said I, "it quite confuses me. I want to understand it, +and I can't understand it at all." + +"What?" asked Ada with her pretty smile. + +"All this, my dear," said I. "It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to +take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives—and +yet—Peepy and the housekeeping!" + +Ada laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the +fire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her +heart. "You are so thoughtful, Esther," she said, "and yet so +cheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a +home out of even this house." + +My simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised +herself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she +made so much of me! + +"May I ask you a question?" said I when we had sat before the fire a +little while. + +"Five hundred," said Ada. + +"Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind +describing him to me?" + +Shaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such +laughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty, +partly at her surprise. + +"Esther!" she cried. + +"My dear!" + +"You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?" + +"My dear, I never saw him." + +"And I never saw him!" returned Ada. + +Well, to be sure! + +No, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she +remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of +him and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said +was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her +cousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago—"a plain, honest +letter," Ada said—proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on +and telling her that "in time it might heal some of the wounds made +by the miserable Chancery suit." She had replied, gratefully +accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter and had +made a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only +once, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when +they were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them, +that he recollected him as "a bluff, rosy fellow." This was the +utmost description Ada could give me. + +It set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained +before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and +wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long +ago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were +recalled by a tap at the door. + +I opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a +broken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in +the other. + +"Good night!" she said very sulkily. + +"Good night!" said I. + +"May I come in?" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same +sulky way. + +"Certainly," said I. "Don't wake Miss Clare." + +She would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle +finger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over +the ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very +gloomy. + +"I wish Africa was dead!" she said on a sudden. + +I was going to remonstrate. + +"I do!" she said "Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and +detest it. It's a beast!" + +I told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her +head, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be +cool to-morrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but +presently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed +where Ada lay. + +"She is very pretty!" she said with the same knitted brow and in the +same uncivil manner. + +I assented with a smile. + +"An orphan. Ain't she?" + +"Yes." + +"But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and +sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, +and needlework, and everything?" + +"No doubt," said I. + +"I can't," she returned. "I can't do anything hardly, except write. +I'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of +yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing +else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very +fine, I dare say!" + +I could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my +chair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I felt +towards her. + +"It's disgraceful," she said. "You know it is. The whole house is +disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'M disgraceful. Pa's +miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks—she's always drinking. +It's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't +smell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner; +you know it was!" + +"My dear, I don't know it," said I. + +"You do," she said very shortly. "You shan't say you don't. You do!" + +"Oh, my dear!" said I. "If you won't let me speak—" + +"You're speaking now. You know you are. Don't tell stories, Miss +Summerson." + +"My dear," said I, "as long as you won't hear me out—" + +"I don't want to hear you out." + +"Oh, yes, I think you do," said I, "because that would be so very +unreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did +not come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt what you tell me, and I +am sorry to hear it." + +"You needn't make a merit of that," said she. + +"No, my dear," said I. "That would be very foolish." + +She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still +with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she came +softly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving +in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it +better not to speak. + +"I wish I was dead!" she broke out. "I wish we were all dead. It +would be a great deal better for us." + +In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her +face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I +comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she +wanted to stay there! + +"You used to teach girls," she said, "If you could only have taught +me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like +you so much!" + +I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a +ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold +my dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl fell +asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest +on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and +all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I +was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes +closed, among the scenes of the day. At length, by slow degrees, they +became indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the +sleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading +friends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted. Now +it was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now +some one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I +was no one. + +The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my +eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon +me. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and +cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut +them all. + +CHAPTER V + +A Morning Adventure + +Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed +heavy—I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that +they would have made midsummer sunshine dim—I was sufficiently +forewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and +sufficiently curious about London to think it a good idea on the part +of Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk. + +"Ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then it's a +chance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. +As to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has +what you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out the +loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes there +isn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'm afraid you +must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to +bed." + +"I am not at all tired, my dear," said I, "and would much prefer to +go out." + +"If you're sure you would," returned Miss Jellyby, "I'll get my +things on." + +Ada said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposal to +Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that +he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed +again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at +me during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never +could again be, so astonished in his life—looking very miserable +also, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep +as soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such +a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely +to notice it. + +What with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of getting +myself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We found +Miss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room, +which Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour candlestick, +throwing the candle in to make it burn better. Everything was just as +we had left it last night and was evidently intended to remain so. +Below-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been taken away, but had been +left ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over +the house. Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings; +the door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out +of a public-house, wiping her mouth. She mentioned, as she passed us, +that she had been to see what o'clock it was. + +But before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up and +down Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised to see +us stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. So he +took care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I may mention +that Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and that I +really should not have thought she liked me much unless she had told +me so. + +"Where would you wish to go?" she asked. + +"Anywhere, my dear," I replied. + +"Anywhere's nowhere," said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely. + +"Let us go somewhere at any rate," said I. + +She then walked me on very fast. + +"I don't care!" she said. "Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I +say I don't care—but if he was to come to our house with his great, +shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as +Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. Such ASSES as he +and Ma make of themselves!" + +"My dear!" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the +vigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. "Your duty as a child—" + +"Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty +as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then +let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their +affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I +shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!" + +She walked me on faster yet. + +"But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and +I won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. If there's any +stuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's the stuff he and Ma +talk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the +patience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and +contradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and Ma's management!" + +I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young +gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the +disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada +coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run +a race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked +moodily on at my side while I admired the long successions and +varieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to and +fro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy +preparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping +out of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly +groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse. + +"So, cousin," said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me. +"We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to +our place of meeting yesterday, and—by the Great Seal, here's the +old lady again!" + +Truly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and +smiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, "The wards +in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!" + +"You are out early, ma'am," said I as she curtsied to me. + +"Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It's +retired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day," +said the old lady mincingly. "The business of the day requires a +great deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to +follow." + +"Who's this, Miss Summerson?" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing my arm +tighter through her own. + +The little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answered for +herself directly. + +"A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend +court regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing +another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?" said the old lady, +recovering herself, with her head on one side, from a very low +curtsy. + +Richard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday, +good-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with the +suit. + +"Ha!" said the old lady. "She does not expect a judgment? She will +still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of +Lincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the +summer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the greater +part of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You find the long +vacation exceedingly long, don't you?" + +We said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so. + +"When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more +flowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor's +court," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth +seal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see +my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and +beauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I had a +visit from either." + +She had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away, beckoned +Richard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excuse myself and +looked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and half curious and +all in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she +continued to lead us away, and he and Ada continued to follow, our +strange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling +condescension, that she lived close by. + +It was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by that we +had not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before she +was at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the old lady +stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some +courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said, +"This is my lodging. Pray walk up!" + +She had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND +BOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE +STORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill +at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In +another was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF +BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT. +In another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT. Everything +seemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the +window were quantities of dirty bottles—blacking bottles, medicine +bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine +bottles, ink bottles; I am reminded by mentioning the latter that the +shop had in several little particulars the air of being in a legal +neighbourhood and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and +disowned relation of the law. There were a great many ink bottles. +There was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the +door, labelled "Law Books, all at 9d." Some of the inscriptions I +have enumerated were written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen +in Kenge and Carboy's office and the letters I had so long received +from the firm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having +nothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a +respectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to +execute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. +Krook, within. There were several second-hand bags, blue and red, +hanging up. A little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old +crackled parchment scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared +law-papers. I could have fancied that all the rusty keys, of which +there must have been hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once +belonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The +litter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged +wooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might +have been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to +fancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking +in, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very +clean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete. + +As it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides +by the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within a couple +of yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted lantern +that an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying about in +the shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sight of us. He was +short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between +his shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth +as if he were on fire within. His throat, chin, and eyebrows were so +frosted with white hairs and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin +that he looked from his breast upward like some old root in a fall of +snow. + +"Hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "Have you anything to +sell?" + +We naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been +trying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her +pocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had the pleasure +of seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being pressed for +time. But she was not to be so easily left. She became so +fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would +walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her +harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired, +that I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to +comply. I suppose we were all more or less curious; at any rate, when +the old man added his persuasions to hers and said, "Aye, aye! Please +her! It won't take a minute! Come in, come in! Come in through the +shop if t'other door's out of order!" we all went in, stimulated by +Richard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection. + +"My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady, condescending to him +from her lofty station as she presented him to us. "He is called +among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the +Court of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. He is very odd. Oh, +I assure you he is very odd!" + +She shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with +her finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to excuse +him, "For he is a little—you know—M!" said the old lady with great +stateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed. + +"It's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern, "that +they call me the Lord Chancellor and call my shop Chancery. And why +do you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shop Chancery?" + +"I don't know, I am sure!" said Richard rather carelessly. + +"You see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they—Hi! +Here's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but +none so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what texture!" + +"That'll do, my good friend!" said Richard, strongly disapproving of +his having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. "You +can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty." + +The old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my +attention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably +beautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the +little old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly said +she could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krook +shrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it. + +"You see, I have so many things here," he resumed, holding up the +lantern, "of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but THEY +know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that's +why they have given me and my place a christening. And I have so many +old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust +and must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to my net. And I +can't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of (or so my +neighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alter anything, or to +have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on +about me. That's the way I've got the ill name of Chancery. I don't +mind. I go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day, +when he sits in the Inn. He don't notice me, but I notice him. +There's no great odds betwixt us. We both grub on in a muddle. Hi, +Lady Jane!" + +A large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his shoulder +and startled us all. + +"Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!" said her master. + +The cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish +claws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear. + +"She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on," said the old man. +"I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers was +offered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but I didn't +have it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practice though, says +you!" + +He had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door in +the back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stood with his +hand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously observed to him +before passing out, "That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are +tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I have none to spare +myself, having to attend court very soon. My young friends are the +wards in Jarndyce." + +"Jarndyce!" said the old man with a start. + +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned his lodger. + +"Hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and +with a wider stare than before. "Think of it!" + +He seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us that +Richard said, "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about +the causes before your noble and learned brother, the other +Chancellor!" + +"Yes," said the old man abstractedly. "Sure! YOUR name now will be—" + +"Richard Carstone." + +"Carstone," he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his +forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a +separate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of +Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think." + +"He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!" said +Richard, quite astonished, to Ada and me. + +"Aye!" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. "Yes! +Tom Jarndyce—you'll excuse me, being related; but he was never known +about court by any other name, and was as well known there as—she is +now," nodding slightly at his lodger. "Tom Jarndyce was often in +here. He got into a restless habit of strolling about when the cause +was on, or expected, talking to the little shopkeepers and telling +'em to keep out of Chancery, whatever they did. ‘For,' says he, ‘it's +being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow +fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by +drops; it's going mad by grains.' He was as near making away with +himself, just where the young lady stands, as near could be." + +We listened with horror. + +"He come in at the door," said the old man, slowly pointing an +imaginary track along the shop, "on the day he did it—the whole +neighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a +certainty sooner or later—he come in at the door that day, and +walked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, and +asked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch +him a pint of wine. ‘For,' says he, ‘Krook, I am much depressed; my +cause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgment than I ever was.' +I hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and I persuaded him to go to the +tavern over the way there, t'other side my lane (I mean Chancery +Lane); and I followed and looked in at the window, and saw him, +comfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair by the fire, and company +with him. I hadn't hardly got back here when I heard a shot go +echoing and rattling right away into the inn. I ran out—neighbours +ran out—twenty of us cried at once, ‘Tom Jarndyce!'" + +The old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the lantern, +blew the light out, and shut the lantern up. + +"We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To be sure, +how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the +cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of +'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they +hadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they +had—Oh, dear me!—nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of +it by any chance!" + +Ada's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less +pale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I was no +party in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a shock +to come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended in the +minds of many people with such dreadful recollections. I had another +uneasiness, in the application of the painful story to the poor +half-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my surprise, +she seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the way +upstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior +creature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord was +"a little—M—, you know!" + +She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which +she had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to have been her +principal inducement, originally, for taking up her residence there. +She could look at it, she said, in the night, especially in the +moonshine. Her room was clean, but very, very bare. I noticed the +scantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; a few old prints from +books, of Chancellors and barristers, wafered against the wall; and +some half-dozen reticles and work-bags, "containing documents," as +she informed us. There were neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and +I saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a +shelf in an open cupboard were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so +forth, but all dry and empty. There was a more affecting meaning in +her pinched appearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had +understood before. + +"Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our poor hostess with the +greatest suavity, "by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very +much indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. Considering. I +am limited as to situation. In consequence of the necessity of +attending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many years. I pass my +days in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights +long, for I sleep but little and think much. That is, of course, +unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate. +I expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on +a superior footing. At present, I don't mind confessing to the wards +in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult +to keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. I have +felt something sharper than cold. It matters very little. Pray excuse +the introduction of such mean topics." + +She partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window and +called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, some +containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, and +goldfinches—I should think at least twenty. + +"I began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with an object +that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of +restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! +They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so +short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the +whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know, +whether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be +free! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?" + +Although she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect a +reply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so when no +one but herself was present. + +"Indeed," she pursued, "I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure +you, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or +Great Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark and +senseless here, as I have found so many birds!" + +Richard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, took the +opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the +chimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine +the birds. + +"I can't allow them to sing much," said the little old lady, "for +(you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that +they are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my +mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I'll tell +you their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they +shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth," a smile and +curtsy, "hope," a smile and curtsy, "and beauty," a smile and curtsy. +"There! We'll let in the full light." + +The birds began to stir and chirp. + +"I cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady—the room +was close, and would have been the better for it—"because the cat +you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She +crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have +discovered," whispering mysteriously, "that her natural cruelty is +sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In +consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly +and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat, +but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her +from the door." + +Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was +half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to +an end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly +took up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the +table on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On +our answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she +opened the door to attend us downstairs. + +"With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I +should be there before the Chancellor comes in," said she, "for he +might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he +WILL mention it the first thing this morning." + +She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the +whole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had +bought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a +little M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a previous +stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door +there. + +"The only other lodger," she now whispered in explanation, "a +law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to +the devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money. Hush!" + +She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there, +and repeating "Hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even the +sound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said. + +Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it +on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of +waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed to be working +hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece +of chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or +bundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall. + +Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone +by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and +chalked the letter J upon the wall—in a very curious manner, +beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was +a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any +clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made. + +"Can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance. + +"Surely," said I. "It's very plain." + +"What is it?" + +"J." + +With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out +and turned an "a" in its place (not a capital letter this time), and +said, "What's that?" + +I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter "r," and +asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in +the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the +letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the +wall together. + +"What does that spell?" he asked me. + +When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same +rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters +forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also +read; and he laughed again. + +"Hi!" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. "I have a turn for +copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor +write." + +He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if +I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite +relieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, "Miss +Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. +Don't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!" + +I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my +friends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave +us her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of +yesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada +and me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back +and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles, +looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail +sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather. + +"Quite an adventure for a morning in London!" said Richard with a +sigh. "Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!" + +"It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember," returned Ada. +"I am grieved that I should be the enemy—as I suppose I am—of a +great number of relations and others, and that they should be my +enemies—as I suppose they are—and that we should all be ruining one +another without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and +discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right +somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to +find out through all these years where it is." + +"Ah, cousin!" said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, +wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court +yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of +the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both +together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were +neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could +possibly be either. But at all events, Ada—I may call you Ada?" + +"Of course you may, cousin Richard." + +"At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US. +We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, +and it can't divide us now!" + +"Never, I hope, cousin Richard!" said Ada gently. + +Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I +smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very +pleasantly. + +In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in the +course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast +straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs. +Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she +presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly +occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy +correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her +(she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and +notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were +perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour +and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The +equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and +his restoration to the family circle surprised us all. + +She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was +fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At +one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our +luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good +friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me +in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps; +Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of +separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate +market in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the +barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered +over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts. + +CHAPTER VI + +Quite at Home + +The day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went +westward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air, +wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy +of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the +pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-coloured +flowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful city and to +proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a +pretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a real country +road again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, farmers' waggons, +scents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse troughs: trees, fields, +and hedge-rows. It was delightful to see the green landscape before +us and the immense metropolis behind; and when a waggon with a train +of beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding +bells, came by us with its music, I believe we could all three have +sung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around. + +"The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington," +said Richard, "and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! What's +the matter?" + +We had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed as +the horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, except +when a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled off a +little shower of bell-ringing. + +"Our postilion is looking after the waggoner," said Richard, "and the +waggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!" The waggoner was +at our coach-door. "Why, here's an extraordinary thing!" added +Richard, looking closely at the man. "He has got your name, Ada, in +his hat!" + +He had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three +small notes—one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me. These +the waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading the name +aloud first. In answer to Richard's inquiry from whom they came, he +briefly answered, "Master, sir, if you please"; and putting on his +hat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his whip, re-awakened +his music, and went melodiously away. + +"Is that Mr. Jarndyce's waggon?" said Richard, calling to our +post-boy. + +"Yes, sir," he replied. "Going to London." + +We opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and +contained these words in a solid, plain hand. + + I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and + without constraint on either side. I therefore have to + propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for + granted. It will be a relief to you possibly, and to me + certainly, and so my love to you. + + John Jarndyce + +I had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my +companions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one +who had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so +many years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my gratitude +lying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to consider how +I could meet him without thanking him, and felt it would be very +difficult indeed. + +The notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they +both had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their +cousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he +performed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to the +most singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. Ada +dimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very +little child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity +and that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see +her through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by +the back gate, and was not heard of for three months. This discourse +led to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us +all day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. If we did by any +chance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and +wondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there, +and whether we should see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after +a delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him. +All of which we wondered about, over and over again. + +The roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was +generally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked +it so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got +to the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as +they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a +long fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field before the +carriage came up. These delays so protracted the journey that the +short day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came +to St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House was, we knew. + +By that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard +confessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to +feeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and me, +whom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and +frosty, we trembled from head to foot. When we turned out of the +town, round a corner, and Richard told us that the post-boy, who had +for a long time sympathized with our heightened expectation, was +looking back and nodding, we both stood up in the carriage (Richard +holding Ada lest she should be jolted down) and gazed round upon the +open country and the starlight night for our destination. There was a +light sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver, +pointing to it with his whip and crying, "That's Bleak House!" put +his horses into a canter and took us forward at such a rate, uphill +though it was, that the wheels sent the road drift flying about our +heads like spray from a water-mill. Presently we lost the light, +presently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned +into an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming +brightly. It was in a window of what seemed to be an old-fashioned +house with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep +leading to the porch. A bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the +sound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of +some dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking +and steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our +own hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion. + +"Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see +you! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it you!" + +The gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable +voice had one of his arms round Ada's waist and the other round mine, +and kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall +into a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. Here he +kissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side +on a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt that if we had been +at all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment. + +"Now, Rick!" said he. "I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is +as good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home. +Warm yourself!" + +Richard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect +and frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that +rather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly +disappearing), "You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to +you!" laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire. + +"And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my +dear?" said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada. + +While Ada was speaking to him in reply, I glanced (I need not say +with how much interest) at his face. It was a handsome, lively, quick +face, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered +iron-grey. I took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was +upright, hearty, and robust. From the moment of his first speaking to +us his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind that +I could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden in his +manner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the gentleman +in the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of my journey to +Reading. I was certain it was he. I never was so frightened in my +life as when I made the discovery, for he caught my glance, and +appearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at the door that I +thought we had lost him. + +However, I am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me +what I thought of Mrs. Jellyby. + +"She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir," I said. + +"Nobly!" returned Mr. Jarndyce. "But you answer like Ada." Whom I had +not heard. "You all think something else, I see." + +"We rather thought," said I, glancing at Richard and Ada, who +entreated me with their eyes to speak, "that perhaps she was a little +unmindful of her home." + +"Floored!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. + +I was rather alarmed again. + +"Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have sent +you there on purpose." + +"We thought that, perhaps," said I, hesitating, "it is right to begin +with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are +overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted +for them." + +"The little Jellybys," said Richard, coming to my relief, "are +really—I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir—in a devil of a +state." + +"She means well," said Mr. Jarndyce hastily. "The wind's in the +east." + +"It was in the north, sir, as we came down," observed Richard. + +"My dear Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, poking the fire, "I'll take an +oath it's either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious of +an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in +the east." + +"Rheumatism, sir?" said Richard. + +"I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell—I +had my doubts about 'em—are in a—oh, Lord, yes, it's easterly!" +said Mr. Jarndyce. + +He had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering +these broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing +his hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so +whimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more delighted with +him than we could possibly have expressed in any words. He gave an +arm to Ada and an arm to me, and bidding Richard bring a candle, was +leading the way out when he suddenly turned us all back again. + +"Those little Jellybys. Couldn't you—didn't you—now, if it had +rained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of +that sort!" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Oh, cousin—" Ada hastily began. + +"Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is +better." + +"Then, cousin John—" Ada laughingly began again. + +"Ha, ha! Very good indeed!" said Mr. Jarndyce with great enjoyment. +"Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?" + +"It did better than that. It rained Esther." + +"Aye?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "What did Esther do?" + +"Why, cousin John," said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and +shaking her head at me across him—for I wanted her to be +quiet—"Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed +them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them +quiet, bought them keepsakes"—My dear girl! I had only gone out with +Peepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!—"and, +cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and +was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won't be +contradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!" + +The warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John and kissed me, +and then looking up in his face, boldly said, "At all events, cousin +John, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me." I felt +as if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't. + +"Where did you say the wind was, Rick?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"In the north as we came down, sir." + +"You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come, +girls, come and see your home!" + +It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and +down steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more +rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is +a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you +find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places with lattice +windows and green growth pressing through them. Mine, which we +entered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof that had +more corners in it than I ever counted afterwards and a chimney +(there was a wood fire on the hearth) paved all around with pure +white tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was +blazing. Out of this room, you went down two steps into a charming +little sitting-room looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was +henceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you went up three +steps into Ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad window commanding a +beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath +the stars), to which there was a hollow window-seat, in which, with a +spring-lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of +this room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best +rooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of +shallow steps with a number of corner stairs in it, considering its +length, down into the hall. But if instead of going out at Ada's door +you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had +entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an +unexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages, +with mangles in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native Hindu +chair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in +every form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage, +and had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From +these you came on Richard's room, which was part library, part +sitting-room, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound +of many rooms. Out of that you went straight, with a little interval +of passage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the year +round, with his window open, his bedstead without any furniture +standing in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold bath +gaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that you came into +another passage, where there were back-stairs and where you could +hear the horses being rubbed down outside the stable and being told +to "Hold up" and "Get over," as they slipped about very much on the +uneven stones. Or you might, if you came out at another door (every +room had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by +half-a-dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back +there or had ever got out of it. + +The furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as +pleasantly irregular. Ada's sleeping-room was all flowers—in chintz +and paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff +courtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool +for greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sitting-room +was green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of +surprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real +trout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with +gravy; at the death of Captain Cook; and at the whole process of +preparing tea in China, as depicted by Chinese artists. In my room +there were oval engravings of the months—ladies haymaking in short +waists and large hats tied under the chin, for June; smooth-legged +noblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village steeples, for October. +Half-length portraits in crayons abounded all through the house, but +were so dispersed that I found the brother of a youthful officer of +mine in the china-closet and the grey old age of my pretty young +bride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. As +substitutes, I had four angels, of Queen Anne's reign, taking a +complacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty; +and a composition in needlework representing fruit, a kettle, and an +alphabet. All the movables, from the wardrobes to the chairs and +tables, hangings, glasses, even to the pincushions and scent-bottles +on the dressing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. They +agreed in nothing but their perfect neatness, their display of the +whitest linen, and their storing-up, wheresoever the existence of a +drawer, small or large, rendered it possible, of quantities of +rose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, with its illuminated windows, +softened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the +starlight night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort; with its +hospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner; with +the face of its generous master brightening everything we saw; and +just wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything +we heard, were our first impressions of Bleak House. + +"I am glad you like it," said Mr. Jarndyce when he had brought us +round again to Ada's sitting-room. "It makes no pretensions, but it +is a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such +bright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before dinner. +There's no one here but the finest creature upon earth—a child." + +"More children, Esther!" said Ada. + +"I don't mean literally a child," pursued Mr. Jarndyce; "not a child +in years. He is grown up—he is at least as old as I am—but in +simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless +inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child." + +We felt that he must be very interesting. + +"He knows Mrs. Jellyby," said Mr. Jarndyce. "He is a musical man, an +amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an +amateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of +attainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in +his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his +family; but he don't care—he's a child!" + +"Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?" inquired +Richard. + +"Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But +he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to +look after HIM. He is a child, you know!" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?" inquired +Richard. + +"Why, just as you may suppose," said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance +suddenly falling. "It is said that the children of the very poor are +not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole's children have +tumbled up somehow or other. The wind's getting round again, I am +afraid. I feel it rather!" + +Richard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night. + +"It IS exposed," said Mr. Jarndyce. "No doubt that's the cause. Bleak +House has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come along!" + +Our luggage having arrived and being all at hand, I was dressed in a +few minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a maid +(not the one in attendance upon Ada, but another, whom I had not +seen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in it, +all labelled. + +"For you, miss, if you please," said she. + +"For me?" said I. + +"The housekeeping keys, miss." + +I showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on her +own part, "I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss. +Miss Summerson, if I don't deceive myself?" + +"Yes," said I. "That is my name." + +"The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the +cellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning, +I was to show you the presses and things they belong to." + +I said I would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone, +stood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my trust. +Ada found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in me when I +showed her the keys and told her about them that it would have been +insensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. I knew, to be +sure, that it was the dear girl's kindness, but I liked to be so +pleasantly cheated. + +When we went downstairs, we were presented to Mr. Skimpole, who was +standing before the fire telling Richard how fond he used to be, in +his school-time, of football. He was a little bright creature with a +rather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there +was a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and +spontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was +fascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr. +Jarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked +younger. Indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a +damaged young man than a well-preserved elderly one. There was an +easy negligence in his manner and even in his dress (his hair +carelessly disposed, and his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as I +have seen artists paint their own portraits) which I could not +separate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some +unique process of depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like +the manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the +usual road of years, cares, and experiences. + +I gathered from the conversation that Mr. Skimpole had been educated +for the medical profession and had once lived, in his professional +capacity, in the household of a German prince. He told us, however, +that as he had always been a mere child in point of weights and +measures and had never known anything about them (except that they +disgusted him), he had never been able to prescribe with the +requisite accuracy of detail. In fact, he said, he had no head for +detail. And he told us, with great humour, that when he was wanted to +bleed the prince or physic any of his people, he was generally found +lying on his back in bed, reading the newspapers or making +fancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn't come. The prince, at last, +objecting to this, "in which," said Mr. Skimpole, in the frankest +manner, "he was perfectly right," the engagement terminated, and Mr. +Skimpole having (as he added with delightful gaiety) "nothing to live +upon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with +rosy cheeks." His good friend Jarndyce and some other of his good +friends then helped him, in quicker or slower succession, to several +openings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of +the oldest infirmities in the world: one was that he had no idea of +time, the other that he had no idea of money. In consequence of which +he never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and +never knew the value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and +here he was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of +making fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond +of art. All he asked of society was to let him live. THAT wasn't +much. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, music, +mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of +Bristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. He was a +mere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. He said to +the world, "Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, blue +coats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after +glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only—let +Harold Skimpole live!" + +All this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the +utmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious +candour—speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair, +as if Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had +his singularities but still had his claims too, which were the +general business of the community and must not be slighted. He was +quite enchanting. If I felt at all confused at that early time in +endeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything I had +thought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which I am far +from sure of), I was confused by not exactly understanding why he was +free of them. That he WAS free of them, I scarcely doubted; he was so +very clear about it himself. + +"I covet nothing," said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way. +"Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce's excellent +house. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can sketch it and +alter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I have sufficient +possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility. +My steward's name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can't cheat me. We +have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a +strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself +into objects with surprising ardour! I don't regret that I have not a +strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself +into objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. I +can sympathize with the objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down +on the grass—in fine weather—and float along an African river, +embracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and +sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I +were there. I don't know that it's of any direct use my doing so, but +it's all I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven's sake, +having Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the +world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to +let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, +like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!" + +It was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of the +adjuration. Mr. Skimpole's general position there would have rendered +it so without the addition of what he presently said. + +"It's only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy," said Mr. +Skimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. "I +envy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel +in myself. I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as +if YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of +enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I +can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of +increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a +benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting +me in my little perplexities. Why should I regret my incapacity for +details and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant +consequences? I don't regret it therefore." + +Of all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what +they expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce +than this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether +it was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was +probably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should +so desire to escape the gratitude of others. + +We were all enchanted. I felt it a merited tribute to the engaging +qualities of Ada and Richard that Mr. Skimpole, seeing them for the +first time, should be so unreserved and should lay himself out to be +so exquisitely agreeable. They (and especially Richard) were +naturally pleased, for similar reasons, and considered it no common +privilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. The +more we listened, the more gaily Mr. Skimpole talked. And what with +his fine hilarious manner and his engaging candour and his genial way +of lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he had said, "I am +a child, you know! You are designing people compared with me" (he +really made me consider myself in that light) "but I am gay and +innocent; forget your worldly arts and play with me!" the effect was +absolutely dazzling. + +He was so full of feeling too and had such a delicate sentiment for +what was beautiful or tender that he could have won a heart by that +alone. In the evening, when I was preparing to make tea and Ada was +touching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a tune to +her cousin Richard, which they had happened to mention, he came and +sat down on the sofa near me and so spoke of Ada that I almost loved +him. + +"She is like the morning," he said. "With that golden hair, those +blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer +morning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call +such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an +orphan. She is the child of the universe." + +Mr. Jarndyce, I found, was standing near us with his hands behind him +and an attentive smile upon his face. + +"The universe," he observed, "makes rather an indifferent parent, I +am afraid." + +"Oh! I don't know!" cried Mr. Skimpole buoyantly. + +"I think I do know," said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Well!" cried Mr. Skimpole. "You know the world (which in your sense +is the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have your +way. But if I had mine," glancing at the cousins, "there should be no +brambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. It should be +strewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no +spring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age or change +should never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed +near it!" + +Mr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been +really a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment, +glanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but had a +benignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again, +which has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which they +were, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by +the fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside her, bending +down. Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by +strange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady +fire, though reflecting from motionless objects. Ada touched the +notes so softly and sang so low that the wind, sighing away to the +distant hills, was as audible as the music. The mystery of the future +and the little clue afforded to it by the voice of the present seemed +expressed in the whole picture. + +But it is not to recall this fancy, well as I remember it, that I +recall the scene. First, I was not quite unconscious of the contrast +in respect of meaning and intention between the silent look directed +that way and the flow of words that had preceded it. Secondly, though +Mr. Jarndyce's glance as he withdrew it rested for but a moment on +me, I felt as if in that moment he confided to me—and knew that he +confided to me and that I received the confidence—his hope that Ada +and Richard might one day enter on a dearer relationship. + +Mr. Skimpole could play on the piano and the violoncello, and he was +a composer—had composed half an opera once, but got tired of it—and +played what he composed with taste. After tea we had quite a little +concert, in which Richard—who was enthralled by Ada's singing and +told me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever were +written—and Mr. Jarndyce, and I were the audience. After a little +while I missed first Mr. Skimpole and afterwards Richard, and while I +was thinking how could Richard stay away so long and lose so much, +the maid who had given me the keys looked in at the door, saying, "If +you please, miss, could you spare a minute?" + +When I was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her +hands, "Oh, if you please, miss, Mr. Carstone says would you come +upstairs to Mr. Skimpole's room. He has been took, miss!" + +"Took?" said I. + +"Took, miss. Sudden," said the maid. + +I was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind, but +of course I begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one and +collected myself, as I followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently to +consider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should prove +to be a fit. She threw open a door and I went into a chamber, where, +to my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding Mr. Skimpole stretched +upon the bed or prostrate on the floor, I found him standing before +the fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, with a face of great +embarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, in a white great-coat, +with smooth hair upon his head and not much of it, which he was +wiping smoother and making less of with a pocket-handkerchief. + +"Miss Summerson," said Richard hurriedly, "I am glad you are come. +You will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole—don't be +alarmed!—is arrested for debt." + +"And really, my dear Miss Summerson," said Mr. Skimpole with his +agreeable candour, "I never was in a situation in which that +excellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which +anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter +of an hour in your society, was more needed." + +The person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave +such a very loud snort that he startled me. + +"Are you arrested for much, sir?" I inquired of Mr. Skimpole. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said he, shaking his head pleasantly, "I +don't know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, I think, were +mentioned." + +"It's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny," observed +the stranger. "That's wot it is." + +"And it sounds—somehow it sounds," said Mr. Skimpole, "like a small +sum?" + +The strange man said nothing but made another snort. It was such a +powerful one that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat. + +"Mr. Skimpole," said Richard to me, "has a delicacy in applying to my +cousin Jarndyce because he has lately—I think, sir, I understood you +that you had lately—" + +"Oh, yes!" returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. "Though I forgot how much +it was and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again, but I +have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help, +that I would rather," and he looked at Richard and me, "develop +generosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower." + +"What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?" said Richard, +aside. + +I ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen +if the money were not produced. + +"Jail," said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into +his hat, which was on the floor at his feet. "Or Coavinses." + +"May I ask, sir, what is—" + +"Coavinses?" said the strange man. "A 'ouse." + +Richard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular +thing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not Mr. Skimpole's. +He observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if I may +venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had +entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours. + +"I thought," he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, "that +being parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large +amount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both, +could sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of +undertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don't know what the business name +of it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their +power that would settle this?" + +"Not a bit on it," said the strange man. + +"Really?" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That seems odd, now, to one who is +no judge of these things!" + +"Odd or even," said the stranger gruffly, "I tell you, not a bit on +it!" + +"Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!" Mr. Skimpole +gently reasoned with him as he made a little drawing of his head on +the fly-leaf of a book. "Don't be ruffled by your occupation. We can +separate you from your office; we can separate the individual from +the pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private +life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal +of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious." + +The stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in +acceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, he +did not express to me. + +"Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard," said Mr. +Skimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his +drawing with his head on one side, "here you see me utterly incapable +of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free. +The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold +Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!" + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said Richard in a whisper, "I have ten +pounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will do." + +I possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from my +quarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought that +some accident might happen which would throw me suddenly, without any +relation or any property, on the world and had always tried to keep +some little money by me that I might not be quite penniless. I told +Richard of my having this little store and having no present need of +it, and I asked him delicately to inform Mr. Skimpole, while I should +be gone to fetch it, that we would have the pleasure of paying his +debt. + +When I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite +touched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that perplexing +and extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if personal +considerations were impossible with him and the contemplation of our +happiness alone affected him. Richard, begging me, for the greater +grace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with Coavinses (as +Mr. Skimpole now jocularly called him), I counted out the money and +received the necessary acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr. +Skimpole. + +His compliments were so delicately administered that I blushed less +than I might have done and settled with the stranger in the white +coat without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket and +shortly said, "Well, then, I'll wish you a good evening, miss." + +"My friend," said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire +after giving up the sketch when it was half finished, "I should like +to ask you something, without offence." + +I think the reply was, "Cut away, then!" + +"Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this +errand?" said Mr. Skimpole. + +"Know'd it yes'day aft'noon at tea-time," said Coavinses. + +"It didn't affect your appetite? Didn't make you at all uneasy?" + +"Not a bit," said Coavinses. "I know'd if you wos missed to-day, you +wouldn't be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds." + +"But when you came down here," proceeded Mr. Skimpole, "it was a fine +day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and +shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing." + +"Nobody said they warn't, in MY hearing," returned Coavinses. + +"No," observed Mr. Skimpole. "But what did you think upon the road?" + +"Wot do you mean?" growled Coavinses with an appearance of strong +resentment. "Think! I've got enough to do, and little enough to get +for it without thinking. Thinking!" (with profound contempt). + +"Then you didn't think, at all events," proceeded Mr. Skimpole, "to +this effect: ‘Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to +hear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows, +loves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature's great +cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold +Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only +birthright!' You thought nothing to that effect?" + +"I—certainly—did—NOT," said Coavinses, whose doggedness in utterly +renouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could only give +adequate expression to it by putting a long interval between each +word, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might have +dislocated his neck. + +"Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of +business!" said Mr. Skimpole thoughtfully. "Thank you, my friend. +Good night." + +As our absence had been long enough already to seem strange +downstairs, I returned at once and found Ada sitting at work by the +fireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently appeared, +and Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently engaged during the +remainder of the evening in taking my first lesson in backgammon from +Mr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the game and from whom I wished of +course to learn it as quickly as I could in order that I might be of +the very small use of being able to play when he had no better +adversary. But I thought, occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some +fragments of his own compositions or when, both at the piano and the +violoncello, and at our table, he preserved with an absence of all +effort his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that +Richard and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having +been arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether. + +It was late before we separated, for when Ada was going at eleven +o'clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously that +the best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few hours +from night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his candle and +his radiant face out of the room, and I think he might have kept us +there, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and Richard were +lingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering whether Mrs. +Jellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, when Mr. +Jarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned. + +"Oh, dear me, what's this, what's this!" he said, rubbing his head +and walking about with his good-humoured vexation. "What's this they +tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why +did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it? The +wind's round again. I feel it all over me!" + +We neither of us quite knew what to answer. + +"Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much are +you out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why did you? +How could you? Oh, Lord, yes, it's due east—must be!" + +"Really, sir," said Richard, "I don't think it would be honourable in +me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us—" + +"Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!" said Mr. +Jarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short. + +"Indeed, sir?" + +"Everybody! And he'll be in the same scrape again next week!" said +Mr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his +hand that had gone out. "He's always in the same scrape. He was born +in the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in the +newspapers when his mother was confined was ‘On Tuesday last, at her +residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in +difficulties.'" + +Richard laughed heartily but added, "Still, sir, I don't want to +shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to +your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope +you will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if you do +press me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you." + +"Well!" cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent +endeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. "I—here! Take it +away, my dear. I don't know what I am about with it; it's all the +wind—invariably has that effect—I won't press you, Rick; you may be +right. But really—to get hold of you and Esther—and to squeeze you +like a couple of tender young Saint Michael's oranges! It'll blow a +gale in the course of the night!" + +He was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he +were going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out again +and vehemently rubbing them all over his head. + +I ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole, +being in all such matters quite a child— + +"Eh, my dear?" said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word. + +"Being quite a child, sir," said I, "and so different from other +people—" + +"You are right!" said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. "Your woman's wit +hits the mark. He is a child—an absolute child. I told you he was a +child, you know, when I first mentioned him." + +Certainly! Certainly! we said. + +"And he IS a child. Now, isn't he?" asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening +more and more. + +He was indeed, we said. + +"When you come to think of it, it's the height of childishness in +you—I mean me—" said Mr. Jarndyce, "to regard him for a moment as a +man. You can't make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with +designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!" + +It was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing, +and to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible +not to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which +was tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any +one, that I saw the tears in Ada's eyes, while she echoed his laugh, +and felt them in my own. + +"Why, what a cod's head and shoulders I am," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to +require reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from +beginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of singling +YOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child would have +thought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a thousand pounds, +it would have been just the same!" said Mr. Jarndyce with his whole +face in a glow. + +We all confirmed it from our night's experience. + +"To be sure, to be sure!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "However, Rick, Esther, +and you too, Ada, for I don't know that even your little purse is +safe from his inexperience—I must have a promise all round that +nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No advances! Not +even sixpences." + +We all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me +touching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of +OUR transgressing. + +"As to Skimpole," said Mr. Jarndyce, "a habitable doll's house with +good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow +money of would set the boy up in life. He is in a child's sleep by +this time, I suppose; it's time I should take my craftier head to my +more worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you!" + +He peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our +candles, and said, "Oh! I have been looking at the weather-cock. I +find it was a false alarm about the wind. It's in the south!" And +went away singing to himself. + +Ada and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs, +that this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that he used the +pretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal, +rather than he would blame the real cause of it or disparage or +depreciate any one. We thought this very characteristic of his +eccentric gentleness and of the difference between him and those +petulant people who make the weather and the winds (particularly that +unlucky wind which he had chosen for such a different purpose) the +stalking-horses of their splenetic and gloomy humours. + +Indeed, so much affection for him had been added in this one evening +to my gratitude that I hoped I already began to understand him +through that mingled feeling. Any seeming inconsistencies in Mr. +Skimpole or in Mrs. Jellyby I could not expect to be able to +reconcile, having so little experience or practical knowledge. +Neither did I try, for my thoughts were busy when I was alone, with +Ada and Richard and with the confidence I had seemed to receive +concerning them. My fancy, made a little wild by the wind perhaps, +would not consent to be all unselfish, either, though I would have +persuaded it to be so if I could. It wandered back to my godmother's +house and came along the intervening track, raising up shadowy +speculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark as to +what knowledge Mr. Jarndyce had of my earliest history—even as to +the possibility of his being my father, though that idle dream was +quite gone now. + +It was all gone now, I remembered, getting up from the fire. It was +not for me to muse over bygones, but to act with a cheerful spirit +and a grateful heart. So I said to myself, "Esther, Esther, Esther! +Duty, my dear!" and gave my little basket of housekeeping keys such a +shake that they sounded like little bells and rang me hopefully to +bed. + +CHAPTER VII + +The Ghost's Walk + +While Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather +down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling—drip, +drip, drip—by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, +the Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in Lincolnshire +that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being +fine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination +on the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he +were, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris +with my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon +Chesney Wold. + +There may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney +Wold. The horses in the stables—the long stables in a barren, +red-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a +clock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who +love to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting—THEY +may contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions, +and may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so +famous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the +grated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that +glisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may +have a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out +the next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The +grey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient +rattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully +when it is opened, and to whom the opener says, "Woa grey, then, +steady! Noabody wants you to-day!" may know it quite as well as the +man. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen, +stabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut +in livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at +the Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps +corrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner. + +So the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large +head on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of +the stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him +at one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own +house, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very +much wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So +now, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of +company, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of +horses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until +he is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is. +Then, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the +spirit, "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain—and no family here!" as +he goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn. + +So with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have +their restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been +very obstinate have even made it known in the house itself—upstairs, +downstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole +country-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their +inactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking +in and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of +the breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons +of interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in +the poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably +Christmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully +taken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees, +where there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops +to pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if +we only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway +casts its shadow on the ground. + +Be this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at +Chesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a +little noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads +off to ghosts and mystery. + +It has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that +Mrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several +times taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that +the drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been +sufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather +deaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old +lady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and +such a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to +have been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows +her would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell +little. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she +expresses it, "is what she looks at." She sits in her room (in a side +passage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a +smooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round +trees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to +play at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her +mind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it +is shut up now and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's +iron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep. + +It is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney +Wold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years. +Ask her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer "fifty year, +three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live +till Tuesday." Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of +the pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took +it with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the +mouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, and so was his young +widow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir +Leicester and originated in the still-room. + +The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He +supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual +characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was +born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to +make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned—would +never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is +an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. +He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most +respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when +he comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were +very ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or +placed in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he +would say if he could speak, "Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell +here!" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with +anybody else. + +Mrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the +younger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even +to this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when +she speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover +about her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a +fine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second +son would have been provided for at Chesney Wold and would have been +made steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to +constructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw +their own water with the least possible amount of labour, so +assisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a +thirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to +the wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell +great uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in +the Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that +general impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a +tall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young +rebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign +of grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model +of a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his +backslidings to the baronet. "Mrs. Rouncewell," said Sir Leicester, +"I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any +subject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him +into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the +congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies." Farther north +he went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock +ever saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or +ever thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded +him as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and +grim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three +nights in the week for unlawful purposes. + +Nevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and +art, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto +him Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship, +and home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to +enlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture +of this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day +in Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold. + +"And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I +am glad to see you, Watt!" says Mrs. Rouncewell. "You are a fine +young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!" Mrs. +Rouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference. + +"They say I am like my father, grandmother." + +"Like him, also, my dear—but most like your poor uncle George! And +your dear father." Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. "He is +well?" + +"Thriving, grandmother, in every way." + +"I am thankful!" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a +plaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable +soldier who had gone over to the enemy. + +"He is quite happy?" says she. + +"Quite." + +"I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and +has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows +best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't +understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity +of good company too!" + +"Grandmother," says the young man, changing the subject, "what a very +pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?" + +"Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so +hard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She's +an apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very +pretty. She lives with me at my table here." + +"I hope I have not driven her away?" + +"She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She +is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer," +says Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits, +"than it formerly was!" + +The young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of +experience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens. + +"Wheels!" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears +of her companion. "What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious +sake?" + +After a short interval, a tap at the door. "Come in!" A dark-eyed, +dark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in—so fresh in her rosy and +yet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her +hair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered. + +"What company is this, Rosa?" says Mrs. Rouncewell. + +"It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house—yes, +and if you please, I told them so!" in quick reply to a gesture of +dissent from the housekeeper. "I went to the hall-door and told them +it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was +driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card +to you." + +"Read it, my dear Watt," says the housekeeper. + +Rosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them +and almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is +shyer than before. + +"Mr. Guppy" is all the information the card yields. + +"Guppy!" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, "MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard +of him!" + +"If you please, he told ME that!" says Rosa. "But he said that he and +the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the +mail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this +morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard +a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do +with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are +lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he is +sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if necessary." +Finding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long +speech, Rosa is shyer than ever. + +Now, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place, +and besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old +lady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour, +and dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden +wish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The +grandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest, +accompanies him—though to do him justice, he is exceedingly +unwilling to trouble her. + +"Much obliged to you, ma'am!" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of +his wet dreadnought in the hall. "Us London lawyers don't often get +an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know." + +The old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves +her hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow +Rosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener +goes before to open the shutters. + +As is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and +his friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle +about in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right +things, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression +of spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber +that they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house +itself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens +with stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so +attentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever—and prettier. Thus they +pass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few +brief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and +reconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It +appears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that +there is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to +consist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves +for seven hundred years. + +Even the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's +spirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly +strength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece, +painted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a +charm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon +interest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it. + +"Dear me!" says Mr. Guppy. "Who's that?" + +"The picture over the fire-place," says Rosa, "is the portrait of the +present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the +best work of the master." + +"Blest," says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend, +"if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been +engraved, miss?" + +"The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always +refused permission." + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. "I'll be shot if it ain't very +curious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it!" + +"The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The +picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester." + +Mr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. "It's +unaccountable to me," he says, still staring at the portrait, "how +well I know that picture! I'm dashed," adds Mr. Guppy, looking round, +"if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!" + +As no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams, +the probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by +the portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young +gardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a +dazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for +interest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare, +as if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again. + +He sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown, +as being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she +looked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death. +All things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains +to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to +the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her +description; which is always this: "The terrace below is much +admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's +Walk." + +"No?" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. "What's the story, miss? Is +it anything about a picture?" + +"Pray tell us the story," says Watt in a half whisper. + +"I don't know it, sir." Rosa is shyer than ever. + +"It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten," says the +housekeeper, advancing. "It has never been more than a family +anecdote." + +"You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a +picture, ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that +the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without +knowing how I know it!" + +The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can +guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information and +is, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided +down another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard +to drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the +discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace +came to have that ghostly name. + +She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and +tells them: "In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the +First—I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who +leagued themselves against that excellent king—Sir Morbury Dedlock +was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a +ghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it +very likely indeed." + +Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a +family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She +regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a +genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. + +"Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no occasion +to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that +his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the +bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's +enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave +them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his +Majesty's cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer +to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a +sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?" + +Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. + +"I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I +hear a curious echo—I suppose an echo—which is very like a halting +step." + +The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: "Partly on account of +this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury +and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. +They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they +had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite +brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir +Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated +the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to +ride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to +have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night +and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, +her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the +stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the +wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being +frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that +hour began to pine away." + +The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a +whisper. + +"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She +never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being +crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon +the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and +down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater +difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she +had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), +standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. +He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over +her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, ‘I will die here +where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I +will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when +calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen +for my step!'" + +Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the +ground, half frightened and half shy. + +"There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell, +"the name has come down—the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, +it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for +a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so +sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard +then." + +"And disgrace, grandmother—" says Watt. + +"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper. + +Her grandson apologizes with "True. True." + +"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," +says Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; "and what is to be +noticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of +nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot +shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed +there, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can +play music. You understand how those things are managed?" + +"Pretty well, grandmother, I think." + +"Set it a-going." + +Watt sets it a-going—music and all. + +"Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, towards my +Lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! +Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the +beat, and everything?" + +"I certainly can!" + +"So my Lady says." + +CHAPTER VIII + +Covering a Multitude of Sins + +It was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of +window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like +two beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the +indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day +came on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself and disclosed the +scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory +over my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects +that had been around me in my sleep. At first they were faintly +discernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still +glimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and +fill up so fast that at every new peep I could have found enough +to look at for an hour. Imperceptibly my candles became the only +incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all +melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape, +prominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive tower, +threw a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible +with its rugged character. But so from rough outsides (I hope I have +learnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed. + +Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so +attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys, +though what with trying to remember the contents of each little +store-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate +about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and +china, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a +methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy +that I could not believe it was breakfast-time when I heard the bell +ring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been +installed into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they +were all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take +a peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it +quite a delightful place—in front, the pretty avenue and drive by +which we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the +gravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll +it); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up +there, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have +kissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a +kitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, +and then a dear little farm-yard. As to the house itself, with its +three peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, +some so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the +south-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, +welcoming look—it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with +her arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold +thing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it. + +Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight. +There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about +bees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he +had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the +overweening assumptions of bees. He didn't at all see why the busy +bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked +to make honey, or he wouldn't do it—nobody asked him. It was not +necessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every +confectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything +that came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take +notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the +world would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was +a ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone +as soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a +Manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he +thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The +drone said unaffectedly, "You will excuse me; I really cannot attend +to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to +see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of +looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who +doesn't want to look about him." This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be +the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy, +always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the +bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the +consequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited +about his honey! + +He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground +and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a +meaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them +still listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my new duties. +They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the +passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when Mr. +Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, which I +found to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part +quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-boxes. + +"Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce. "This, you must know, is the +growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here." + +"You must be here very seldom, sir," said I. + +"Oh, you don't know me!" he returned. "When I am deceived or +disappointed in—the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. The +growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of +half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!" + +I could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that +benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy +and so honoured there, and my heart so full—I kissed his hand. I +don't know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted and +walked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping +out, until he turned and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what +he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat +down. + +"There! There!" he said. "That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish." + +"It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is +difficult—" + +"Nonsense!" he said. "It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good +little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to +be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good +opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in +all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have +before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again." + +I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is +not what I expected of you!" And it had such a good effect that I +folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr. +Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as +confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him +every morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I had. + +"Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery +business?" + +And of course I shook my head. + +"I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it +into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case +have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a will +and the trusts under a will—or it was once. It's about nothing but +costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, +and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and +sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving +about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably +waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That's the great +question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted +away." + +"But it was, sir," said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his +head, "about a will?" + +"Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he +returned. "A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, +and made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that will +are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered +away; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable +condition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had +committed an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will +itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, +everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is +referred to that only one man who don't know, it to find out—all +through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and +over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of +cartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which +is the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the +middle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs +and fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the +wildest visions of a witch's Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law, +law sends questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this, +equity finds it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't +do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel +appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel +appearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the +history of the apple pie. And thus, through years and years, and +lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and +over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit +on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to +it, whether we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When +my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the +beginning of the end!" + +"The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?" + +He nodded gravely. "I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther. +When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his +misery upon it." + +"How changed it must be now!" I said. + +"It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its +present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the +wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to +disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the +meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the +cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds +choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained +of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of +the house too, it was so shattered and ruined." + +He walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a +shudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down +again with his hands in his pockets. + +"I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?" + +I reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House. + +"Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some +property of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was then; +I say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to call it +the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will +ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but +an eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses, +with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much +as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their +hinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of +rust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and +every door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very +crutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. Although Bleak +House was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with +the same seal. These are the Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all +over England—the children know them!" + +"How changed it is!" I said again. + +"Why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and it is wisdom +in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture." (The idea of my +wisdom!) "These are things I never talk about or even think about, +excepting in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention +them to Rick and Ada," looking seriously at me, "you can. I leave it +to your discretion, Esther." + +"I hope, sir—" said I. + +"I think you had better call me guardian, my dear." + +I felt that I was choking again—I taxed myself with it, "Esther, +now, you know you are!"—when he feigned to say this slightly, as if +it were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. But I gave the +housekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to +myself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on the +basket, looked at him quietly. + +"I hope, guardian," said I, "that you may not trust too much to my +discretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be a +disappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really is +the truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the honesty to +confess it." + +He did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told me, +with a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well indeed and +that I was quite clever enough for him. + +"I hope I may turn out so," said I, "but I am much afraid of it, +guardian." + +"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, +my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the child's +(I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme: + + "‘Little old woman, and whither so high?' + ‘To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.'" + +"You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your +housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon +the growlery and nail up the door." + +This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old +Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame +Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became +quite lost among them. + +"However," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to return to our gossip. Here's Rick, +a fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with him?" + +Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point! + +"Here he is, Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his +hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. "He must have a +profession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a +world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done." + +"More what, guardian?" said I. + +"More wiglomeration," said he. "It's the only name I know for the +thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have +something to say about it; Master Somebody—a sort of ridiculous +sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the +end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane—will have something to say about +it; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will +have something to say about it; the satellites will have something to +say about it; they will all have to be handsomely fee'd, all round, +about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy, +unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general, +wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with +Wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a +pit of it, I don't know; so it is." + +He began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. But +it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether +he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure +to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was +sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and +stretch out his legs. + +"Perhaps it would be best, first of all," said I, "to ask Mr. Richard +what he inclines to himself." + +"Exactly so," he returned. "That's what I mean! You know, just +accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet +way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure +to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman." + +I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was +attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I +had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to +Richard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do +my best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this) +that he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which my +guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard. + +"Come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. "I think we may +have done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word. +Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?" + +He looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and +felt sure I understood him. + +"About myself, sir?" said I. + +"Yes." + +"Guardian," said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly +colder than I could have wished, in his, "nothing! I am quite sure +that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know, +I should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance +and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart +indeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world." + +He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada. +From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite +content to know no more, quite happy. + +We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to +become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood +who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew +him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us +when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him +in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the +lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form +themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The +ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were +even more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most +impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite +extraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their +whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole +post-office directory—shilling cards, half-crown cards, +half-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They +wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, +they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they +wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. +Jarndyce had—or had not. Their objects were as various as their +demands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to +pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a +picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) +the Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a +testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their +secretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law, +whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up +everything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an +annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a +multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of +Britain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the +Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They +appeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They +seemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be +constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing +their candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on +the whole, what feverish lives they must lead. + +Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious +benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who +seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce, +to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We +observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the +subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr. +Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked +that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who +did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people +who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore +curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the +former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five +young sons. + +She was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose, +and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room. +And she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her +skirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I were at +home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold +weather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they followed. + +"These, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility +after the first salutations, "are my five boys. You may have seen +their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in +the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest +(twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of +five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second +(ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to +the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), +one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to +the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily +enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never, +through life, to use tobacco in any form." + +We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that +they were weazened and shrivelled—though they were certainly that +too—but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the +mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed +Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave +me such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his +contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive +manner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the +little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and +evenly miserable. + +"You have been visiting, I understand," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "at Mrs. +Jellyby's?" + +We said yes, we had passed one night there. + +"Mrs. Jellyby," pursued the lady, always speaking in the same +demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy +as if it had a sort of spectacles on too—and I may take the +opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less +engaging by her eyes being what Ada called "choking eyes," meaning +very prominent—"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves +a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African +project—Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine +weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, +according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. +Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment +of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that +her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to +which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right +or wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them +everywhere." + +I was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the +ill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He +turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell. + +"They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six +o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the +depth of winter," said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with me +during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a +Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on +the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my +canvassing alone is very extensive—perhaps no one's more so. But +they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire +that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable +business in general—in short, that taste for the sort of +thing—which will render them in after life a service to their +neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not +frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in +subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many +public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and +discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred +(five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the +Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested +consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours +from the chairman of the evening." + +Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the +injury of that night. + +"You may have observed, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "in +some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our +esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are +concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That +is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my +mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according +to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings +up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, +under my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to +ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others." + +Suppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose Mr. +Jellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle, would +Mr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication to Mr. +Jellyby? I was quite confused to find myself thinking this, but it +came into my head. + +"You are very pleasantly situated here!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. + +We were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, pointed +out the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles appeared to +me to rest with curious indifference. + +"You know Mr. Gusher?" said our visitor. + +We were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's +acquaintance. + +"The loss is yours, I assure you," said Mrs. Pardiggle with her +commanding deportment. "He is a very fervid, impassioned +speaker—full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, +which, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public +meeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for +hours and hours! By this time, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, +moving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, +a little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket +on it, "by this time you have found me out, I dare say?" + +This was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in +perfect dismay. As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness after +what I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the colour +of my cheeks. + +"Found out, I mean," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "the prominent point in my +character. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable +immediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. Well! I freely +admit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; I enjoy hard work. +The excitement does me good. I am so accustomed and inured to hard +work that I don't know what fatigue is." + +We murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or +something to that effect. I don't think we knew what it was either, +but this is what our politeness expressed. + +"I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if +you try!" said Mrs. Pardiggle. "The quantity of exertion (which is no +exertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as nothing), +that I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young +family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I +may truly say I have been as fresh as a lark!" + +If that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he had +already looked, this was the time when he did it. I observed that he +doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of +his cap, which was under his left arm. + +"This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds," said +Mrs. Pardiggle. "If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to +say, I tell that person directly, ‘I am incapable of fatigue, my good +friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.' It +answers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your +assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's very +soon." + +At first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general +ground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect. +But as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more +particularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications. That I was +inexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very +differently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of +view. That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which must +be essential to such a work. That I had much to learn, myself, before +I could teach others, and that I could not confide in my good +intentions alone. For these reasons I thought it best to be as useful +as I could, and to render what kind services I could to those +immediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually +and naturally expand itself. All this I said with anything but +confidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older than I, and had +great experience, and was so very military in her manners. + +"You are wrong, Miss Summerson," said she, "but perhaps you are not +equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast +difference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am +now about—with my young family—to visit a brickmaker in the +neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you +with me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour." + +Ada and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case, +accepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our +bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs. +Pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light +objects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and I +followed with the family. + +Ada told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud +tone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's +about an exciting contest which she had for two or three years waged +against another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival +candidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a quantity of +printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared +to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the +pensioners—who were not elected yet. + +I am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in being +usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me +great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the +manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on the ground +that his pocket-money was "boned" from him. On my pointing out the +great impropriety of the word, especially in connexion with his +parent (for he added sulkily "By her!"), he pinched me and said, "Oh, +then! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn't like it, I think? What does she +make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away +again? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?" +These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of +Oswald and Francis that they all pinched me at once, and in a +dreadfully expert way—screwing up such little pieces of my arms that +I could hardly forbear crying out. Felix, at the same time, stamped +upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having +the whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to +abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage +when we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming +purple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the +course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally +constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being +natural. + +I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one +of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close +to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors +growing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old tub was put +to catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or they were banked +up with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-pie. At the doors +and windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took +little notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say +something as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business +and not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to +look after other people's. + +Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral +determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy +habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have +been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the +farthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled. +Besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman +with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a +man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying +at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man +fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of +washing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in, +and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide +her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. + +"Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a +friendly sound, I thought; it was much too business-like and +systematic. "How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you, +you couldn't tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and am true +to my word." + +"There an't," growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on his +hand as he stared at us, "any more on you to come in, is there?" + +"No, my friend," said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool +and knocking down another. "We are all here." + +"Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?" said the +man, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us. + +The young man and the girl both laughed. Two friends of the young +man, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with +their hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily. + +"You can't tire me, good people," said Mrs. Pardiggle to these +latter. "I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better +I like it." + +"Then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor. "I wants +it done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my +place. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now you're +a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom—I know what +you're a-going to be up to. Well! You haven't got no occasion to be +up to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes, +she IS a-washin. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks. +How do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An't my +place dirty? Yes, it is dirty—it's nat'rally dirty, and it's +nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome +children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, +and for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I +an't read the little book wot you left. There an't nobody here as +knows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn't be suitable to +me. It's a book fit for a babby, and I'm not a babby. If you was to +leave me a doll, I shouldn't nuss it. How have I been conducting of +myself? Why, I've been drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four +if I'da had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I +don't never mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there, +if I did; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get +that black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a +Lie!" + +He had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now +turned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, who +had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible +composure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his +antagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff +and took the whole family into custody. I mean into religious +custody, of course; but she really did it as if she were an +inexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-house. + +Ada and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out of +place, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on +infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking +possession of people. The children sulked and stared; the family took +no notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog +bark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was most emphatic. We +both felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there +was an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. By +whom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that. +Even what she read and said seemed to us to be ill-chosen for such +auditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so +much tact. As to the little book to which the man on the floor had +referred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce +said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it, though he had +had no other on his desolate island. + +We were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. Pardiggle +left off. + +The man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said +morosely, "Well! You've done, have you?" + +"For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come +to you again in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle with +demonstrative cheerfulness. + +"So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his +eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!" + +Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the +confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. +Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others +to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and +all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then +proceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say +that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show +that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of +dealing in it to a large extent. + +She supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was +left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the +baby were ill. + +She only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before +that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her +hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and +violence and ill treatment from the poor little child. + +Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to +touch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew +her back. The child died. + +"Oh, Esther!" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. "Look here! +Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, quiet, pretty +little thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I +never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!" + +Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down +weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any +mother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at her in +astonishment and then burst into tears. + +Presently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to +make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf, +and covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the +mother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children. +She answered nothing, but sat weeping—weeping very much. + +When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and +was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet. +The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The +man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but +he was silent. + +An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing +at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny! Jenny!" +The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck. + +She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had +no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she +condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no +beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were "Jenny! Jenny!" All +the rest was in the tone in which she said them. + +I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby +and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to +see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was +softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of +such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor +is little known, excepting to themselves and God. + +We felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We stole +out quietly and without notice from any one except the man. He was +leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was +scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He seemed to want +to hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he +did, and thanked him. He made no answer. + +Ada was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we found +at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me, +when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we +arranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our +visit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as we could to +Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly. + +Richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning +expedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house, +where a number of men were flocking about the door. Among them, and +prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. At a +short distance, we passed the young man and the dog, in congenial +company. The sister was standing laughing and talking with some other +young women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed +ashamed and turned away as we went by. + +We left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and +proceeded by ourselves. When we came to the door, we found the woman +who had brought such consolation with her standing there looking +anxiously out. + +"It's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper. "I'm +a-watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to catch +me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me." + +"Do you mean your husband?" said I. + +"Yes, miss, my master. Jenny's asleep, quite worn out. She's scarcely +had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights, +except when I've been able to take it for a minute or two." + +As she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had +brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort +had been made to clean the room—it seemed in its nature almost +hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much +solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and +neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my +handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of +sweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so +lightly, so tenderly! + +"May heaven reward you!" we said to her. "You are a good woman." + +"Me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise. "Hush! Jenny, Jenny!" + +The mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. The sound of the +familiar voice seemed to calm her again. She was quiet once more. + +How little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon the +tiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around the +child through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head—how +little I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come +to lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! I only +thought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all +unconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a +hand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken leave, +and left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in terror +for herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, "Jenny, Jenny!" + +CHAPTER IX + +Signs and Tokens + +I don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I +mean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think +about myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find myself +coming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, "Dear, dear, +you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!" but it is all of +no use. I hope any one who may read what I write will understand that +if these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it +must be because I have really something to do with them and can't be +kept out. + +My darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and found +so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like +bright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and always in the +evenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was one of the +most restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of +our society. + +He was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better say +it at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before, +but I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or +show that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I was so demure +and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I considered within +myself while I was sitting at work whether I was not growing quite +deceitful. + +But there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and I +was as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far as +any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they +relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one +another was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing +how it interested me. + +"Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," Richard +would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his +pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that I can't +get on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day—grinding away +at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down +dale, all the country round, like a highwayman—it does me so much +good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that +here I am again!" + +"You know, Dame Durden, dear," Ada would say at night, with her head +upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, "I +don't want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little +while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind +and remember the poor sailors at sea—" + +Ah! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over +very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination +of his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation +of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in +Richard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had replied in a +gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of +the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power, +which was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments +to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was +allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his +duty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself. + +"So I apprehend it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I shall +have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do +that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a +clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor +and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause. +He'd find himself growing thin, if he didn't look sharp!" + +With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever +flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite +perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd +way, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about money +in a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain than by +reverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole. + +Mr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole +himself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with +instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to +Richard. The number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which +Richard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number +of times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount, +would form a sum in simple addition. + +"My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted, +without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the +brickmaker. "I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses' business." + +"How was that?" said I. + +"Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of +and never expected to see any more. You don't deny that?" + +"No," said I. + +"Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds—" + +"The same ten pounds," I hinted. + +"That has nothing to do with it!" returned Richard. "I have got ten +pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to +spend it without being particular." + +In exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice +of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he +carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it. + +"Let me see!" he would say. "I saved five pounds out of the +brickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in +a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved +one. And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny +saved is a penny got!" + +I believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there +possibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his +wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a +few weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown +itself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, he +became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be +interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I am +sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking +with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling +deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each +shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps +not yet suspected even by the other—I am sure that I was scarcely +less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the +pretty dream. + +We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr. +Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said, +"From Boythorn? Aye, aye!" and opened and read it with evident +pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about +half-way through, that Boythorn was "coming down" on a visit. Now who +was Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all thought too—I am +sure I did, for one—would Boythorn at all interfere with what was +going forward? + +"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr. +Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than +five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the +world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest +boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the +heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest +and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow." + +"In stature, sir?" asked Richard. + +"Pretty well, Rick, in that respect," said Mr. Jarndyce; "being some +ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head +thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his +hands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! There's no simile for +his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the +house shake." + +As Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we +observed the favourable omen that there was not the least indication +of any change in the wind. + +"But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the +passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick—and Ada, and +little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor—that I +speak of," he pursued. "His language is as sounding as his voice. He +is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his +condemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre +from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with +some people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must +not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has +never forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our +friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out +(he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man," to me, "will +be here this afternoon, my dear." + +I took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr. +Boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some +curiosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear. +The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was +put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light +but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall +resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and +in a stentorian tone: "We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most +abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right +instead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the +face of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate +villain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot +without the least remorse!" + +"Did he do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inquired. + +"I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his +whole existence in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other. "By +my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when +he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood +before that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains out!" + +"Teeth, you mean?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole +house vibrate. "What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And +that was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the +countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image +of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a +field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot +in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!" + +"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now, will you come +upstairs?" + +"By my soul, Jarndyce," returned his guest, who seemed to refer to +his watch, "if you had been married, I would have turned back at the +garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya +Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this +unseasonable hour." + +"Not quite so far, I hope?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"By my life and honour, yes!" cried the visitor. "I wouldn't be +guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house +waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would +infinitely rather destroy myself—infinitely rather!" + +Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his +bedroom thundering "Ha, ha, ha!" and again "Ha, ha, ha!" until the +flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and +to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him +laugh. + +We all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a +sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice, +and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he +spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go +off like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared +to have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. Jarndyce presented +him. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman—upright and +stalwart as he had been described to us—with a massive grey head, a +fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become +corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it +no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but +for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to +assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so +chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much +sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing +to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was—incapable, as Richard +said, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those +blank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever—that +really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat +at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led +by Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up +his head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!" + +"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the +other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten +thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole +support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, +a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most +astonishing birds that ever lived!" + +The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so +tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his +forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted +on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the +most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of +a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good +illustration of his character, I thought. + +"By my soul, Jarndyce," he said, very gently holding up a bit of +bread to the canary to peck at, "if I were in your place I would +seize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and +shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones +rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by +fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do +it for you with the greatest satisfaction!" (All this time the very +small canary was eating out of his hand.) + +"I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at +present," returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, "that it would be greatly +advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole +bar." + +"There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the +face of the earth!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Nothing but a mine below it +on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and +precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it +also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the +Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to +atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it +in the least!" + +It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he +recommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw +up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country +seemed to echo to his "Ha, ha, ha!" It had not the least effect in +disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who +hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now +on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no +more than another bird. + +"But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of +way?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "You are not free from the toils of the law +yourself!" + +"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have +brought actions against HIM for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn. "By +heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible +that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer." + +"Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian laughingly +to Ada and Richard. + +"I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon," resumed +our visitor, "if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of +the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary +and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance." + +"Or he keeps us," suggested Richard. + +"By my soul," exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, +"that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the +most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by +some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but +a walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the most solemnly +conceited and consummate blockheads! But it's no matter; he should +not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and +living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory +balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary, +or somebody, writes to me ‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents +his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his +attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old +parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir +Leicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of +Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up +the same.' I write to the fellow, ‘Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his +compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS +attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir +Leicester Dedlock's positions on every possible subject and has to +add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to +see the man who may undertake to do it.' The fellow sends a most +abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon +that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is +nearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night. +I chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to +come over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man +traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the +engine—resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the +existence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass; +I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and +battery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, +ha!" + +To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have +thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same +time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly +smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought +him the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of +his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the +world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a +summer joke. + +"No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though +I willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that Lady +Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would +do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head +seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at +twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and +presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the +breath of life through a tight waist—and got broke for it—is not +the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, +locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!" + +"Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?" said my +guardian. + +"Most assuredly not!" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder +with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he +laughed. "He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may +rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass—with apologies to Miss +Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so +dry a subject—is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and +Carboy?" + +"I think not, Esther?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Nothing, guardian." + +"Much obliged!" said Mr. Boythorn. "Had no need to ask, after even my +slight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one about +her." (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) "I +inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet +been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down +here. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning." + +I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very +pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a +satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat +at a little distance from the piano listening to the music—and he +had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music, +for his face showed it—that I asked my guardian as we sat at the +backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married. + +"No," said he. "No." + +"But he meant to be!" said I. + +"How did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. "Why, +guardian," I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding +what was in my thoughts, "there is something so tender in his manner, +after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and—" + +Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just +described him. + +I said no more. + +"You are right, little woman," he answered. "He was all but married +once. Long ago. And once." + +"Did the lady die?" + +"No—but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his +later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of +romance yet?" + +"I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say +that when you have told me so." + +"He has never since been what he might have been," said Mr. Jarndyce, +"and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant +and his little yellow friend. It's your throw, my dear!" + +I felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could not +pursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to +ask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I +thought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I +was awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I tried to do that +very difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested +with the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded, +and dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother's house. I am +not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is +at all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my +life. + +With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to +Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon +him at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills, +and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact +as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard +took advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, Mr. +Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and then was to go +on foot to meet them on their return. + +Well! I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding up +columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great +bustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had +some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young +gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was glad to see +him, because he was associated with my present happiness. + +I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an +entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid +gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house +flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little +finger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with +bear's-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention +that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat until the +servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing +his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride, +and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found +him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way. + +When the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr. +Boythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for +him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake. +He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door, +"Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?" I replied yes, I +should be there; and he went out with a bow and another look. + +I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much +embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to +wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave +him to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some +time on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one, +and a stormy one too, I should think, for although his room was at +some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a +high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation. + +At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the +conference. "My eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a Tartar!" + +"Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I. + +Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the +carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt +quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The +sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on +me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which +he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off. + +He immediately looked at the dish and began to carve. + +"What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of +something?" + +"No, thank you," said I. + +"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, +hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine. + +"Nothing, thank you," said I. "I have only waited to see that you +have everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?" + +"No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that I +can require to make me comfortable—at least I—not comfortable—I'm +never that." He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after +another. + +I thought I had better go. + +"I beg your pardon, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me +rise. "But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private +conversation?" + +Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. + +"What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously +bringing a chair towards my table. + +"I don't understand what you mean," said I, wondering. + +"It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to my +detriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our conversation +shouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am not to be +prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In short, it's in +total confidence." + +"I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what you can have to +communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but +once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury." + +"Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it—that's quite sufficient." All this +time Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief +or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his +right. "If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I +think it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that +cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." + +He did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving well +behind my table. + +"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?" said Mr. +Guppy, apparently refreshed. + +"Not any," said I. + +"Not half a glass?" said Mr. Guppy. "Quarter? No! Then, to proceed. +My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two +pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it +was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened +period. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of +five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve +months from the present date. My mother has a little property, which +takes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an +independent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is +eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is +all for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings—as who +has not?—but I never knew her do it when company was present, at +which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt +liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is +lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the +'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore +you. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a +declaration—to make an offer!" + +Mr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and not +much frightened. I said, "Get up from that ridiculous position +immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise +and ring the bell!" + +"Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands. + +"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I returned, "Unless you +get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as +you ought to do if you have any sense at all." + +He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. + +"Yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said with his hand upon his +heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the +tray, "to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils +from food at such a moment, miss." + +"I beg you to conclude," said I; "you have asked me to hear you out, +and I beg you to conclude." + +"I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "As I love and honour, so likewise I +obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the +shrine!" + +"That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely out of the +question." + +"I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and +regarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not +directed to him, with his late intent look, "I am aware that in a +worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a +poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring—I have been +brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of +general practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence, +got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means +might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your +fortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know +nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your +confidence, and you set me on?" + +I told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my +interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and +he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go +away immediately. + +"Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another word! I think you +must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I +waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I +could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps +of the 'ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was +well meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have +walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only to +look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day, +quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its +pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I +speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful +wretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it." + +"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand +upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the +injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably +expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good +opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank +you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I +hope," I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, "that +you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish +and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business." + +"Half a minute, miss!" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about to +ring. "This has been without prejudice?" + +"I will never mention it," said I, "unless you should give me future +occasion to do so." + +"A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any +time, however distant—THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings can +never alter—of anything I have said, particularly what might I not +do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or +dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs. +Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient." + +I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written +card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my +eyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had +passed the door. + +I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments +and getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and +put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought +I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went +upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh +about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry +about it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as +if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been +since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden. + +CHAPTER X + +The Law-Writer + +On the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, that is to say, more +particularly in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby, +law-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's +Court, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in +all sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls +of parchment; in paper—foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, +whitey-brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens, +ink, India-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and +wafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs, +diaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands—glass +and leaden—pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small +office-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever +since he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer. +On that occasion, Cook's Court was in a manner revolutionized by the +new inscription in fresh paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the +time-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For +smoke, which is the London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's +name and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite +quite overpowered the parent tree. + +Peffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there, +for he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard +of St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring +past him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. If he +ever steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in +Cook's Court until admonished to return by the crowing of the +sanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor Street, +whose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he +knows from his personal observation next to nothing about it—if +Peffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of Cook's Court, which no +law-stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly, +and no one is the worse or wiser. + +In his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's "time" +of seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same +law-stationering premises a niece—a short, shrewd niece, something +too violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like +a sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The +Cook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of +this niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a +solicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her +up every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for +a stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited +internally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held, +had mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever +of the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it +either never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby, +who, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's +estate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's +Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the +niece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ, +is unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it. + +Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the +neighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed +from Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr. +Snagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet +tones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining +head and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He +tends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his door in Cook's +Court in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at +the clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy +flat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two +'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From +beneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in +its grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in +the voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these +reach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the +'prentices, "I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!" + +This proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened +the wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the +name of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and +expression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character. +It is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty +shillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with +clothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to +have been christened Augusta) who, although she was farmed or +contracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of +his species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been +developed under the most favourable circumstances, "has fits," which +the parish can't account for. + +Guster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten +years older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and +is so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint +that except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink, +or the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be +near her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. She is a +satisfaction to the parents and guardians of the 'prentices, who feel +that there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the +breast of youth; she is a satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can +always find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who +thinks it a charity to keep her. The law-stationer's establishment +is, in Guster's eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. She believes +the little drawing-room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with +its hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant +apartment in Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court at one +end (not to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavinses' +the sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a +prospect of unequalled beauty. The portraits it displays in oil—and +plenty of it too—of Mr. Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby and of Mrs. +Snagsby looking at Mr. Snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of +Raphael or Titian. Guster has some recompenses for her many +privations. + +Mr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the +business to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the +tax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays, +licenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no +responsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner, +insomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the +neighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and +even out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually +call upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the +wives') position and Mrs. Snagsby's, and their (the husbands') +behaviour and Mr. Snagsby's. Rumour, always flying bat-like about +Cook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say +that Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is +sometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the +spirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. It is even observed that the +wives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a shining +example in reality look down upon him and that nobody does so with +greater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord is more +than suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of +correction. But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's +being in his way rather a meditative and poetical man, loving to walk +in Staple Inn in the summer-time and to observe how countrified the +sparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge about the Rolls Yard of a +Sunday afternoon and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were +old times once and that you'd find a stone coffin or two now under +that chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to dig for it. He solaces his +imagination, too, by thinking of the many Chancellors and Vices, and +Masters of the Rolls who are deceased; and he gets such a flavour of +the country out of telling the two 'prentices how he HAS heard say +that a brook "as clear as crystal" once ran right down the middle of +Holborn, when Turnstile really was a turnstile, leading slap away +into the meadows—gets such a flavour of the country out of this that +he never wants to go there. + +The day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully +effective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his +shop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim +westward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow +flies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into +Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Here, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. +Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those +shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in +nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still +remain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman +helmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars, +flowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache—as +would seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, among +his many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr. +Tulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where +the great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to-day, +quiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can open. + +Like as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of +the present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from +attention, able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned, +mahogany-and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables +with spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the +holders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one, +environ him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor where +he sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks +that give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on +the backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that +can have a lock has got one; no key is visible. Very few loose papers +are about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not referring +to it. With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of +sealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of +indecision is in his mind. Now the inkstand top is in the middle, now +the red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. That's not it. Mr. +Tulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again. + +Here, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory +staring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and +he cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office. +He keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at +elbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened +with business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no +clerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped. +His clients want HIM; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be +drawn are drawn by special-pleaders in the temple on mysterious +instructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at the +stationers', expense being no consideration. The middle-aged man in +the pew knows scarcely more of the affairs of the peerage than any +crossing-sweeper in Holborn. + +The red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top, +the little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, you to +the left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or +never. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on +his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the +middle-aged man out at elbows, "I shall be back presently." Very +rarely tells him anything more explicit. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came—not quite so straight, but +nearly—to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's, +Law-Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in +all its branches, &c., &c., &c. + +It is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a +balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about +Snagsby's door. The hours are early there: dinner at half-past one +and supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into +the subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door +just now and saw the crow who was out late. + +"Master at home?" + +Guster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the +kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's two +daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two +second-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two +'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely +awakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't +grow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will. + +"Master at home?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad +to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and +veneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture +of the law—a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off. + +Mr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a +bit of bread and butter. Says, "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!" + +"I want half a word with you, Snagsby." + +"Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man +round for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir." Snagsby has +brightened in a moment. + +The confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse, +counting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing +round, on a stool at the desk. + +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby." + +"Yes, sir." Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his hand, +modestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is +accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save +words. + +"You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately." + +"Yes, sir, we did." + +"There was one of them," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly +feeling—tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!—in the wrong +coat-pocket, "the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather +like. As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I +looked in to ask you—but I haven't got it. No matter, any other time +will do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this." + +"Who copied this, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby, taking it, laying it flat +on the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and a +twist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. "We gave this out, +sir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that +time. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to +my book." + +Mr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of +the bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes +the affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down +a page of the book, "Jewby—Packer—Jarndyce." + +"Jarndyce! Here we are, sir," says Mr. Snagsby. "To be sure! I might +have remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges +just over on the opposite side of the lane." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the +law-stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill. + +"WHAT do you call him? Nemo?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo, sir. Here +it is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight +o'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine." + +"Nemo!" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Nemo is Latin for no one." + +"It must be English for some one, sir, I think," Mr. Snagsby submits +with his deferential cough. "It is a person's name. Here it is, you +see, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight o'clock; +brought in Thursday morning, half after nine." + +The tail of Mr. Snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of Mrs. +Snagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by +deserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to Mrs. +Snagsby, as who should say, "My dear, a customer!" + +"Half after nine, sir," repeats Mr. Snagsby. "Our law-writers, who +live by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but +it's the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in a +written advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and the +King's Bench Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. You know +the kind of document, sir—wanting employ?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of +Coavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in Coavinses' +windows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of +several gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the blinds. Mr. +Snagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his head to glance +over his shoulder at his little woman and to make apologetic motions +with his mouth to this effect: "Tul-king-horn—rich—in-flu-en-tial!" + +"Have you given this man work before?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours." + +"Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he +lived?" + +"Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a—" Mr. Snagsby makes +another bolt, as if the bit of bread and butter were insurmountable +"—at a rag and bottle shop." + +"Can you show me the place as I go back?" + +"With the greatest pleasure, sir!" + +Mr. Snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his +black coat, takes his hat from its peg. "Oh! Here is my little +woman!" he says aloud. "My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one +of the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with +Mr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir—I shan't be two minutes, my +love!" + +Mrs. Snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps +at them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office, +refers to the entries in the book still lying open. Is evidently +curious. + +"You will find that the place is rough, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, +walking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to +the lawyer; "and the party is very rough. But they're a wild lot in +general, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never +wants sleep. He'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long +as ever you like." + +It is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full +effect. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and +against counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against +plaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the +general crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has +interposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the commonest +business of life; diving through law and equity, and through that +kindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of nobody knows what +and collects about us nobody knows whence or how—we only knowing in +general that when there is too much of it we find it necessary to +shovel it away—the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and +bottle shop and general emporium of much disregarded merchandise, +lying and being in the shadow of the wall of Lincoln's Inn, and kept, +as is announced in paint, to all whom it may concern, by one Krook. + +"This is where he lives, sir," says the law-stationer. + +"This is where he lives, is it?" says the lawyer unconcernedly. +"Thank you." + +"Are you not going in, sir?" + +"No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good +evening. Thank you!" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his +little woman and his tea. + +But Mr. Tulkinghorn does not go on to the Fields at present. He goes +a short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr. Krook, and +enters it straight. It is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle or so +in the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back part by +a fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another blot-headed +candle in his hand. + +"Pray is your lodger within?" + +"Male or female, sir?" says Mr. Krook. + +"Male. The person who does copying." + +Mr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an +indistinct impression of his aristocratic repute. + +"Did you wish to see him, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"It's what I seldom do myself," says Mr. Krook with a grin. "Shall I +call him down? But it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!" + +"I'll go up to him, then," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there!" Mr. Krook, with his +cat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking after +Mr. Tulkinghorn. "Hi-hi!" he says when Mr. Tulkinghorn has nearly +disappeared. The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The cat +expands her wicked mouth and snarls at him. + +"Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know +what they say of my lodger?" whispers Krook, going up a step or two. + +"What do they say of him?" + +"They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know +better—he don't buy. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so +black-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that +bargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark door +on the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and +accidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so. + +The air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if +he had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease, +and dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as +if poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the corner +by the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness +marked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau +on one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger +one is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The +floor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of +rope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the +darkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn +together, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine +might be staring in—the banshee of the man upon the bed. + +For, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork, +lean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just +within the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and +trousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral +darkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of +its wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of +winding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his +whiskers and his beard—the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the +scum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is, +foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes +those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the +general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, +there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium. + +"Hallo, my friend!" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick +against the door. + +He thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away, +but his eyes are surely open. + +"Hallo, my friend!" he cries again. "Hallo! Hallo!" + +As he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes +out and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters +staring down upon the bed. + +CHAPTER XI + +Our Dear Brother + +A touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room, +irresolute, makes him start and say, "What's that?" + +"It's me," returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his +ear. "Can't you wake him?" + +"No." + +"What have you done with your candle?" + +"It's gone out. Here it is." + +Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and +tries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and his +endeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call to his +lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from +the shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some new reason +that he has, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs +outside. + +The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly up +with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. "Does the man +generally sleep like this?" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. "Hi! +I don't know," says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his eyebrows. +"I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself +very close." + +Thus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in, the +great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so the eyes +upon the bed. + +"God save us!" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He is dead!" Krook drops +the heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over +the bedside. + +They look at one another for a moment. + +"Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here's +poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?" says Krook, with +his lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, "Miss Flite! Flite! +Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!" Krook follows him with his +eyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old +portmanteau and steal back again. + +"Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook addresses a +crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes +in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man +brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip and a broad +Scotch tongue. + +"Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye," says the medical man, looking up at +them after a moment's examination. "He's just as dead as Phairy!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has +been dead any time. + +"Any time, sir?" says the medical gentleman. "It's probable he wull +have been dead aboot three hours." + +"About that time, I should say," observes a dark young man on the +other side of the bed. + +"Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?" inquires the +first. + +The dark young man says yes. + +"Then I'll just tak' my depairture," replies the other, "for I'm nae +gude here!" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and +returns to finish his dinner. + +The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face +and carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his +pretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one. + +"I knew this person by sight very well," says he. "He has purchased +opium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related +to him?" glancing round upon the three bystanders. + +"I was his landlord," grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from +the surgeon's outstretched hand. "He told me once I was the nearest +relation he had." + +"He has died," says the surgeon, "of an over-dose of opium, there is +no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough +here now," taking an old tea-pot from Mr. Krook, "to kill a dozen +people." + +"Do you think he did it on purpose?" asks Krook. + +"Took the over-dose?" + +"Yes!" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible +interest. + +"I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit +of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?" + +"I suppose he was. His room—don't look rich," says Krook, who might +have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around. +"But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to +name his circumstances to me." + +"Did he owe you any rent?" + +"Six weeks." + +"He will never pay it!" says the young man, resuming his examination. +"It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and to +judge from his appearance and condition, I should think it a happy +release. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare +say, good-looking." He says this, not unfeelingly, while sitting on +the bedstead's edge with his face towards that other face and his +hand upon the region of the heart. "I recollect once thinking there +was something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall +in life. Was that so?" he continues, looking round. + +Krook replies, "You might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose +heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he was my +lodger for a year and a half and lived—or didn't live—by +law-writing, I know no more of him." + +During this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old +portmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all +appearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the +bed—from the young surgeon's professional interest in death, +noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as +an individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy +woman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his +rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all this +while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention +nor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As easily might +the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case, +as the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case. + +He now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved, +professional way. + +"I looked in here," he observes, "just before you, with the +intention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some +employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my +stationer—Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows anything +about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!" to the +little crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and whom he has +often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, to go for the +law-stationer. "Suppose you do!" + +While she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation +and covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and +he interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but +stands, ever, near the old portmanteau. + +Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves. +"Dear me, dear me," he says; "and it has come to this, has it! Bless +my soul!" + +"Can you give the person of the house any information about this +unfortunate creature, Snagsby?" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. "He was in +arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know." + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind +his hand, "I really don't know what advice I could offer, except +sending for the beadle." + +"I don't speak of advice," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I could +advise—" + +"No one better, sir, I am sure," says Mr. Snagsby, with his +deferential cough. + +"I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he +came from, or to anything concerning him." + +"I assure you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply with +his cough of general propitiation, "that I no more know where he came +from than I know—" + +"Where he has gone to, perhaps," suggests the surgeon to help him +out. + +A pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook, +with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next. + +"As to his connexions, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "if a person was to +say to me, ‘Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for you +in the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' I couldn't do +it, sir! About a year and a half ago—to the best of my belief, at +the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle +shop—" + +"That was the time!" says Krook with a nod. + +"About a year and a half ago," says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, "he +came into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my +little woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation) +in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to +understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to +put too fine a point upon it," a favourite apology for plain speaking +with Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative +frankness, "hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to +strangers, particular—not to put too fine a point upon it—when they +want anything. But she was rather took by something about this +person, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want +of attention, or by what other ladies' reasons, I leave you to judge; +and she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. My +little woman hasn't a good ear for names," proceeds Mr. Snagsby after +consulting his cough of consideration behind his hand, "and she +considered Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. In consequence of which, +she got into a habit of saying to me at meals, ‘Mr. Snagsby, you +haven't found Nimrod any work yet!' or ‘Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you +give that eight and thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or +such like. And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our +place; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick +hand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him +out, say, five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have +it brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which—" Mr. Snagsby +concludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as much +as to add, "I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm if he +were in a condition to do it." + +"Hadn't you better see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, "whether he +had any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and +you will be asked the question. You can read?" + +"No, I can't," returns the old man with a sudden grin. + +"Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "look over the room for him. He will +get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, I'll wait +if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should +ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the +candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is +anything to help you." + +"In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir," says Snagsby. + +Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to have +seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though +there is very little else, heaven knows. + +The marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer +conducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the +chimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door. +The apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches +tied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his +long-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied +in the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same +place and attitude. + +There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau; +there is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets +on the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, smelling of opium, +on which are scrawled rough memoranda—as, took, such a day, so many +grains; took, such another day, so many more—begun some time ago, as +if with the intention of being regularly continued, but soon left +off. There are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to +coroners' inquests; there is nothing else. They search the cupboard +and the drawer of the ink-splashed table. There is not a morsel of an +old letter or of any other writing in either. The young surgeon +examines the dress on the law-writer. A knife and some odd halfpence +are all he finds. Mr. Snagsby's suggestion is the practical +suggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in. + +So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out +of the room. "Don't leave the cat there!" says the surgeon; "that +won't do!" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, and she +goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her +lips. + +"Good night!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and +meditation. + +By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its +inhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the +army of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr. +Krook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already +walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he +stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base +occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall +back. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms +with Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in +young Perkins' having "fetched" young Piper "a crack," renews her +friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the +corner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge +of life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges +confidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance +of an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable +in station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and +bare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's +the matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr. +Krook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural +disappointment that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the +beadle arrives. + +The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a +ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the +moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The +policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the +barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that +must be borne with until government shall abolish him. The sensation +is heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the +beadle is on the ground and has gone in. + +By and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation, +which has rather languished in the interval. He is understood to be +in want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who can tell the +coroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. Is +immediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing +whatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that +Mrs. Green's son "was a law-writer his-self and knowed him better +than anybody," which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on inquiry, to be +at the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, three months +out, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the +Lords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, +examining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by +exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public. +Policeman seen to smile to potboy. Public loses interest and +undergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrill youthful voices with +having boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a popular song to that +effect and importing that the boy was made into soup for the +workhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law +and seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on +condition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it—a +condition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for the +time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or +less, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible +great-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues +his lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white +gloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a +street-corner to look casually about for anything between a lost +child and a murder. + +Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting +about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name +is wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own +name, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served +and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep +a small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently +arriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in +the shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which +earthly lodgings take for No one—and for Every one. + +And all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau; +and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through +five and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that +any one can trace than a deserted infant. + +Next day the court is all alive—is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins, +more than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation +with that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor +room at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice +a week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional +celebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes +(according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally +round him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does a brisk +stroke of business all the morning. Even children so require +sustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has +established himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says +his brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering +between the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the +Sol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet +spirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return. + +At the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are +waiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good +dry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner frequents +more public-houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer, +tobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death +in its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the +landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the +piano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of +several short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings +in endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury +as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the +spittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. Over the coroner's +head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which +rather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be +hanged presently. + +Call over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress, +sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a +large shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who +modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public, +but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates that this +is Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get up +an imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the +Harmonic Meeting in the evening. + +"Well, gentlemen—" the coroner begins. + +"Silence there, will you!" says the beadle. Not to the coroner, +though it might appear so. + +"Well, gentlemen," resumes the coroner. "You are impanelled here to +inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given +before you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will +give your verdict according to the—skittles; they must be stopped, +you know, beadle!—evidence, and not according to anything else. The +first thing to be done is to view the body." + +"Make way there!" cries the beadle. + +So they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of a +straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back +second floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and +precipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very +neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he has +provided a special little table near the coroner in the Harmonic +Meeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the +public chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not +superior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in print +what "Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district," +said and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooney as familiarly +and patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman is, according +to the latest examples. + +Little Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return. +Mr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction +and seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a +bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury +learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about +him. "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen," says the +coroner, "who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery +of the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have +already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the +law-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. Is anybody in +attendance who knows anything more?" + +Mrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn. + +Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what have +you got to say about this? + +Why, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and +without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the +court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been +well beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one +before the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen +months and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live +such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the +plaintive—so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased—was +reported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air in +which that report originatinin. See the plaintive often and +considered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go +about some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkins +may be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her +husband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed and +worrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you +cannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be +Methoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this and +his dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from +his pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fear +and has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Never +however see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far +from it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if not +partial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor +grown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing +down the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here +would tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent). + +Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is +not here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence of +the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr. +Tulkinghorn. + +Oh! Here's the boy, gentlemen! + +Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop +a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary +paces. + +Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody +has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo is +short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don't find +no fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can't spell it. No father, no +mother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a +broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect +who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't +exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie +to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to +punish him, and serve him right—and so he'll tell the truth. + +"This won't do, gentlemen!" says the coroner with a melancholy shake +of the head. + +"Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?" asks an +attentive juryman. + +"Out of the question," says the coroner. "You have heard the boy. +‘Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take THAT in a court +of justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boy aside." + +Boy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially +of Little Swills, the comic vocalist. + +Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness. + +Very well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in +the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half, +found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence to +lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come +to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death, +you will find a verdict accordingly. + +Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are +discharged. Good afternoon. + +While the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give +private audience to the rejected witness in a corner. + +That graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he +recognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes +hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when +he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man +turned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and +found that he had not a friend in the world, said, "Neither have I. +Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. +That the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he +slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he +ever wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man +had no money, he would say in passing, "I am as poor as you to-day, +Jo," but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most +heartily believes) been glad to give him some. + +"He was wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his +wretched sleeve. "Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, I +wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me, he +wos!" + +As he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a +half-crown in his hand. "If you ever see me coming past your crossing +with my little woman—I mean a lady—" says Mr. Snagsby with his +finger on his nose, "don't allude to it!" + +For some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms +colloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of +pipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; two stroll to +Hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at night, and +top up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several hands. Being +asked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his +strength lying in a slangular direction) as "a rummy start." The +landlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so popular, +commends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a +song in character he don't know his equal and that that man's +character-wardrobe would fill a cart. + +Thus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and then +flares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving, +the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced +(red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them and +support first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little +Swills says, "Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short +description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day." Is +much applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes +in as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes +the inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment, +to the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol +lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee! + +The jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rally +round their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, now +laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt +eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. If this +forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the +mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised +to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon +the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would +have seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within +him ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is +she, while these ashes are above the ground! + +It is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's Court, +where Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself +allows—not to put too fine a point upon it—out of one fit into +twenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender +heart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been +imagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it may, +now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby's +account of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time +she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch +cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came +out of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of +fits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically +availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not +to give her warning "when she quite comes to," and also in appeals to +the whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed. +Hence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in +Cursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the +subject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most +patient of men, "I thought you was dead, I am sure!" + +What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he +strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men +crow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what +cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that +daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes. + +Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers +as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off +the body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard, +pestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated +to the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed, +while our dear brothers and sisters who hang about official +back-stairs—would to heaven they HAD departed!—are very complacent +and agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would +reject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder at, they +bring our dear brother here departed to receive Christian burial. + +With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little +tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate—with every villainy +of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of +death in action close on life—here they lower our dear brother down +a foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in +corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful +testimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this +boastful island together. + +Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too +long by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the +windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at +least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, burning so +sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its +witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you should call to +every passerby, "Look here!" + +With the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to +the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and +looks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while. + +It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and +makes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looks in +again a little while, and so departs. + +Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who "can't +exactly say" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's, +thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a +distant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: "He wos wery +good to me, he wos!" + +CHAPTER XII + +On the Watch + +It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney +Wold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares, +for Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The +fashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad +tidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they will +entertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the +BEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a +giant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat +in Lincolnshire. + +For the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, and +of Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge in +the park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper +limits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect +from the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle +woods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves +and drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving shadows +of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. It +looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars +and patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. Athwart +the picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a +broad bend-sinister of light that strikes down crookedly into the +hearth and seems to rend it. + +Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and +Sir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir +Leicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a +considerable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging +demonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs +with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they +rattle out of the yard of the Hôtel Bristol in the Place Vendôme and +canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the Rue de +Rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and +queen, off by the Place of Concord, and the Elysian Fields, and the +Gate of the Star, out of Paris. + +Sooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady +Dedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre, +drive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only +last Sunday, when poor wretches were gay—within the walls playing +with children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace +Garden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more +Elysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles +filtering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a +word or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little +gridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing +Paris with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking, +tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and +much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate—only last Sunday, my +Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair, +almost hated her own maid for being in spirits. + +She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies +before her, as it lies behind—her Ariel has put a girdle of it round +the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped—but the imperfect remedy +is always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced. +Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless +avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let +it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck +glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain—two dark +square towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it +aslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream! + +Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. +When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own +greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so +inexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in +his corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance to +society. + +"You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says my +Lady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost read +a page in twenty miles. + +"Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever." + +"I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?" + +"You see everything," says Sir Leicester with admiration. + +"Ha!" sighs my Lady. "He is the most tiresome of men!" + +"He sends—I really beg your pardon—he sends," says Sir Leicester, +selecting the letter and unfolding it, "a message to you. Our +stopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out of +my memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says—" Sir Leicester is so +long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Lady looks +a little irritated. "He says ‘In the matter of the right of way—' I +beg your pardon, that's not the place. He says—yes! Here I have it! +He says, ‘I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope, +has benefited by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as +it may interest her) that I have something to tell her on her return +in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery +suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen +him.'" + +My Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window. + +"That's the message," observes Sir Leicester. + +"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady, still looking out of +her window. + +"Walk?" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise. + +"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady with unmistakable +distinctness. "Please to stop the carriage." + +The carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the +rumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an +impatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly and +walks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulous +politeness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of a +minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She smiles, +looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of +a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage. + +The rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three +days, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more +or less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly +politeness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme +of general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady, +says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be +her amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each +other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in +hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, +how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her +gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is +ravishing! + +The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like +the small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose +countenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in +whose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the +Radical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it +after stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney +Wold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire. + +Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and +through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare +trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched +at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to +coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their +lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of +the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing +that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with +malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the +question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, +incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting +in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the +travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly +through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an +inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the +brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that. + +Mrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester's +customary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you." + +"I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir +Leicester?" + +"In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell." + +"My Lady is looking charmingly well," says Mrs. Rouncewell with +another curtsy. + +My Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is +as wearily well as she can hope to be. + +But Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, who +has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she +may have conquered, asks, "Who is that girl?" + +"A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa." + +"Come here, Rosa!" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance +of interest. "Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?" she says, +touching her shoulder with her two forefingers. + +Rosa, very much abashed, says, "No, if you please, my Lady!" and +glances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks +all the prettier. + +"How old are you?" + +"Nineteen, my Lady." + +"Nineteen," repeats my Lady thoughtfully. "Take care they don't spoil +you by flattery." + +"Yes, my Lady." + +My Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers +and goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester +pauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a +panel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what +to make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the +days of Queen Elizabeth. + +That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but +murmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so +beautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling +touch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this, +not without personal pride, reserving only the one point of +affability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven +forbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of +that excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world +admires; but if my Lady would only be "a little more free," not quite +so cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more +affable. + +"'Tis almost a pity," Mrs. Rouncewell adds—only "almost" because it +borders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it +is, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs—"that my +Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young +lady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of +excellence she wants." + +"Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" says +Watt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good +grandson. + +"More and most, my dear," returns the housekeeper with dignity, "are +words it's not my place to use—nor so much as to hear—applied to +any drawback on my Lady." + +"I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?" + +"If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always +reason to be." + +"Well," says Watt, "it's to be hoped they line out of their +prayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and +vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!" + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for +joking." + +"Sir Leicester is no joke by any means," says Watt, "and I humbly ask +his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and +their guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my +stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller +might?" + +"Surely, none in the world, child." + +"I am glad of that," says Watt, "because I have an inexpressible +desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood." + +He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed. +But according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that +burn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holding +forth about her at this moment with surpassing energy. + +My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in +the southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed brown +woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline +mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws +too eager and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably +keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking +out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could +be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour +and near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little +adornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to +go about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being +accomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is +almost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language; +consequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for +having attracted my Lady's attention, and she pours them out with +such grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the +affectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon +stage of that performance. + +Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years +and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, +caressed—absolutely caressed—by my Lady on the moment of her +arriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! "And do you know how pretty you +are, child?" "No, my Lady." You are right there! "And how old are +you, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!" +Oh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether. + +In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense +can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her +countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of +visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke—an enjoyment +expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of +face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which +intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's +mirrors when my Lady is not among them. + +All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of +them after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering +faces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not +submit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to +pass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable +intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen +scent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. James's to their +being run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By +day guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and +carriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers-on pervade the +village and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night from distant openings in +the trees, the row of windows in the long drawing-room, where my +Lady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of +jewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the chill little church is +almost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of +the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes. + +The brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no +contracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and +virtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of +its immense advantages. What can it be? + +Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to +set the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel +neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There +are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, +swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by +other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their +noses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into +his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is +troubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is +there dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle +notwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got +below the surface and is doing less harmless things than +jack-towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no +rational person need particularly object? + +Why, yes. It cannot be disguised. There ARE at Chesney Wold this +January week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who +have set up a dandyism—in religion, for instance. Who in mere +lackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy talk +about the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in the +things that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow +should unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after finding it +out! Who would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by +putting back the hands upon the clock of time and cancelling a few +hundred years of history. + +There are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new, +but very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world +and to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be +languid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who +are to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be +disturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder +and walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves +in the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be +particularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress +from the moving age. + +Then there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his +party, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester +Dedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see +to what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate +used to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a +Cabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment +that supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited +choice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie +between Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle—supposing it to be +impossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be +assumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of +that affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the +leadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to +Koodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle, +what are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of +the Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the +Woods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What +follows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces +(as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock) +because you can't provide for Noodle! + +On the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends +across the table with some one else that the shipwreck of the +country—about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it +that is in question—is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done with +Cuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into Parliament, +and had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you would have got +him into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with you the weight +attaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have brought to bear +upon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would have got in for +three counties Juffy, Kuffy, and Luffy, and you would have +strengthened your administration by the official knowledge and the +business habits of Muffy. All this, instead of being as you now are, +dependent on the mere caprice of Puffy! + +As to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences +of opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and +distinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but +Boodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the +great actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no +doubt—a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be +occasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as +on the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and +families, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are +the born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can +appear upon the scene for ever and ever. + +In this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the +brilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the +long run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as +with the circle the necromancer draws around him—very strange +appearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this +difference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the +greater danger of their breaking in. + +Chesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of +injury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not +to be extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber of +the third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and +having an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room, +and is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time. +He is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park +from the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had +never been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a +servant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should +be wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of +the library-door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining +flag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any +fine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen +walking before breakfast like a larger species of rook. + +Every day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the +library, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances +down the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive +him if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night +my Lady casually asks her maid, "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?" + +Every night the answer is, "No, my Lady, not yet." + +One night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in +deep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in +the opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her. + +"Be so good as to attend," says my Lady then, addressing the +reflection of Hortense, "to your business. You can contemplate your +beauty at another time." + +"Pardon! It was your Ladyship's beauty." + +"That," says my Lady, "you needn't contemplate at all." + +At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright +groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the +Ghost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady +remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards +them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never +slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask—if it be a +mask—and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every +crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great +or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his +personal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients; +he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself. + +"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?" says Sir Leicester, giving him his +hand. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. Sir Leicester is quite well. My Lady +is quite well. All highly satisfactory. The lawyer, with his hands +behind him, walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. My Lady +walks upon the other side. + +"We expected you before," says Sir Leicester. A gracious observation. +As much as to say, "Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when +you are not here to remind us of it by your presence. We bestow a +fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is +much obliged. + +"I should have come down sooner," he explains, "but that I have been +much engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself +and Boythorn." + +"A man of a very ill-regulated mind," observes Sir Leicester with +severity. "An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man of a +very low character of mind." + +"He is obstinate," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"It is natural to such a man to be so," says Sir Leicester, looking +most profoundly obstinate himself. "I am not at all surprised to hear +it." + +"The only question is," pursues the lawyer, "whether you will give up +anything." + +"No, sir," replies Sir Leicester. "Nothing. I give up?" + +"I don't mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you +would not abandon. I mean any minor point." + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn," returns Sir Leicester, "there can be no minor +point between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe +that I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor +point, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as +in reference to the family position I have it in charge to maintain." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head again. "I have now my +instructions," he says. "Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of +trouble—" + +"It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn," Sir Leicester +interrupts him, "TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned, +levelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have +been tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and +severely punished—if not," adds Sir Leicester after a moment's +pause, "if not hanged, drawn, and quartered." + +Sir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in +passing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory +thing to having the sentence executed. + +"But night is coming on," says he, "and my Lady will take cold. My +dear, let us go in." + +As they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr. +Tulkinghorn for the first time. + +"You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened +to inquire about. It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had +quite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can't +imagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely +had some." + +"You had some?" Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats. + +"Oh, yes!" returns my Lady carelessly. "I think I must have had some. +And did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that +actual thing—what is it!—affidavit?" + +"Yes." + +"How very odd!" + +They pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted +in the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. The fire glows +brightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where, +through the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape +shudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller +besides the waste of clouds. + +My Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir +Leicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands +before the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face. +He looks across his arm at my Lady. + +"Yes," he says, "I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what +is very strange, I found him—" + +"Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!" Lady Dedlock +languidly anticipates. + +"I found him dead." + +"Oh, dear me!" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by the +fact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned. + +"I was directed to his lodging—a miserable, poverty-stricken +place—and I found him dead." + +"You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn," observes Sir Leicester. "I +think the less said—" + +"Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out" (it is my Lady +speaking). "It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking! +Dead?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head. +"Whether by his own hand—" + +"Upon my honour!" cries Sir Leicester. "Really!" + +"Do let me hear the story!" says my Lady. + +"Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say—" + +"No, you mustn't say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn." + +Sir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels +that to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is +really—really— + +"I was about to say," resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness, +"that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my +power to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying +that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his +own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be +known. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison +accidentally." + +"And what kind of man," my Lady asks, "was this deplorable creature?" + +"Very difficult to say," returns the lawyer, shaking his head. "He +had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour +and his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him +the commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had +once been something better, both in appearance and condition." + +"What did they call the wretched being?" + +"They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his +name." + +"Not even any one who had attended on him?" + +"No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found +him." + +"Without any clue to anything more?" + +"Without any; there was," says the lawyer meditatively, "an old +portmanteau, but—No, there were no papers." + +During the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady +Dedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their +customary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another—as +was natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. Sir +Leicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of the +Dedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he renews his stately +protest, saying that as it is quite clear that no association in my +Lady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch (unless he +was a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no more about a +subject so far removed from my Lady's station. + +"Certainly, a collection of horrors," says my Lady, gathering up her +mantles and furs, "but they interest one for the moment! Have the +kindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she +passes out. She passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner +and insolent grace. They meet again at dinner—again, next +day—again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the +same exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable +to be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr. +Tulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble +confidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. They +appear to take as little note of one another as any two people +enclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore +watches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great +reservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the +other, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know +how much the other knows—all this is hidden, for the time, in their +own hearts. + +CHAPTER XIII + +Esther's Narrative + +We held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first +without Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him, +but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard +said he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he +might not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had +thought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what +he thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and +it wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide +within himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary +boyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he +really HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make out. + +"How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, +"is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and +procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't +pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is +responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or +confirmed in him a habit of putting off—and trusting to this, that, +and the other chance, without knowing what chance—and dismissing +everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of +much older and steadier people may be even changed by the +circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a +boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and +escape them." + +I felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I +thought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's +education had not counteracted those influences or directed his +character. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt, +I understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the most +admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's +business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings +lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been adapted to +the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection +that if he had remained at school until he was of age, I suppose he +could only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had +enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. Still, although I +had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and +very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always +remembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would not +have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his +studying them quite so much. + +To be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know +whether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to +the same extent—or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever +did. + +"I haven't the least idea," said Richard, musing, "what I had better +be. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church, +it's a toss-up." + +"You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. + +"I don't know that, sir!" replied Richard. "I am fond of boating. +Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital +profession!" + +"Surgeon—" suggested Mr. Jarndyce. + +"That's the thing, sir!" cried Richard. + +I doubt if he had ever once thought of it before. + +"That's the thing, sir," repeated Richard with the greatest +enthusiasm. "We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!" + +He was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily. +He said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it, +the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was +the art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he only came to this +conclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for +himself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the +discovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of +the trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses +often ended in this or whether Richard's was a solitary case. + +Mr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put +it to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter. +Richard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably +told Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about +something else. + +"By heaven!" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in +the subject—though I need not say that, for he could do nothing +weakly; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry +devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is +in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary +task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that +illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base +and despicable," cried Mr. Boythorn, "the treatment of surgeons +aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs—both legs—of every +member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a +transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if +the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!" + +"Wouldn't you give them a week?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"No!" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. "Not on any consideration! Eight and +forty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar +gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such +speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver +mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it +were only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a +language spoken in the presence of the sun—as to those fellows, who +meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of +knowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of +their lives, their long study, and their expensive education with +pittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the +necks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in +Surgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order +that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in +early life, HOW thick skulls may become!" + +He wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a +most agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, "Ha, ha, ha!" over and +over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite +subdued by the exertion. + +As Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice +after repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr. +Jarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and me +in the same final manner that it was "all right," it became advisable +to take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came down to +dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his +eye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did +exactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little +girl. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Kenge. "Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr. +Jarndyce, a very good profession." + +"The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently +pursued," observed my guardian with a glance at Richard. + +"Oh, no doubt," said Mr. Kenge. "Diligently." + +"But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are +worth much," said Mr. Jarndyce, "it is not a special consideration +which another choice would be likely to escape." + +"Truly," said Mr. Kenge. "And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so +meritoriously acquitted himself in the—shall I say the classic +shades?—in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply +the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in +that tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born, +not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he +enters." + +"You may rely upon it," said Richard in his off-hand manner, "that I +shall go at it and do my best." + +"Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head. +"Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it +and to do his best," nodding feelingly and smoothly over those +expressions, "I would submit to you that we have only to inquire into +the best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, with +reference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent +practitioner. Is there any one in view at present?" + +"No one, Rick, I think?" said my guardian. + +"No one, sir," said Richard. + +"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge. "As to situation, now. Is there any +particular feeling on that head?" + +"N—no," said Richard. + +"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge again. + +"I should like a little variety," said Richard; "I mean a good range +of experience." + +"Very requisite, no doubt," returned Mr. Kenge. "I think this may be +easily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, to +discover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make +our want—and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?—known, our +only difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number. +We have only, in the second place, to observe those little +formalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our +being under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be—shall I +say, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, ‘going at it'—to our +heart's content. It is a coincidence," said Mr. Kenge with a tinge of +melancholy in his smile, "one of those coincidences which may or may +not require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that +I have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed +eligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I +can answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!" + +As this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr. +Kenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before proposed +to take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we +should make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it. + +Mr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a +cheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop. +London was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours +at a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of +exhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal theatres, +too, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth +seeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to +be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy. + +I was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was +in the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to +look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down +upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt +all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but +constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared +expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection. + +It quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very +embarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we +never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always +with his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a +general feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in, +and I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little +while to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his +languishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be +quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening. + +I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only +have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been +bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at +me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a +constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to +cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing +naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box, +I could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on +having me next them and that they could never have talked together so +happily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not +knowing where to look—for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes +were following me—and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this +young man was putting himself on my account. + +Sometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the +young man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him. +Sometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the +possibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes. +Sometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I +felt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should write +to his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a +correspondence would be to make the matter worse. I always came to +the conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's +perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any +theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we +were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly—where I am sure I +saw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful +spikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. The +upholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and +my bedroom window being opposite the post, I was afraid to go near +the window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one +moonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching +cold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the +daytime, I really should have had no rest from him. + +While we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so +extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring +us to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham +Badger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large +public institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard +into his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that +those could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and +Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger +"well enough," an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent +was obtained, and it was all settled. + +On the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr. +Badger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house. +We were to be "merely a family party," Mrs. Badger's note said; and +we found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded in +the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a +little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, +playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, +reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. +She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, +and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her +accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there +was any harm in it. + +Mr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking +gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised +eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He +admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the +curious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands. +We had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite +triumphantly, "You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham +Badger's third!" + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Her third!" said Mr. Badger. "Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the +appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former +husbands?" + +I said "Not at all!" + +"And most remarkable men!" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence. +"Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first +husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of +Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European +reputation." + +Mrs. Badger overheard him and smiled. + +"Yes, my dear!" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, "I was observing to +Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former +husbands—both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people +generally do, difficult to believe." + +"I was barely twenty," said Mrs. Badger, "when I married Captain +Swosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am +quite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I +became the wife of Professor Dingo." + +"Of European reputation," added Mr. Badger in an undertone. + +"And when Mr. Badger and myself were married," pursued Mrs. Badger, +"we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached +to the day." + +"So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands—two of them +highly distinguished men," said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts, +"and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the +forenoon!" + +We all expressed our admiration. + +"But for Mr. Badger's modesty," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I would take +leave to correct him and say three distinguished men." + +"Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!" observed Mrs. +Badger. + +"And, my dear," said Mr. Badger, "what do I always tell you? That +without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction +as I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many +opportunities of estimating), I am not so weak—no, really," said Mr. +Badger to us generally, "so unreasonable—as to put my reputation on +the same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and +Professor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce," +continued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next +drawing-room, "in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on +his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from +the fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But +it's a very fine head. A very fine head!" + +We all echoed, "A very fine head!" + +"I feel when I look at it," said Mr. Badger, "‘that's a man I should +like to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that +Captain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor +Dingo. I knew him well—attended him in his last illness—a speaking +likeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over +the sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger +IN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy." + +Dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very +genteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and +the professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had +the honour of being under his particular care, we had the full +benefit of them. + +"Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me +the professor's goblet, James!" + +Ada very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass. + +"Astonishing how they keep!" said Mr. Badger. "They were presented to +Mrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean." + +He invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret. + +"Not that claret!" he said. "Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON +an occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have. +(James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that +was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You +will find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of +this wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your mistress, +James!) My love, your health!" + +After dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first and +second husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room a +biographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser +before his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the +time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler, +given to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour. + +"The dear old Crippler!" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. "She was +a noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser +used to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a +nautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved +that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he +frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he +would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck +where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he +fell—raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire +from my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes." + +Mrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass. + +"It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo," she +resumed with a plaintive smile. "I felt it a good deal at first. Such +an entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with +science—particularly science—inured me to it. Being the professor's +sole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I +had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that +the professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr. +Badger is not in the least like either!" + +We then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and +Professor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints. +In the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never +madly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection, +never to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser. +The professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and +Mrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great +difficulty, "Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!" +when the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb. + +Now, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past, +that Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's +society, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be +separated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we +got home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent +than usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my +arms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden. + +"My darling Esther!" murmured Ada. "I have a great secret to tell +you!" + +A mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt! + +"What is it, Ada?" + +"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" + +"Shall I try to guess?" said I. + +"Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!" cried Ada, very much startled by the +idea of my doing so. + +"Now, I wonder who it can be about?" said I, pretending to consider. + +"It's about—" said Ada in a whisper. "It's about—my cousin +Richard!" + +"Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I +could see. "And what about him?" + +"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!" + +It was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her +face, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little +glow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just yet. + +"He says—I know it's very foolish, we are both so young—but he +says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, Esther." + +"Does he indeed?" said I. "I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet +of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!" + +To see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me +round the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant! + +"Why, my darling," said I, "what a goose you must take me for! Your +cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't +know how long!" + +"And yet you never said a word about it!" cried Ada, kissing me. + +"No, my love," said I. "I waited to be told." + +"But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?" +returned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the +hardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no +very freely. + +"And now," said I, "I know the worst of it." + +"Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!" cried Ada, +holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast. + +"No?" said I. "Not even that?" + +"No, not even that!" said Ada, shaking her head. + +"Why, you never mean to say—" I was beginning in joke. + +But Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, "Yes, I do! +You know, you know I do!" And then sobbed out, "With all my heart I +do! With all my whole heart, Esther!" + +I told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I +had known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the +talking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of +it); and Ada was soon quiet and happy. + +"Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?" she asked. + +"Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet," said I, "I should think my +cousin John knows pretty well as much as we know." + +"We want to speak to him before Richard goes," said Ada timidly, "and +we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn't +mind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?" + +"Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said I. + +"I am not quite certain," returned Ada with a bashful simplicity that +would have won my heart if she had not won it long before, "but I +think he's waiting at the door." + +There he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me, +and put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love +with me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so +trustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for a +little while—I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself—and +then we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how +there must be a lapse of several years before this early love could +come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were +real and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do +their duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and +perseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said +that he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that +she would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called +me all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there, +advising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we parted, I +gave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to-morrow. + +So, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in +the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him +that I had it in trust to tell him something. + +"Well, little woman," said he, shutting up his book, "if you have +accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it." + +"I hope not, guardian," said I. "I can guarantee that there is no +secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday." + +"Aye? And what is it, Esther?" + +"Guardian," said I, "you remember the happy night when first we came +down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?" + +I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then. +Unless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so. + +"Because—" said I with a little hesitation. + +"Yes, my dear!" said he. "Don't hurry." + +"Because," said I, "Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have +told each other so." + +"Already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished. + +"Yes!" said I. "And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather +expected it." + +"The deuce you did!" said he. + +He sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so +handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me +to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he +encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself +to Richard with a cheerful gravity. + +"Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am glad to have won your confidence. I +hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us +four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new +interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the +possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada, +don't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. +I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was +afar off, Rick, afar off!" + +"We look afar off, sir," returned Richard. + +"Well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears! +I might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a +thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is +well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken, +or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such +wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I +will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one +another what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you +according to that assumption is, if you DO change—if you DO come to +find that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and +woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me, +Rick!)—don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be +nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and +distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and +hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it." + +"I am very sure, sir," returned Richard, "that I speak for Ada too +when I say that you have the strongest power over us both—rooted in +respect, gratitude, and affection—strengthening every day." + +"Dear cousin John," said Ada, on his shoulder, "my father's place can +never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have +rendered to him is transferred to you." + +"Come!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now for our assumption. Now we lift our +eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before +you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive +you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never +separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a +good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy +in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great +men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely +meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition +that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could +be, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts, +leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here." + +"I will leave IT here, sir," replied Richard smiling, "if I brought +it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to +my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance." + +"Right!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "If you are not to make her happy, why +should you pursue her?" + +"I wouldn't make her unhappy—no, not even for her love," retorted +Richard proudly. + +"Well said!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. "That's well said! She remains here, +in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less +than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well. +Otherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think +you and Ada had better take a walk." + +Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him, +and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again +directly, though, to say that they would wait for me. + +The door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they +passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out +at its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn +through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up +in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so +beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through +the sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the +years to come and making them all years of brightness. So they passed +away into the shadow and were gone. It was only a burst of light that +had been so radiant. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun +was clouded over. + +"Am I right, Esther?" said my guardian when they were gone. + +He was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right! + +"Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core +of so much that is good!" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. "I +have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor +always near." And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head. + +I could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did all +I could to conceal it. + +"Tut tut!" said he. "But we must take care, too, that our little +woman's life is not all consumed in care for others." + +"Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the +world!" + +"I believe so, too," said he. "But some one may find out what Esther +never will—that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above +all other people!" + +I have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else +at the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman. It +was a gentleman of a dark complexion—a young surgeon. He was rather +reserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least, +Ada asked me if I did not, and I said yes. + +CHAPTER XIV + +Deportment + +Richard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and +committed Ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in +me. It touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, more +nearly, to remember (having what I have to tell) how they both +thought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all +their plans, for the present and the future. I was to write Richard +once a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to +him every alternate day. I was to be informed, under his own hand, of +all his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and +persevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they were +married; I was to live with them afterwards; I was to keep all the +keys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever and a day. + +"And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther—which it may, you +know!" said Richard to crown all. + +A shade crossed Ada's face. + +"My dearest Ada," asked Richard, "why not?" + +"It had better declare us poor at once," said Ada. + +"Oh! I don't know about that," returned Richard, "but at all events, +it won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared anything in +heaven knows how many years." + +"Too true," said Ada. + +"Yes, but," urged Richard, answering what her look suggested rather +than her words, "the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it +must be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that +reasonable?" + +"You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will +make us unhappy." + +"But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it!" cried Richard gaily. +"We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that if it SHOULD +make us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. The +court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we +are to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is +our right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right." + +"No," said Ada, "but it may be better to forget all about it." + +"Well, well," cried Richard, "then we will forget all about it! We +consign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her +approving face, and it's done!" + +"Dame Durden's approving face," said I, looking out of the box in +which I was packing his books, "was not very visible when you called +it by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can't do +better." + +So, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on no +other foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would man +the Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada and I, +prepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career. + +On our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarndyce at Mrs. +Jellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. It +appeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had taken +Miss Jellyby with her. Besides the tea-drinking, there was to be some +considerable speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits +of the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the +Settlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, no doubt, +sufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daughter's part +in the proceedings anything but a holiday. + +It being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby's return, we +called again. She was in town, but not at home, having gone to Mile +End directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business, arising +out of a society called the East London Branch Aid Ramification. As I +had not seen Peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not +to be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he must have +strolled away with the dustman's cart), I now inquired for him again. +The oyster shells he had been building a house with were still in the +passage, but he was nowhere discoverable, and the cook supposed that +he had "gone after the sheep." When we repeated, with some surprise, +"The sheep?" she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed +them quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was! + +I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following +morning, and Ada was busy writing—of course to Richard—when Miss +Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom +she had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt +into corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and +then violently frizzling it with her fingers. Everything the dear +child wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other +contradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little +gloves of a baby. His boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a +ploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches +that they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of +plaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different +patterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been +supplied from one of Mr. Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely +brazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of +needlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been +hastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She +was, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked +very pretty. She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a +failure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by +the way in which she glanced first at him and then at us. + +"Oh, dear me!" said my guardian. "Due east!" + +Ada and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr. +Jarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, "Ma's compliments, and +she hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the +plan. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she +knows you'll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of them +with me. Ma's compliments." With which she presented it sulkily +enough. + +"Thank you," said my guardian. "I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby. +Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!" + +We were busy with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if +he remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at first, +but relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him +on my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce then +withdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a +conversation with her usual abruptness. + +"We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn," said she. "I +have no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off if +I was a what's-his-name—man and a brother!" + +I tried to say something soothing. + +"Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson," exclaimed Miss Jellyby, "though +I thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know how I am +used, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn't be talked over if +you were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!" + +"I shan't!" said Peepy. + +"Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!" returned Miss +Jellyby with tears in her eyes. "I'll never take pains to dress you +any more." + +"Yes, I will go, Caddy!" cried Peepy, who was really a good child and +who was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once. + +"It seems a little thing to cry about," said poor Miss Jellyby +apologetically, "but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new +circulars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that +that alone makes my head ache till I can't see out of my eyes. And +look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as +he is!" + +Peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on +the carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of +his den at us while he ate his cake. + +"I have sent him to the other end of the room," observed Miss +Jellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, "because I don't want him to +hear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going +to say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt +before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There'll be nobody +but Ma to thank for it." + +We said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as +that. + +"It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you," returned Miss +Jellyby, shaking her head. "Pa told me only yesterday morning (and +dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. I +should be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our +house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with +it, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don't +care about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather +the storm. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away." + +"My dear!" said I, smiling. "Your papa, no doubt, considers his +family." + +"Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson," replied Miss +Jellyby; "but what comfort is his family to him? His family is +nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, +and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week's end to week's end, +is like one great washing-day—only nothing's washed!" + +Miss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes. + +"I am sure I pity Pa to that degree," she said, "and am so angry with +Ma that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am not going +to bear it, I am determined. I won't be a slave all my life, and I +won't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed, +to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough of THAT!" said +poor Miss Jellyby. + +I must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs. +Jellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing +how much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said. + +"If it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our +house," pursued Miss Jellyby, "I should have been ashamed to come +here to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But as +it is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely to +see you again the next time you come to town." + +She said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at +one another, foreseeing something more. + +"No!" said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. "Not at all likely! I know +I may trust you two. I am sure you won't betray me. I am engaged." + +"Without their knowledge at home?" said I. + +"Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson," she returned, justifying +herself in a fretful but not angry manner, "how can it be otherwise? +You know what Ma is—and I needn't make poor Pa more miserable by +telling HIM." + +"But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his +knowledge or consent, my dear?" said I. + +"No," said Miss Jellyby, softening. "I hope not. I should try to make +him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the +others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they +should have some care taken of them then." + +There was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She softened more +and more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted little +home-picture she had raised in her mind that Peepy, in his cave under +the piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his back with loud +lamentations. It was not until I had brought him to kiss his sister, +and had restored him to his place on my lap, and had shown him that +Caddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we +could recall his peace of mind; even then it was for some time +conditional on his taking us in turns by the chin and smoothing our +faces all over with his hand. At last, as his spirits were not equal +to the piano, we put him on a chair to look out of window; and Miss +Jellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed her confidence. + +"It began in your coming to our house," she said. + +We naturally asked how. + +"I felt I was so awkward," she replied, "that I made up my mind to be +improved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I told +Ma I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked +at me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, but I +was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr. +Turveydrop's Academy in Newman Street." + +"And was it there, my dear—" I began. + +"Yes, it was there," said Caddy, "and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop. +There are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is +the son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was +likely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him." + +"I am sorry to hear this," said I, "I must confess." + +"I don't know why you should be sorry," she retorted a little +anxiously, "but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he +is very fond of me. It's a secret as yet, even on his side, because +old Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break +his heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly. +Old Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed—very +gentlemanly." + +"Does his wife know of it?" asked Ada. + +"Old Mr. Turveydrop's wife, Miss Clare?" returned Miss Jellyby, +opening her eyes. "There's no such person. He is a widower." + +We were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg had undergone so much on +account of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell-rope +whenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now bemoaned his +sufferings with a very low-spirited noise. As he appealed to me for +compassion, and as I was only a listener, I undertook to hold him. +Miss Jellyby proceeded, after begging Peepy's pardon with a kiss and +assuring him that she hadn't meant to do it. + +"That's the state of the case," said Caddy. "If I ever blame myself, +I still think it's Ma's fault. We are to be married whenever we can, +and then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won't +much agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. One great comfort is," +said Caddy with a sob, "that I shall never hear of Africa after I am +married. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old Mr. +Turveydrop knows there is such a place, it's as much as he does." + +"It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!" said I. + +"Very gentlemanly indeed," said Caddy. "He is celebrated almost +everywhere for his deportment." + +"Does he teach?" asked Ada. + +"No, he don't teach anything in particular," replied Caddy. "But his +deportment is beautiful." + +Caddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance that +there was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we ought to +know, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was that she had +improved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little crazy old lady, +and that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her +lover for a few minutes before breakfast—only for a few minutes. "I +go there at other times," said Caddy, "but Prince does not come then. +Young Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; I wish it wasn't, because it +sounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. Old Mr. +Turveydrop had him christened Prince in remembrance of the Prince +Regent. Old Mr. Turveydrop adored the Prince Regent on account of his +deportment. I hope you won't think the worse of me for having made +these little appointments at Miss Flite's, where I first went with +you, because I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she +likes me. If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would +think well of him—at least, I am sure you couldn't possibly think +any ill of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask +you to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would," said Caddy, who +had said all this earnestly and tremblingly, "I should be very +glad—very glad." + +It happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss +Flite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our +account had interested him; but something had always happened to +prevent our going there again. As I trusted that I might have +sufficient influence with Miss Jellyby to prevent her taking any very +rash step if I fully accepted the confidence she was so willing to +place in me, poor girl, I proposed that she and I and Peepy should go +to the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and Ada at Miss +Flite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. This was on +condition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back with us to +dinner. The last article of the agreement being joyfully acceded to +by both, we smartened Peepy up a little with the assistance of a few +pins, some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out, bending +our steps towards Newman Street, which was very near. + +I found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at the +corner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. In the +same house there were also established, as I gathered from the plates +on the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there was, certainly, +no room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. On the plate +which, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, I +read, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked up +by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in +cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the +daylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent, +last night, for a concert. + +We went upstairs—it had been quite a fine house once, when it was +anybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business +to smoke in it all day—and into Mr. Turveydrop's great room, which +was built out into a mews at the back and was lighted by a skylight. +It was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, with cane forms +along the walls, and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with +painted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed +to be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed +autumn leaves. Several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or +fourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and +I was looking among them for their instructor when Caddy, pinching my +arm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. "Miss Summerson, Mr. +Prince Turveydrop!" + +I curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance with +flaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all round +his head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a +kit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His +little dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a +little innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed to me in an +amiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, that I received +the impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had +not been much considered or well used. + +"I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend," he said, bowing low +to me. "I began to fear," with timid tenderness, "as it was past the +usual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming." + +"I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have +detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir," said I. + +"Oh, dear!" said he. + +"And pray," I entreated, "do not allow me to be the cause of any more +delay." + +With that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being well +used to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady +of a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the class and +who was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop then +tinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies +stood up to dance. Just then there appeared from a side-door old Mr. +Turveydrop, in the full lustre of his deportment. + +He was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth, +false whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded +breast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon +to be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and +strapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a +neckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and +his chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though +he must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. He had under his +arm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown +to the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he +flapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered, +round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, +he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had +wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not +like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the +world but a model of deportment. + +"Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson." + +"Distinguished," said Mr. Turveydrop, "by Miss Summerson's presence." +As he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases +come into the whites of his eyes. + +"My father," said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting +belief in him, "is a celebrated character. My father is greatly +admired." + +"Go on, Prince! Go on!" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back +to the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. "Go on, my son!" + +At this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on. +Prince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played +the piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little +breath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always +conscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step +and every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His +distinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire, +a model of deportment. + +"And he never does anything else," said the old lady of the +censorious countenance. "Yet would you believe that it's HIS name on +the door-plate?" + +"His son's name is the same, you know," said I. + +"He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him," +returned the old lady. "Look at the son's dress!" It certainly was +plain—threadbare—almost shabby. "Yet the father must be garnished +and tricked out," said the old lady, "because of his deportment. I'd +deport him! Transport him would be better!" + +I felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, "Does he +give lessons in deportment now?" + +"Now!" returned the old lady shortly. "Never did." + +After a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing had +been his accomplishment. + +"I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am," said the old lady. + +I looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and +more incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the +subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong +assurances that they were mildly stated. + +He had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable +connexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport +himself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered +her to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which +were indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his deportment +to the best models and to keep the best models constantly before +himself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of +fashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere +at fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best +clothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little +dancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and +laboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. For the +mainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing +selfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the +last, believed in him and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving +terms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable +claim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and +deference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the +deportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith, +and now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a +day and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary +pinnacle. + +"The airs the fellow gives himself!" said my informant, shaking her +head at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on +his tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was +rendering. "He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is +so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might +suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!" said the old lady, +apostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. "I could bite you!" + +I could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with +feelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the +father and son before me. What I might have thought of them without +the old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the old +lady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness of +things in the whole that carried conviction with it. + +My eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so +hard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when +the latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation. + +He asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a +distinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary +to reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, in any +case, but merely told him where I did reside. + +"A lady so graceful and accomplished," he said, kissing his +right glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils, +"will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to +polish—polish—polish!" + +He sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form, I +thought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the +sofa. And really he did look very like it. + +"To polish—polish—polish!" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and +gently fluttering his fingers. "But we are not, if I may say so to +one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art—" with the +high-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make +without lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes "—we are not +what we used to be in point of deportment." + +"Are we not, sir?" said I. + +"We have degenerated," he returned, shaking his head, which he could +do to a very limited extent in his cravat. "A levelling age is not +favourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with +some little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been +called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal +Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my +removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that +fine building), ‘Who is he? Who the devil is he? Why don't I know +him? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But these are little +matters of anecdote—the general property, ma'am—still repeated +occasionally among the upper classes." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +He replied with the high-shouldered bow. "Where what is left among us +of deportment," he added, "still lingers. England—alas, my +country!—has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. +She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed +us but a race of weavers." + +"One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated +here," said I. + +"You are very good." He smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. "You +flatter me. But, no—no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy +with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my +dear child, but he has—no deportment." + +"He appears to be an excellent master," I observed. + +"Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that +can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can +impart. But there ARE things—" He took another pinch of snuff and +made the bow again, as if to add, "This kind of thing, for instance." + +I glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover, +now engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than +ever. + +"My amiable child," murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat. + +"Your son is indefatigable," said I. + +"It is my reward," said Mr. Turveydrop, "to hear you say so. In some +respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a +devoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman," said Mr. Turveydrop +with very disagreeable gallantry, "what a sex you are!" + +I rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her +bonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was +a general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the +unfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't +know, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a +dozen words. + +"My dear," said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, "do you know the +hour?" + +"No, father." The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold +one, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to mankind. + +"My son," said he, "it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at +Kensington at three." + +"That's time enough for me, father," said Prince. "I can take a +morsel of dinner standing and be off." + +"My dear boy," returned his father, "you must be very quick. You will +find the cold mutton on the table." + +"Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?" + +"Yes, my dear. I suppose," said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and +lifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, "that I must show +myself, as usual, about town." + +"You had better dine out comfortably somewhere," said his son. + +"My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at +the French house, in the Opera Colonnade." + +"That's right. Good-bye, father!" said Prince, shaking hands. + +"Good-bye, my son. Bless you!" + +Mr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do +his son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so +dutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it were +an unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly +in the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking +leave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the +secret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish +character. I felt a liking for him and a compassion for him as he put +his little kit in his pocket—and with it his desire to stay a little +while with Caddy—and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton +and his school at Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with +his father than the censorious old lady. + +The father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a manner, +I must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style +he presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to +the aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself +among the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost +in reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street that I +was quite unable to talk to Caddy or even to fix my attention on what +she said to me, especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether +there were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing +profession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their +deportment. This became so bewildering and suggested the possibility +of so many Mr. Turveydrops that I said, "Esther, you must make up +your mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy." I +accordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to +Lincoln's Inn. + +Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that +it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so +anxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, he +would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short +words that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. "He +does it with the best intention," observed Caddy, "but it hasn't the +effect he means, poor fellow!" Caddy then went on to reason, how +could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole +life in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and fag, +fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She +could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it +was far better for him to be amiable than learned. "Besides, it's not +as if I was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself +airs," said Caddy. "I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma!" + +"There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone," +continued Caddy, "which I should not have liked to mention unless you +had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It's +of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for +Prince's wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a state of muddle +that it's impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever +I have tried. So I get a little practice with—who do you think? Poor +Miss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and +clean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she +taught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says +it's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old +Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can +make little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and +tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am +not clever at my needle, yet," said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on +Peepy's frock, "but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been +engaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt +better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me +out at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat +and pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the +whole I hope I am better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to +Ma." + +The poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched +mine. "Caddy, my love," I replied, "I begin to have a great affection +for you, and I hope we shall become friends." + +"Oh, do you?" cried Caddy. "How happy that would make me!" + +"My dear Caddy," said I, "let us be friends from this time, and let +us often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right +way through them." Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could in +my old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and I would not +have objected to old Mr. Turveydrop that day for any smaller +consideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law. + +By this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood +open. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to +let on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we proceeded +upstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest and +that our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door and +window of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It was the room +with the dark door to which Miss Flite had secretly directed my +attention when I was last in the house. A sad and desolate place it +was, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a strange sensation of +mournfulness and even dread. "You look pale," said Caddy when we came +out, "and cold!" I felt as if the room had chilled me. + +We had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and Ada +were here before us. We found them in Miss Flite's garret. They were +looking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to +attend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion spoke with her +cheerfully by the fire. + +"I have finished my professional visit," he said, coming forward. +"Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is +set upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I +understand." + +Miss Flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a +general curtsy to us. + +"Honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in +Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my +humble roof!" with a special curtsy. "Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear"—she +had bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called her +by it—"a double welcome!" + +"Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom we +had found in attendance on her. She answered for herself directly, +though he had put the question in a whisper. + +"Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed," she said +confidentially. "Not pain, you know—trouble. Not bodily so much as +nervous, nervous! The truth is," in a subdued voice and trembling, +"we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very +susceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr. +Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!" with +great stateliness. "The wards in Jarndyce—Jarndyce of Bleak +House—Fitz-Jarndyce!" + +"Miss Flite," said Mr. Woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he +were appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand +gently on her arm, "Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual +accuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might +have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and +agitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery, +though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I +have compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since +and being of some small use to her." + +"The kindest physician in the college," whispered Miss Flite to me. +"I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then confer +estates." + +"She will be as well in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at +her with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. In other words, +quite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?" + +"Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. "You never +heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge or +Guppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper of +shillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the +paper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So +well-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you +say? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I +think? I think," said Miss Flite, drawing herself back with a very +shrewd look and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant +manner, "that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during +which the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long +time!), forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now +that's very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he IS a +little slow for human life. So delicate! Attending court the other +day—I attend it regularly, with my documents—I taxed him with it, +and he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and +HE smiled at me from his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it +not? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. +Oh, I assure you to the greatest advantage!" + +I congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this +fortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of +it. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder +whose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me, +contemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him. + +"And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?" said he in his +pleasant voice. "Have they any names?" + +"I can answer for Miss Flite that they have," said I, "for she +promised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?" + +Ada remembered very well. + +"Did I?" said Miss Flite. "Who's that at my door? What are you +listening at my door for, Krook?" + +The old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there +with his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels. + +"I warn't listening, Miss Flite," he said, "I was going to give a rap +with my knuckles, only you're so quick!" + +"Make your cat go down. Drive her away!" the old lady angrily +exclaimed. + +"Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks," said Mr. Krook, +looking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at +all of us; "she'd never offer at the birds when I was here unless I +told her to it." + +"You will excuse my landlord," said the old lady with a dignified +air. "M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?" + +"Hi!" said the old man. "You know I am the Chancellor." + +"Well?" returned Miss Flite. "What of that?" + +"For the Chancellor," said the old man with a chuckle, "not to be +acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? Mightn't I +take the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce +a'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never +to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. Yet, I go +there a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one +day with another." + +"I never go there," said Mr. Jarndyce (which he never did on any +consideration). "I would sooner go—somewhere else." + +"Would you though?" returned Krook, grinning. "You're bearing hard +upon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though +perhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! What, +you're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?" The old man had +come by little and little into the room until he now touched my +guardian with his elbow and looked close up into his face with his +spectacled eyes. "It's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell +the names of these birds if she can help it, though she named 'em +all." This was in a whisper. "Shall I run 'em over, Flite?" he asked +aloud, winking at us and pointing at her as she turned away, +affecting to sweep the grate. + +"If you like," she answered hurriedly. + +The old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went +through the list. + +"Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, +Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, +Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's +the whole collection," said the old man, "all cooped up together, by +my noble and learned brother." + +"This is a bitter wind!" muttered my guardian. + +"When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be +let go free," said Krook, winking at us again. "And then," he added, +whispering and grinning, "if that ever was to happen—which it +won't—the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em." + +"If ever the wind was in the east," said my guardian, pretending to +look out of the window for a weathercock, "I think it's there +to-day!" + +We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not +Miss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature +in consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be. +It was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. +Jarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended +him more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and +all the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our +inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and +sometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had +passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon +some secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach. +I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive +of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he +could not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was that day. His +watchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes +from his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the +slyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When +we stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across +and across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of +power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until +they appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face. + +At last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house +and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was +certainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. Here on +the head of an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, some old +stumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were +pasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands. + +"What are you doing here?" asked my guardian. + +"Trying to learn myself to read and write," said Krook. + +"And how do you get on?" + +"Slow. Bad," returned the old man impatiently. "It's hard at my time +of life." + +"It would be easier to be taught by some one," said my guardian. + +"Aye, but they might teach me wrong!" returned the old man with a +wonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. "I don't know what I may +have lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn't like to lose +anything by being learned wrong now." + +"Wrong?" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. "Who do you +suppose would teach you wrong?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!" replied the old man, +turning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. "I +don't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self than +another!" + +These answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my guardian +to inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across Lincoln's Inn +together, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his lodger represented +him, deranged. The young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason +to think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually +was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin, +of which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop, +as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him +mad as yet. + +On our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him a +windmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to take +off his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my +side. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom we +imparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back. +We made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened +exceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all +very happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach, +with Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill. + +I have forgotten to mention—at least I have not mentioned—that Mr. +Woodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr. +Badger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. Or +that he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to Ada, +"Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!" Ada +laughed and said— + +But I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always +merry. + +CHAPTER XV + +Bell Yard + +While we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the +crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much +astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our +arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two +shining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to +brush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were +almost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All +objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for +anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power +seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for +any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in +the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly +swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be +the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake +and found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole +procession of people. + +Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with +her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to +us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle +out. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in +behalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared +Mr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist +surface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they +seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at +first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr. +Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great +creature—which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale +meant in intellectual beauty—and whether we were not struck by his +massive configuration of brow. In short, we heard of a great many +missions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing +respecting them was half so clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's +mission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it +was the most popular mission of all. + +Mr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his +heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but +that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where +benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a +regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap +notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, +servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one +another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help +the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and +self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he +plainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale by +Mr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and +when Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a +meeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who +were specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come +forward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices, I think the wind +was in the east for three whole weeks. + +I mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed +to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness +were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and +were the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly +undesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to +give him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole +divined this and was politic; I really never understood him well +enough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the +rest of the world. + +He had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we +had seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning in his +usual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever. + +Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were +often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he +was a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view—in his +expansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in +the most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes +quadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, "Now, my dear +doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you +attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money—in my +expansive intentions—if you only knew it!" And really (he said) he +meant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as doing it. +If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind +attached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he would +have put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted +the will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it—if his will +were genuine and real, which it was—it appeared to him that it was +the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation. + +"It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money," +said Mr. Skimpole, "but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My +butcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of the +pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls +it a ‘little' bill—to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I +reply to the butcher, ‘My good friend, if you knew it, you are paid. +You haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You +are paid. I mean it.'" + +"But, suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "he had meant the meat in +the bill, instead of providing it?" + +"My dear Jarndyce," he returned, "you surprise me. You take the +butcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very +ground. Says he, ‘Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence +a pound?' ‘Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my +honest friend?' said I, naturally amazed by the question. ‘I like +spring lamb!' This was so far convincing. ‘Well, sir,' says he, ‘I +wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' ‘My good fellow,' +said I, ‘pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that +be? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the +money. You couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in, +whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' He +had not a word. There was an end of the subject." + +"Did he take no legal proceedings?" inquired my guardian. + +"Yes, he took legal proceedings," said Mr. Skimpole. "But in that he +was influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of +Boythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a +short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire." + +"He is a great favourite with my girls," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and I +have promised for them." + +"Nature forgot to shade him off, I think," observed Mr. Skimpole to +Ada and me. "A little too boisterous—like the sea. A little too +vehement—like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every +colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!" + +I should have been surprised if those two could have thought very +highly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to +many things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Besides +which, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the point of +breaking out into some strong opinion when Mr. Skimpole was referred +to. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we had been greatly +pleased with him. + +"He has invited me," said Mr. Skimpole; "and if a child may trust +himself in such hands—which the present child is encouraged to do, +with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him—I shall go. He +proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost +money? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By +the by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss +Summerson?" + +He asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful, +light-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment. + +"Oh, yes!" said I. + +"Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff," said Mr. +Skimpole. "He will never do violence to the sunshine any more." + +It quite shocked me to hear it, for I had already recalled with +anything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on +the sofa that night wiping his head. + +"His successor informed me of it yesterday," said Mr. Skimpole. "His +successor is in my house now—in possession, I think he calls it. He +came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him, +‘This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed +daughter you wouldn't like ME to come, uninvited, on HER birthday?' +But he stayed." + +Mr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched +the piano by which he was seated. + +"And he told me," he said, playing little chords where I shall put +full stops, "The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And +that Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses. +Were at a considerable disadvantage." + +Mr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr. +Skimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. Ada and I +both looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing +in his mind. + +After walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his +head, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and +stopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. "I don't like this, Skimpole," he +said thoughtfully. + +Mr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up +surprised. + +"The man was necessary," pursued my guardian, walking backward and +forward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the +room and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high +east wind had blown it into that form. "If we make such men necessary +by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by +our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was +no harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to +know more about this." + +"Oh! Coavinses?" cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he +meant. "Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and you +can know what you will." + +Mr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal. +"Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon as +another!" We were quickly ready and went out. Mr. Skimpole went with +us and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing, +he said, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him! + +He took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was +a house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On +our going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came +out of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket. + +"Who did you want?" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his +chin. + +"There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here," said Mr. +Jarndyce, "who is dead." + +"Yes?" said the boy. "Well?" + +"I want to know his name, if you please?" + +"Name of Neckett," said the boy. + +"And his address?" + +"Bell Yard," said the boy. "Chandler's shop, left hand side, name of +Blinder." + +"Was he—I don't know how to shape the question—" murmured my +guardian, "industrious?" + +"Was Neckett?" said the boy. "Yes, wery much so. He was never tired +of watching. He'd set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten +hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it." + +"He might have done worse," I heard my guardian soliloquize. "He +might have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's all +I want." + +We left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the gate, +fondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to Lincoln's Inn, +where Mr. Skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer Coavinses, +awaited us. Then we all went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley at a very +short distance. We soon found the chandler's shop. In it was a +good-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or +perhaps both. + +"Neckett's children?" said she in reply to my inquiry. "Yes, Surely, +miss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the stairs." And +she handed me the key across the counter. + +I glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for granted +that I knew what to do with it. As it could only be intended for the +children's door, I came out without asking any more questions and led +the way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly as we could, but four +of us made some noise on the aged boards, and when we came to the +second story we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there +looking out of his room. + +"Is it Gridley that's wanted?" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an +angry stare. + +"No, sir," said I; "I am going higher up." + +He looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing +the same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and +followed me. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. "Good day!" he said +abruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head +on which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and prominent +eyes. He had a combative look and a chafing, irritable manner which, +associated with his figure—still large and powerful, though +evidently in its decline—rather alarmed me. He had a pen in his +hand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room in passing, I saw that +it was covered with a litter of papers. + +Leaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. I tapped at +the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "We are locked in. +Mrs. Blinder's got the key!" + +I applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. In a poor room +with a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a +mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a +heavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather +was cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets +as a substitute. Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that +their noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken +as the boy walked up and down nursing and hushing the child with its +head on his shoulder. + +"Who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked. + +"Charley," said the boy, standing still to gaze at us. + +"Is Charley your brother?" + +"No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley." + +"Are there any more of you besides Charley?" + +"Me," said the boy, "and Emma," patting the limp bonnet of the child +he was nursing. "And Charley." + +"Where is Charley now?" + +"Out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again +and taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to +gaze at us at the same time. + +We were looking at one another and at these two children when there +came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd +and older-looking in the face—pretty-faced too—wearing a womanly +sort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on a +womanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white and wrinkled with +washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she wiped off her +arms. But for this, she might have been a child playing at washing +and imitating a poor working-woman with a quick observation of the +truth. + +She had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had +made all the haste she could. Consequently, though she was very +light, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she +stood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us. + +"Oh, here's Charley!" said the boy. + +The child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be +taken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of +manner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us +over the burden that clung to her most affectionately. + +"Is it possible," whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the +little creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy +keeping close to her, holding to her apron, "that this child works +for the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!" + +It was a thing to look at. The three children close together, and two +of them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and yet +with an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the +childish figure. + +"Charley, Charley!" said my guardian. "How old are you?" + +"Over thirteen, sir," replied the child. + +"Oh! What a great age," said my guardian. "What a great age, +Charley!" + +I cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half +playfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully. + +"And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?" said my +guardian. + +"Yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect +confidence, "since father died." + +"And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley," said my guardian, +turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" + +"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing +to-day." + +"God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. "You're not tall enough to +reach the tub!" + +"In pattens I am, sir," she said quickly. "I've got a high pair as +belonged to mother." + +"And when did mother die? Poor mother!" + +"Mother died just after Emma was born," said the child, glancing at +the face upon her bosom. "Then father said I was to be as good a +mother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home and +did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began +to go out. And that's how I know how; don't you see, sir?" + +"And do you often go out?" + +"As often as I can," said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling, +"because of earning sixpences and shillings!" + +"And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" + +"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. Blinder +comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and +perhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom +an't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?" + +"No-o!" said Tom stoutly. + +"When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and +they show up here quite bright—almost quite bright. Don't they, +Tom?" + +"Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite bright." + +"Then he's as good as gold," said the little creature—Oh, in such a +motherly, womanly way! "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. +And when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and +light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it +with me. Don't you, Tom?" + +"Oh, yes, Charley!" said Tom. "That I do!" And either in this glimpse +of the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for +Charley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty +folds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying. + +It was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among +these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and +their mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of +taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, +and by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried, although she +sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any +movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, +I saw two silent tears fall down her face. + +I stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops, +and the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the +birds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, when I found that +Mrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in (perhaps it had taken +her all this time to get upstairs) and was talking to my guardian. + +"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir," she said; "who could +take it from them!" + +"Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the time +will come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and that +forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these—This child," he +added after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?" + +"Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder, getting her +heavy breath by painful degrees. "She's as handy as it's possible to +be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the +mother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her +with him after he was took ill, it really was! ‘Mrs. Blinder,' he +said to me the very last he spoke—he was lying there—‘Mrs. +Blinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel sitting in +this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our +Father!'" + +"He had no other calling?" said my guardian. + +"No, sir," returned Mrs. Blinder, "he was nothing but a follerers. +When he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I +confess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked in +the yard. It wasn't approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a +genteel calling," said Mrs. Blinder, "and most people do object to +it. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger, +though his temper has been hard tried." + +"So you gave him notice?" said my guardian. + +"So I gave him notice," said Mrs. Blinder. "But really when the time +came, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was +punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir," said Mrs. +Blinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, "and it's +something in this world even to do that." + +"So you kept him after all?" + +"Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could +arrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its +being liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent +gruff—but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been +kind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is +proved." + +"Have many people been kind to the children?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said Mrs. Blinder; "but certainly +not so many as would have been if their father's calling had been +different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a +little purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and +tapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little +subscription, and—in general—not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte. +Some people won't employ her because she was a follerer's child; some +people that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having +her to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and +perhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she's patienter than +others would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the +full mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not +so bad, sir, but might be better." + +Mrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity +of recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it +was fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his +attention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of the +Mr. Gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen on our way +up. + +"I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he +said, as if he resented our presence, "but you'll excuse my coming +in. I don't come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom! +Well, little one! How is it with us all to-day?" + +He bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as +a friend by the children, though his face retained its stern +character and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My +guardian noticed it and respected it. + +"No one, surely, would come here to stare about him," he said mildly. + +"May be so, sir, may be so," returned the other, taking Tom upon his +knee and waving him off impatiently. "I don't want to argue with +ladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last one man +his life." + +"You have sufficient reason, I dare say," said Mr. Jarndyce, "for +being chafed and irritated—" + +"There again!" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. "I am of +a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!" + +"Not very, I think." + +"Sir," said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if +he meant to strike him, "do you know anything of Courts of Equity?" + +"Perhaps I do, to my sorrow." + +"To your sorrow?" said the man, pausing in his wrath, "if so, I beg +your pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! Sir," with +renewed violence, "I have been dragged for five and twenty years over +burning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go +into the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing +jokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell +you that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I," he +said, beating one hand on the other passionately, "am the man from +Shropshire." + +"I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing +some entertainment in the same grave place," said my guardian +composedly. "You may have heard my name—Jarndyce." + +"Mr. Jarndyce," said Gridley with a rough sort of salutation, "you +bear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than that, I +tell you—and I tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they +are friends of yours—that if I took my wrongs in any other way, I +should be driven mad! It is only by resenting them, and by revenging +them in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice I never get, +that I am able to keep my wits together. It is only that!" he said, +speaking in a homely, rustic way and with great vehemence. "You may +tell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that it's in my nature to +do it, under wrong, and I must do it. There's nothing between doing +it, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman +that haunts the court. If I was once to sit down under it, I should +become imbecile." + +The passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his +face worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied what +he said, were most painful to see. + +"Mr. Jarndyce," he said, "consider my case. As true as there is a +heaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father +(a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my +mother for her life. After my mother's death, all was to come to me +except a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was then to pay my +brother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his +legacy. I and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it +already in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That +was the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one +disputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had +been already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filing +a bill, I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery; I was forced +there because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else. +Seventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first +came on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years +while the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my +father's son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal +creature. He then found out that there were not defendants +enough—remember, there were only seventeen as yet!—but that we must +have another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The +costs at that time—before the thing was begun!—were three times the +legacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to +escape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my +father's, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen +into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else—and here I +stand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands +and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine +less hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was +in it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?" + +Mr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and +that he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this +monstrous system. + +"There again!" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. "The +system! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't look to +individuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, ‘My +Lord, I beg to know this from you—is this right or wrong? Have you +the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am +dismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer +the system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in +Lincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by +being so cool and satisfied—as they all do, for I know they gain by +it while I lose, don't I?—I mustn't say to him, ‘I will have +something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is +not responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no violence to any of +them, here—I may! I don't know what may happen if I am carried +beyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that +system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!" + +His passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage +without seeing it. + +"I have done!" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. "Mr. +Jarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I +have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for +threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that +trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I +sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, +too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and +all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained +myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become +imbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in +my part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have +this vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits +together. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,' the Lord +Chancellor told me last week, ‘not to waste your time here, and to +stay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.' ‘My Lord, my Lord, I +know it would,' said I to him, ‘and it would have been far better for +me never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily +for me, I can't undo the past, and the past drives me here!' +Besides," he added, breaking fiercely out, "I'll shame them. To the +last, I'll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I +was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to +speak with, I would die there, saying, ‘You have brought me here and +sent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet +foremost!'" + +His countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its +contentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was +quiet. + +"I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour," he said, +going to them again, "and let them play about. I didn't mean to say +all this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, Tom, +are you?" + +"No!" said Tom. "You ain't angry with ME." + +"You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come then, +little one!" He took the youngest child on his arm, where she was +willing enough to be carried. "I shouldn't wonder if we found a +ginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for him!" + +He made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a +certain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went +downstairs to his room. + +Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our +arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very +pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. +Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising +energy—intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious +blacksmith—and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years +ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous +combativeness upon—a sort of Young Love among the thorns—when the +Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact +thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise +he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or +he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of +parliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the Court of Chancery +had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was +much the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided +for. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father +of these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr. +Skimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of +Coavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed +with Coavinses. There had been times when, if he had been a sultan, +and his grand vizier had said one morning, "What does the Commander +of the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?" he might have +even gone so far as to reply, "The head of Coavinses!" But what +turned out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving +employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to +Coavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up +these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these +social virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the +tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and +thought, "I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little +comforts were MY work!" + +There was something so captivating in his light way of touching these +fantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the side of +the graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian smile even +as he turned towards us from a little private talk with Mrs. Blinder. +We kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, and stopped +outside the house to see her run away to her work. I don't know where +she was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature in +her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of +the court and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in +an ocean. + +CHAPTER XVI + +Tom-all-Alone's + +My Lady Dedlock is restless, very restless. The astonished +fashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. To-day she +is at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to-morrow +she may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence can with +confidence predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has some trouble +to keep pace with her. It would have more but that his other faithful +ally, for better and for worse—the gout—darts into the old oak +bed-chamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both legs. + +Sir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a +demon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male +line, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of +man goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved, +sir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have +taken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but +the Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the +levelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. It has +come down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the +pictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities. +Sir Leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he +has never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the +discharge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the +aristocracy, "My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to +you another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout." + +Hence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder +as if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels +that for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically +twitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere, +but he thinks, "We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has +for some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make +the vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and I +submit myself to the compromise." + +And a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in +the midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of +my Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long +perspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with +soft reliefs of shadow. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages in +the green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was still a +chase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and rode +a-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. Inside, +his forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, "Each of us was +a passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and +melted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks +now lulling you to rest," and hear their testimony to his greatness +too. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other +daring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him! + +My Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her +portrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of +remaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of +the fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared for +her reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in powder +gapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last night to +another Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society, +that if that sort of thing was to last—which it couldn't, for a man +of his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be +expected to bear it—there would be no resource for him, upon his +honour, but to cut his throat! + +What connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the +house in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the +outlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him +when he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have been +between many people in the innumerable histories of this world who +from opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very +curiously brought together! + +Jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any +link there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question +by replying that he "don't know nothink." He knows that it's hard to +keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to +live by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out. + +Jo lives—that is to say, Jo has not yet died—in a ruinous place +known to the like of him by the name of Tom-all-Alone's. It is a +black, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the +crazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, by +some bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession took +to letting them out in lodgings. Now, these tumbling tenements +contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As on the ruined human wretch +vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd +of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; +and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips +in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and sowing more +evil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle, +and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to +Zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years—though born expressly +to do it. + +Twice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the +springing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone's; and each time a house has +fallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and +have filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain, +and there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several +more houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone's +may be expected to be a good one. + +This desirable property is in Chancery, of course. It would be an +insult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so. +Whether "Tom" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff +or defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when +the suit had laid the street waste, all alone, until other settlers +came to join him, or whether the traditional title is a comprehensive +name for a retreat cut off from honest company and put out of the +pale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. Certainly Jo don't know. + +"For I don't," says Jo, "I don't know nothink." + +It must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the +streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the +meaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and +at the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! To +see people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen +deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that +language—to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! It must +be very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on +Sundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps +Jo DOES think at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means +anything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? To be +hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would +appear to be perfectly true that I have no business here, or there, +or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that I AM +here somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until I became the +creature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told +that I am scarcely human (as in the case of my offering myself for a +witness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! To see the +horses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance I +belong to them and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose +delicacy I offend! Jo's ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a +bishop, or a government, or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only +knew it) the Constitution, should be strange! His whole material and +immaterial life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest +thing of all. + +Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is +always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread +as he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and the houses +not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the +Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and gives +it a brush when he has finished as an acknowledgment of the +accommodation. He admires the size of the edifice and wonders what +it's all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual +destitution of a coral reef in the Pacific or what it costs to look +up the precious souls among the coco-nuts and bread-fruit. + +He goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The +town awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and +whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been +suspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower +animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is +market-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided, +run into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed and +foaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often +sorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like! + +A band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog—a +drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and +evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for +some hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three +or four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the +street as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his +ears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog, +accustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep, +ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls +of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been +taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen +to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal +satisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or +regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, +they are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human +listener is the brute! + +Turn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years +they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark—but not +their bite. + +The day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly. +Jo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the +horses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for +the unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas +begins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder, +runs along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is +beginning to close in. + +In his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the +nearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a +disappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. We +are not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow +shall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened +Allegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points +with the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively +toward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no reason, +look out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does +not look out of window. + +And if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are +women enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks—too many; they are +at the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of +that, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a +woman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all +secret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well. + +But they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house +behind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is +something exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by +her attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and +assumed—as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she +treads with an unaccustomed foot—she is a lady. Her face is veiled, +and still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of +those who pass her look round sharply. + +She never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her +and can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to the +crossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs. +Still, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other +side. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, "Come here!" + +Jo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court. + +"Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?" she asked behind her +veil. + +"I don't know," says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, "nothink about +no papers. I don't know nothink about nothink at all." + +"Were you examined at an inquest?" + +"I don't know nothink about no—where I was took by the beadle, do +you mean?" says Jo. "Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?" + +"Yes." + +"That's me!" says Jo. + +"Come farther up." + +"You mean about the man?" says Jo, following. "Him as wos dead?" + +"Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so +very ill and poor?" + +"Oh, jist!" says Jo. + +"Did he look like—not like YOU?" says the woman with abhorrence. + +"Oh, not so bad as me," says Jo. "I'm a reg'lar one I am! You didn't +know him, did you?" + +"How dare you ask me if I knew him?" + +"No offence, my lady," says Jo with much humility, for even he has +got at the suspicion of her being a lady. + +"I am not a lady. I am a servant." + +"You are a jolly servant!" says Jo without the least idea of saying +anything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration. + +"Listen and be silent. Don't talk to me, and stand farther from me! +Can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I +read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where +you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the +place where he was buried?" + +Jo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was +mentioned. + +"Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to +each, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look back. +Do what I want, and I will pay you well." + +Jo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off +on his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider +their meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head. + +"I'm fly," says Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!" + +"What does the horrible creature mean?" exclaims the servant, +recoiling from him. + +"Stow cutting away, you know!" says Jo. + +"I don't understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money +than you ever had in your life." + +Jo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub, +takes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with +his bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire. + +Cook's Court. Jo stops. A pause. + +"Who lives here?" + +"Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull," says Jo in a +whisper without looking over his shoulder. + +"Go on to the next." + +Krook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause. + +"Who lives here?" + +"HE lived here," Jo answers as before. + +After a silence he is asked, "In which room?" + +"In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner. +Up there! That's where I see him stritched out. This is the +public-ouse where I was took to." + +"Go on to the next!" + +It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first +suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look +round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they +come to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted +now), and to the iron gate. + +"He was put there," says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in. + +"Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!" + +"There!" says Jo, pointing. "Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, +and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the +top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver +it for you with my broom if the gate was open. That's why they locks +it, I s'pose," giving it a shake. "It's always locked. Look at the +rat!" cries Jo, excited. "Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the +ground!" + +The servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous +archway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting +out her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her, +for he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands +staring and is still staring when she recovers herself. + +"Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?" + +"I don't know nothink of consequential ground," says Jo, still +staring. + +"Is it blessed?" + +"Which?" says Jo, in the last degree amazed. + +"Is it blessed?" + +"I'm blest if I know," says Jo, staring more than ever; "but I +shouldn't think it warn't. Blest?" repeats Jo, something troubled in +his mind. "It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think +it was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!" + +The servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take +of what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get some +money from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her +hand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling +rings. + +She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and +shuddering as their hands approach. "Now," she adds, "show me the +spot again!" + +Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and +with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, +looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds +that he is alone. + +His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light +and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow—gold. His next is +to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality. +His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the +step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for +Tom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to +produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a +reassurance of its being genuine. + +The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady +goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is +fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; +he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous +pattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the +fireside in his own snug dressing-room. + +"Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the +house, my dear," says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. "His dressing-room is +on my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon +the Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is to-night!" + +CHAPTER XVII + +Esther's Narrative + +Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though +he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, +his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was +always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I +knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted +that he had been educated in no habits of application and +concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same +manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in +character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, +always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, +dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities +in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They +were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously +won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were +very bad masters. If they had been under Richard's direction, they +would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, +they became his enemies. + +I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any +other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think +so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These +were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides +how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the +uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his +nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that +he was part of a great gaming system. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was +not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after +Richard. + +"Why, Mr. Carstone," said Mrs. Badger, "is very well and is, I assure +you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say +of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn +to the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough as +the fore-topsel weather earrings. It was his naval way of mentioning +generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the +same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won't think me +premature if I mention it?" + +I said no, as Mrs. Badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such +an answer. + +"Nor Miss Clare?" said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly. + +Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy. + +"Why, you see, my dears," said Mrs. Badger, "—you'll excuse me +calling you my dears?" + +We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it. + +"Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so," +pursued Mrs. Badger, "so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that +although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the +compliment of saying so—" + +"No," Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public +meeting. "Not at all!" + +"Very well," smiled Mrs. Badger, "we will say still young." + +"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Badger. + +"My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of +observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old +Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser +in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and +befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's command. YOU never +heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would +not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, +but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to +me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo." + +"A man of European reputation," murmured Mr. Badger. + +"When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second," +said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were +parts of a charade, "I still enjoyed opportunities of observing +youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a large +one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man +seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to +throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific +Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed +biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there +was science to an unlimited extent." + +"Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Badger +reverentially. "There must have been great intellectual friction +going on there under the auspices of such a man!" + +"And now," pursued Mrs. Badger, "now that I am the wife of my dear +third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which +were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new +and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I +therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a +neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he +has not chosen his profession advisedly." + +Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she +founded her supposition. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," she replied, "on Mr. Carstone's character +and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he +would never think it worth while to mention how he really feels, but +he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive +interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided +impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a +tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. +Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can +do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a +very little money and through years of considerable endurance and +disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the +case with Mr. Carstone." + +"Does Mr. Badger think so too?" asked Ada timidly. + +"Why," said Mr. Badger, "to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of +the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But +when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great +consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger's mind, in addition to +its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by +two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men +as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The +conclusion at which I have arrived is—in short, is Mrs. Badger's +conclusion." + +"It was a maxim of Captain Swosser's," said Mrs. Badger, "speaking in +his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot +make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you +should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that +this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical +profession." + +"To all professions," observed Mr. Badger. "It was admirably said by +Captain Swosser. Beautifully said." + +"People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north +of Devon after our marriage," said Mrs. Badger, "that he disfigured +some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of +those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor +replied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The +principle is the same, I think?" + +"Precisely the same," said Mr. Badger. "Finely expressed! The +professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness, +when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer +under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. +The ruling passion!" + +Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and +Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was +disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to +us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We +agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; +and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious +talk with him. + +So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my +darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly +right in whatever he said. + +"And how do you get on, Richard?" said I. I always sat down on the +other side of him. He made quite a sister of me. + +"Oh! Well enough!" said Richard. + +"He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?" cried my pet +triumphantly. + +I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I +couldn't. + +"Well enough?" I repeated. + +"Yes," said Richard, "well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and +humdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!" + +"Oh! My dear Richard!" I remonstrated. + +"What's the matter?" said Richard. + +"Do as well as anything else!" + +"I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden," said Ada, +looking so confidingly at me across him; "because if it will do as +well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope." + +"Oh, yes, I hope so," returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair +from his forehead. "After all, it may be only a kind of probation +till our suit is—I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. +Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it's all right enough. Let us talk about +something else." + +Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we +had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought +it would be useless to stop there, so I began again. + +"No, but Richard," said I, "and my dear Ada! Consider how important +it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your +cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any +reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It +will be too late very soon." + +"Oh, yes! We must talk about it!" said Ada. "But I think Richard is +right." + +What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty, +and so engaging, and so fond of him! + +"Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard," said I, "and they +seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the +profession." + +"Did they though?" said Richard. "Oh! Well, that rather alters the +case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not +have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don't +care much about it. But, oh, it don't matter! It'll do as well as +anything else!" + +"You hear him, Ada!" said I. + +"The fact is," Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half +jocosely, "it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get +too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second." + +"I am sure THAT'S very natural!" cried Ada, quite delighted. "The +very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!" + +"Then," pursued Richard, "it's monotonous, and to-day is too like +yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day." + +"But I am afraid," said I, "this is an objection to all kinds of +application—to life itself, except under some very uncommon +circumstances." + +"Do you think so?" returned Richard, still considering. "Perhaps! Ha! +Why, then, you know," he added, suddenly becoming gay again, "we +travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It'll do as well as +anything else. Oh, it's all right enough! Let us talk about something +else." + +But even Ada, with her loving face—and if it had seemed innocent and +trusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much +more did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting +heart—even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I +thought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were +sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never +meant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his +affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a +step that might influence both their lives. This made him almost +grave. + +"My dear Mother Hubbard," he said, "that's the very thing! I have +thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself +for meaning to be so much in earnest and—somehow—not exactly being +so. I don't know how it is; I seem to want something or other to +stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling +cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don't settle down to constancy +in other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!" +said Richard with an air of vexation. + +"That may be," I suggested, "because you don't like what you have +chosen." + +"Poor fellow!" said Ada. "I am sure I don't wonder at it!" + +No. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried +again, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I +could, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while +he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him! + +"You see, my precious girl," said Richard, passing her golden curls +through and through his hand, "I was a little hasty perhaps; or I +misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don't seem to lie in +that direction. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question is +whether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems +like making a great disturbance about nothing particular." + +"My dear Richard," said I, "how CAN you say about nothing +particular?" + +"I don't mean absolutely that," he returned. "I mean that it MAY be +nothing particular because I may never want it." + +Both Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly +worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I +then asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial +pursuit. + +"There, my dear Mrs. Shipton," said Richard, "you touch me home. Yes, +I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me." + +"The law!" repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name. + +"If I went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "and if I were placed +under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the—hum!—the +forbidden ground—and should be able to study it, and master it, and +to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly +conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and my own +interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and +all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour." + +I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering +after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast +a shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any +project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure +that his mind was made up now. + +"My dear Minerva," said Richard, "I am as steady as you are. I made a +mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won't do so any more, and +I'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know," +said Richard, relapsing into doubt, "if it really is worth-while, +after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!" + +This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that +we had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion +afterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open +with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his disposition was +naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once +(taking us with him) and made a full avowal. "Rick," said my +guardian, after hearing him attentively, "we can retreat with honour, +and we will. But we must be careful—for our cousin's sake, Rick, for +our cousin's sake—that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in +the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We +will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it." + +Richard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he +would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's +office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the +spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we +had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down +among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying +purpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held +possession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him, +but rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we +were going upstairs to bed, to say, "Cousin John, I hope you don't +think the worse of Richard?" + +"No, my love," said he. + +"Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such +a difficult case. It is not uncommon." + +"No, no, my love," said he. "Don't look unhappy." + +"Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!" said Ada, smiling cheerfully, +with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him +good night. "But I should be a little so if you thought at all the +worse of Richard." + +"My dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I should think the worse of him only +if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be +more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick, +for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has +time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not +I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!" + +"No, indeed, cousin John," said Ada, "I am sure I could not—I am +sure I would not—think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I +could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!" + +So quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his +shoulders—both hands now—and looking up into his face, like the +picture of truth! + +"I think," said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, "I think it +must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall +occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the +father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant +slumbers! Happy dreams!" + +This was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with +something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well +remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard +when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while +since he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was +shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and +even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once +more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally +been. + +Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised +him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her +clasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed +her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy +she looked. + +For I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up +working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was +wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least I don't +think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't think it +matters. + +At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I +would leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. For I +naturally said, "Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!" And it really +was time to say so, for I—yes, I really did see myself in the glass, +almost crying. "As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead +of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!" said I. + +If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it +directly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some +ornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy +with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was +necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to +go on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to +bed. + +I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in +a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop +for want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To +my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and +sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay +unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered +confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering +among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn. +Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still +for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in +again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and +started. + +"Esther!" + +I told him what I had come for. + +"At work so late, my dear?" + +"I am working late to-night," said I, "because I couldn't sleep and +wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look +weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?" + +"None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand," said he. + +He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated, +as if that would help me to his meaning, "That I could readily +understand!" + +"Remain a moment, Esther," said he, "You were in my thoughts." + +"I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?" + +He slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change +was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much +self-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, "None +that I could understand!" + +"Little woman," said my guardian, "I was thinking—that is, I have +been thinking since I have been sitting here—that you ought to know +of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing." + +"Dear guardian," I replied, "when you spoke to me before on that +subject—" + +"But since then," he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to +say, "I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my +having anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It +is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know." + +"If you think so, guardian, it is right." + +"I think so," he returned very gently, and kindly, and very +distinctly. "My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can +attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a +thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not +magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature." + +I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to +be, "One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: +‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time +will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and +will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'" I had covered my face +with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a +better kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the +blessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never, +never felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that +he was never to be thanked, and said no more. + +"Nine years, my dear," he said after thinking for a little while, +"have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in +seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it +unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as +it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's +idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to +justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years +old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your +remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from +her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if +the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be +left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to +consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." + +I listened in silence and looked attentively at him. + +"Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium +through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the +distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the +need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was +quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her +darkened life, and replied to the letter." + +I took his hand and kissed it. + +"It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the +writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the +world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one. +I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of +his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there +were any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. That more +than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the +steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration +disclose. My dear, I have told you all." + +I held his hand for a little while in mine. + +"I saw my ward oftener than she saw me," he added, cheerily making +light of it, "and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. +She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every +hour in every day!" + +"And oftener still," said I, "she blesses the guardian who is a +father to her!" + +At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He +subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been +there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they +had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, "That I +could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!" No, +it was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day. + +"Take a fatherly good night, my dear," said he, kissing me on the +forehead, "and so to rest. These are late hours for working and +thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little +housekeeper!" + +I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my +grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and +its care of me, and fell asleep. + +We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take +leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to +China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a +long, long time. + +I believe—at least I know—that he was not rich. All his widowed +mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his +profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very +little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at +the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness +and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was +seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly +seems to belong to anything. + +I think—I mean, he told us—that he had been in practice three or +four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three +or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was +bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going +away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a +pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among +those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it +had a high opinion of him. + +When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for +the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, +but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time +ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan +ap-Kerrig—of some place that sounded like Gimlet—who was the most +illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations +were a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life +in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and +a bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his +praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, +Mewlinnwillinwodd. + +Mrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great +kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would +remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below +it. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in +India who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be +picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would +suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must +ever be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that +for a moment I half fancied, and with pain—But what an idle fancy to +suppose that she could think or care what MINE was! + +Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was +too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring +the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian +for his hospitality and for the very happy hours—he called them the +very happy hours—he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he +said, would go with him wherever he went and would be always +treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another—at least, +they did—and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada's hand—and to +mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage! + +I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the +servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and +papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and +another. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by +the window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no +expectation of seeing! + +"Why, Caddy, my dear," said I, "what beautiful flowers!" + +She had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand. + +"Indeed, I think so, Esther," replied Caddy. "They are the loveliest +I ever saw." + +"Prince, my dear?" said I in a whisper. + +"No," answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to +smell. "Not Prince." + +"Well, to be sure, Caddy!" said I. "You must have two lovers!" + +"What? Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Caddy. + +"Do they look like that sort of thing?" I repeated, pinching her +cheek. + +Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for +half an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting +for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window, +every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they +looked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into +my room and put them in my dress. + +"For me?" said I, surprised. + +"For you," said Caddy with a kiss. "They were left behind by +somebody." + +"Left behind?" + +"At poor Miss Flite's," said Caddy. "Somebody who has been very good +to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these +flowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the pretty little +things lie here," said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand, +"because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder if somebody +left them on purpose!" + +"Do they look like that sort of thing?" said Ada, coming laughingly +behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. "Oh, yes, indeed +they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing. +Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!" + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Lady Dedlock + +It was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for +Richard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was +the chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr. +Badger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave +him at all. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a bad +profession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he liked +it as well as he liked any other—suppose he gave it one more chance! +Upon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and +some bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information +with great rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about a month, began +to cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His +vacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer +arrived before he finally separated from Mr. Badger and entered on an +experimental course of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy. For all his +waywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to +be in earnest "this time." And he was so good-natured throughout, and +in such high spirits, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult +indeed to be otherwise than pleased with him. + +"As to Mr. Jarndyce," who, I may mention, found the wind much given, +during this period, to stick in the east; "As to Mr. Jarndyce," +Richard would say to me, "he is the finest fellow in the world, +Esther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for his +satisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up +of this business now." + +The idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face +and heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and +nothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, he told us +between-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent that he +wondered his hair didn't turn grey. His regular wind-up of the +business was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's about +midsummer to try how he liked it. + +All this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him in +a former illustration—generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully +persuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. I happened to +say to Ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half seriously, about +the time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that he needed to have +Fortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he answered in +this way, "My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why +does she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it +was) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if +I had stayed at Badger's I should have been obliged to spend twelve +pounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four +pounds—in a lump—by the transaction!" + +It was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what +arrangements should be made for his living in London while he +experimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak +House, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener +than once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle +down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where +we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but, little +woman," he added, rubbing his head very significantly, "he hasn't +settled down there yet!" The discussions ended in our hiring for him, +by the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house +near Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all the money he had +in buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; +and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any purchase that +he had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and +expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out +that to spend anything less on something else was to save the +difference. + +While these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was +postponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his lodging, +there was nothing to prevent our departure. He could have gone with +us at that time of the year very well, but he was in the full novelty +of his new position and was making most energetic attempts to unravel +the mysteries of the fatal suit. Consequently we went without him, +and my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy. + +We made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and +had an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been +all cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it +on his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to +think that it was gone. Chairs and table, he said, were wearisome +objects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of +expression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them +out of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular +chairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the +furniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from +mahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humour took +one! + +"The oddity of the thing is," said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened +sense of the ludicrous, "that my chairs and tables were not paid for, +and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. +Now, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in it. The chair +and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why +should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose +which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my +landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's +nose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!" + +"Well," said my guardian good-humouredly, "it's pretty clear that +whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay +for them." + +"Exactly!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "That's the crowning point of +unreason in the business! I said to my landlord, ‘My good man, you +are not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for +those things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner. +Have you no consideration for HIS property?' He hadn't the least." + +"And refused all proposals," said my guardian. + +"Refused all proposals," returned Mr. Skimpole. "I made him business +proposals. I had him into my room. I said, ‘You are a man of +business, I believe?' He replied, ‘I am.' ‘Very well,' said I, ‘now +let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and +paper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house +for a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until +this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly +and business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use +of the figurative expression—which has something Eastern about +it—that he had never seen the colour of my money. ‘My amiable +friend,' said I, ‘I never have any money. I never know anything about +money.' ‘Well, sir,' said he, ‘what do you offer if I give you time?' +‘My good fellow,' said I, ‘I have no idea of time; but you say you +are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a +business-like way with pen, and ink, and paper—and wafers—I am +ready to do. Don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is +foolish), but be business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there +was an end of it." + +If these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's childhood, +it assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the journey he had a +very good appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including +a basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for +anything. So when the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly +asked him what he considered a very good fee indeed, now—a liberal +one—and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it +was little enough too, all things considered, and left Mr. Jarndyce +to give it him. + +It was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the +larks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the +trees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind +blowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance! +Late in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we were to +alight from the coach—a dull little town with a church-spire, and a +marketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and +a pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men +sleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade. +After the rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along +the road, it looked as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as +England could produce. + +At the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open +carriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He was +overjoyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity. + +"By heaven!" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. "This a +most infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable +public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is +twenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. The coachman ought +to be put to death!" + +"IS he after his time?" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to +address himself. "You know my infirmity." + +"Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!" replied Mr. Boythorn, +referring to his watch. "With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel +has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes. +Deliberately! It is impossible that it can be accidental! But his +father—and his uncle—were the most profligate coachmen that ever +sat upon a box." + +While he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us +into the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles +and pleasure. + +"I am sorry, ladies," he said, standing bare-headed at the +carriage-door when all was ready, "that I am obliged to conduct you +nearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir +Leicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have sworn +never to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending the +present relations between us, while I breathe the breath of life!" +And here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his +tremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little +market-town. + +"Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?" said my guardian as we drove +along and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside. + +"Sir Arrogant Numskull is here," replied Mr. Boythorn. "Ha ha ha! Sir +Arrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels +here. My Lady," in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if +particularly to exclude her from any part in the quarrel, "is +expected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least surprised that she +postpones her appearance as long as possible. Whatever can have +induced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head +of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever +baffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!" + +"I suppose," said my guardian, laughing, "WE may set foot in the park +while we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?" + +"I can lay no prohibition on my guests," he said, bending his head to +Ada and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon +him, "except in the matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I +cannot have the happiness of being their escort about Chesney Wold, +which is a very fine place! But by the light of this summer day, +Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are +likely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an +eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks +in gorgeous cases that never go and never went—Ha ha ha!—but he +will have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of +his friend and neighbour Boythorn!" + +"I shall not put him to the proof," said my guardian. "He is as +indifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the +honour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view +of the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for +me." + +"Well!" said Mr. Boythorn. "I am glad of it on the whole. It's in +better keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying +the lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a +Sunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable congregation expect +to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the +Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no doubt he is surprised +that I don't. For he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the +shallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!" + +Our coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our +friend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his +attention from its master. + +It was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among +the trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire of +the little church of which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods over +which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings +were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth +green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were +so symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how +beautiful they looked! The house, with gable and chimney, and tower, +and turret, and dark doorway, and broad terrace-walk, twining among +the balustrades of which, and lying heaped upon the vases, there was +one great flush of roses, seemed scarcely real in its light solidity +and in the serene and peaceful hush that rested on all around it. To +Ada and to me, that above all appeared the pervading influence. On +everything, house, garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks, +fern, moss, woods again, and far away across the openings in the +prospect to the distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom +upon it, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose. + +When we came into the little village and passed a small inn with the +sign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr. +Boythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a +bench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside +him. + +"That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name," said, +he, "and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady +Dedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep her +about her own fair person—an honour which my young friend himself +does not at all appreciate. However, he can't marry just yet, even if +his Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best of it. In +the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time +to—fish. Ha ha ha ha!" + +"Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?" asked Ada. + +"Why, my dear Miss Clare," he returned, "I think they may perhaps +understand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and I +must learn from you on such a point—not you from me." + +Ada blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey +horse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm +and uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived. + +He lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn +in front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked +orchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable +wall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But, indeed, everything +about the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old +lime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the +cherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the +gooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested +on the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like +profusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled +about among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and +winking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping pods, and +marrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a +vegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of +wholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where +the hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. Such +stillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the +old red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to scare the +birds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that +where, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still +clung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the +changing seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to +the common fate. + +The house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden, +was a real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick-floored +kitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one side of it was +the terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr. Boythorn +maintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose duty was +supposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to ring a large +bell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull-dog +established in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal +destruction on the enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr. +Boythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards to +which his name was attached in large letters, the following solemn +warnings: "Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious. Lawrence +Boythorn." "The blunderbus is loaded with slugs. Lawrence Boythorn." +"Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all times of the day and +night. Lawrence Boythorn." "Take notice. That any person or persons +audaciously presuming to trespass on this property will be punished +with the utmost severity of private chastisement and prosecuted with +the utmost rigour of the law. Lawrence Boythorn." These he showed us +from the drawing-room window, while his bird was hopping about his +head, and he laughed, "Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!" to that extent as +he pointed them out that I really thought he would have hurt himself. + +"But this is taking a good deal of trouble," said Mr. Skimpole in his +light way, "when you are not in earnest after all." + +"Not in earnest!" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth. "Not +in earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a +lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the +first intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on +my rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to come out and decide +this question by single combat, and I will meet him with any weapon +known to mankind in any age or country. I am that much in earnest. +Not more!" + +We arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all +set forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering the +park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a +pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful +trees until it brought us to the church-porch. + +The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the +exception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom +were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. There +were some stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old +coachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all +the pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach. There +was a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome +old face and fine responsible portly figure of the housekeeper +towered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told us +was close by her. She was so very pretty that I might have known her +by her beauty even if I had not seen how blushingly conscious she was +of the eyes of the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off. +One face, and not an agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed +maliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and +everything there. It was a Frenchwoman's. + +As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I +had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a +grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it +was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light +that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in +the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the +sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working +at the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in that direction, a +gathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly +ferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of being resolutely +unconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great +people were come and that the service was going to begin. + +"‘Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy +sight—'" + +Shall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the +look I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in which +those handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and +to hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine down—released +again, if I may say so—on my book; but I knew the beautiful face +quite well in that short space of time. + +And, very strangely, there was something quickened within me, +associated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to +the days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little +glass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen +this lady's face before in all my life—I was quite sure of +it—absolutely certain. + +It was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired +gentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir +Leicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her +face should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in +which I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so +fluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her +eyes, I could not think. + +I felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome it +by attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I seemed to +hear them, not in the reader's voice, but in the well-remembered +voice of my godmother. This made me think, did Lady Dedlock's face +accidentally resemble my godmother's? It might be that it did, a +little; but the expression was so different, and the stern decision +which had worn into my godmother's face, like weather into rocks, was +so completely wanting in the face before me that it could not be that +resemblance which had struck me. Neither did I know the loftiness and +haughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face, at all, in any one. And yet I—I, +little Esther Summerson, the child who lived a life apart and on +whose birthday there was no rejoicing—seemed to arise before my own +eyes, evoked out of the past by some power in this fashionable lady, +whom I not only entertained no fancy that I had ever seen, but whom I +perfectly well knew I had never seen until that hour. + +It made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable agitation +that I was conscious of being distressed even by the observation of +the French maid, though I knew she had been looking watchfully here, +and there, and everywhere, from the moment of her coming into the +church. By degrees, though very slowly, I at last overcame my strange +emotion. After a long time, I looked towards Lady Dedlock again. It +was while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. She took no +heed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it +revive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards +glanced at Ada or at me through her glass. + +The service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much +taste and gallantry to Lady Dedlock—though he was obliged to walk by +the help of a thick stick—and escorted her out of church to the pony +carriage in which they had come. The servants then dispersed, and so +did the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated all along +(Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's infinite delight) as if he were +a considerable landed proprietor in heaven. + +"He believes he is!" said Mr. Boythorn. "He firmly believes it. So +did his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!" + +"Do you know," pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr. +Boythorn, "it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort." + +"IS it!" said Mr. Boythorn. + +"Say that he wants to patronize me," pursued Mr. Skimpole. "Very +well! I don't object." + +"I do," said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour. + +"Do you really?" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. "But +that's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here +am I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I +never take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a +mighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say ‘Mighty potentate, +here IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here +it is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I +shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature +to give me, I shall be happy to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies +in effect, ‘This is a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my +digestion and my bilious system. He doesn't impose upon me the +necessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points +outward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like +Milton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' That's my +view of such things, speaking as a child!" + +"But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow," said Mr. +Boythorn, "where there was the opposite of that fellow—or of this +fellow. How then?" + +"How then?" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost +simplicity and candour. "Just the same then! I should say, ‘My +esteemed Boythorn'—to make you the personification of our imaginary +friend—‘my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate? +Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system +is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's business in the social +system is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short. +Therefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go +to dinner!'" + +"But excellent Boythorn might say," returned our host, swelling and +growing very red, "I'll be—" + +"I understand," said Mr. Skimpole. "Very likely he would." + +"—if I WILL go to dinner!" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and +stopping to strike his stick upon the ground. "And he would probably +add, ‘Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'" + +"To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know," he returned in his +gayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, "‘Upon my life I +have not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by that +name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find +it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. +But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and +I lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, you see, excellent +Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!" + +This was one of many little dialogues between them which I always +expected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other +circumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But +he had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as +our entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr. +Skimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long, +that matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always +seemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then +betook himself to beginning some sketch in the park which he never +finished, or to playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing +scraps of songs, or to lying down on his back under a tree and +looking at the sky—which he couldn't help thinking, he said, was +what he was meant for; it suited him so exactly. + +"Enterprise and effort," he would say to us (on his back), "are +delightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the +deepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and +think of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating +to the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary creatures +ask, ‘What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole? What good +does it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for +the purpose—though he don't know it—of employing my thoughts as I +lie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on +American plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say +they don't altogether like it. I dare say theirs is an unpleasant +experience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they +give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter +objects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I +shouldn't wonder if it were!" + +I always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs. +Skimpole and the children, and in what point of view they presented +themselves to his cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could understand, +they rarely presented themselves at all. + +The week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my +heart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that +to ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the +transparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the +shadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the +air was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. We +had one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where +there were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped +off. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by +thousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a +distant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in +which we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through +which we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon +the Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard +thunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle +through the leaves. + +The weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm +broke so suddenly—upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot—that +before we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning +were frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if +every drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a time for +standing among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the +moss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two +broad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's +lodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty +of this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy +clustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we +had once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were +water. + +The lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only +clearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there +and put two chairs for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were all +thrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the storm. +It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove +the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn +thunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the +tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to +consider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and +leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage +which seemed to make creation new again. + +"Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?" + +"Oh, no, Esther dear!" said Ada quietly. + +Ada said it to me, but I had not spoken. + +The beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice, +as I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange +way. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable +pictures of myself. + +Lady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there +and had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with +her hand upon it. I saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when I +turned my head. + +"I have frightened you?" she said. + +No. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened! + +"I believe," said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, "I have the pleasure +of speaking to Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would, +Lady Dedlock," he returned. + +"I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local +disputes of Sir Leicester's—they are not of his seeking, however, I +believe—should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show +you any attention here." + +"I am aware of the circumstances," returned my guardian with a smile, +"and am sufficiently obliged." + +She had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual +to her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a +very pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful, +perfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of being able +to attract and interest any one if she had thought it worth her +while. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat in the +middle of the porch between us. + +"Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester +about and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his +power to advance in any way?" she said over her shoulder to my +guardian. + +"I hope so," said he. + +She seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. There +was something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more +familiar—I was going to say more easy, but that could hardly be—as +she spoke to him over her shoulder. + +"I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?" + +He presented Ada, in form. + +"You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character," +said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder again, "if you +only redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But present me," and she +turned full upon me, "to this young lady too!" + +"Miss Summerson really is my ward," said Mr. Jarndyce. "I am +responsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case." + +"Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?" said my Lady. + +"Yes." + +"She is very fortunate in her guardian." + +Lady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed. +All at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of +displeasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again. + +"Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. +Jarndyce." + +"A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you +last Sunday," he returned. + +"What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one +to me!" she said with some disdain. "I have achieved that reputation, +I suppose." + +"You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock," said my guardian, "that +you pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me." + +"So much!" she repeated, slightly laughing. "Yes!" + +With her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know +not what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than +children. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at +the rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself +with her own thoughts as if she had been alone. + +"I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than +you know me?" she said, looking at him again. + +"Yes, we happened to meet oftener," he returned. + +"We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in +common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I +suppose, but it could not be helped." + +Lady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to +pass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased, +the thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to +glisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat there, +silently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry +pace. + +"The messenger is coming back, my Lady," said the keeper, "with the +carriage." + +As it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There +alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the +Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl, +the Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused +and hesitating. + +"What now?" said Lady Dedlock. "Two!" + +"I am your maid, my Lady, at the present," said the Frenchwoman. "The +message was for the attendant." + +"I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady," said the pretty girl. + +"I did mean you, child," replied her mistress calmly. "Put that shawl +on me." + +She slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl +lightly dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed, +looking on with her lips very tightly set. + +"I am sorry," said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, "that we are not +likely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send +the carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly." + +But as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful +leave of Ada—none of me—and put her hand upon his proffered arm, +and got into the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage +with a hood. + +"Come in, child," she said to the pretty girl; "I shall want you. Go +on!" + +The carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she +had brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had +alighted. + +I suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride +itself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her +retaliation was the most singular I could have imagined. She remained +perfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and +then, without the least discomposure of countenance, slipped off her +shoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same +direction through the wettest of the wet grass. + +"Is that young woman mad?" said my guardian. + +"Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after +her. "Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece +as the best. But she's mortal high and passionate—powerful high and +passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others +put above her, she don't take kindly to it." + +"But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?" said my +guardian. + +"Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!" said the man. + +"Or unless she fancies it's blood," said the woman. "She'd as soon +walk through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!" + +We passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful +as it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now, +with a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind blowing, +the birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed +by the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like +a fairy carriage made of silver. Still, very steadfastly and quietly +walking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went +Mademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass. + +CHAPTER XIX + +Moving On + +It is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good +ships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed, +iron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing +clippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of +ghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their +papers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. The +courts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep. +Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might +sing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there, +walk. + +The Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even +unto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded +proceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided +stools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of +Term sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation. +Outer doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and +parcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of +grass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside +Lincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to +do beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over +their heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it +thoughtfully. + +There is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to +sit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his +circuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats, +no fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-shaved +gentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the +judicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays +from the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he +comes along and drinks iced ginger-beer! + +The bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How +England can get on through four long summer months without its +bar—which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only +legitimate triumph in prosperity—is beside the question; assuredly +that shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The +learned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the +unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the +opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing +infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned +gentleman who does the withering business and who blights all +opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French +watering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the +smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very +learned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery +complexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in +knotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with +legal "chaff," inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the +initiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity +and dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed fragments of the same +great palladium are to be found on the canals of Venice, at the +second cataract of the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled +on the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be +encountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. If such a lonely +member of the bar do flit across the waste, and come upon a prowling +suitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety, +they frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades. + +It is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young +clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, +pine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, Ramsgate, or +Gravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large. +All the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns of Court and pant about +staircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of +aggravation. All the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their +masters against pumps or trip them over buckets. A shop with a +sun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish +in the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar gets so hot that it is, to +the adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is in an urn, and +keeps them simmering all night. + +There are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be +cool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in +dullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those +retirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that +the people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the +pavement—Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his +cat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has +discontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little Swills +is engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he comes out +in quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile +complexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of +the most fastidious mind. + +Over all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of +rust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long +vacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor +Street, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a +sympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a +law-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn +and in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons, +and he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot +weather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling +and a-bowling right round you. + +Guster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon +in the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in +contemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather +select than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From +Mr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally +and in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers +for a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses +it, "in the ministry." Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular +denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so +very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his +volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; +but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs. +Snagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel, +Chadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she +was something flushed by the hot weather. + +"My little woman," says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn, +"likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!" + +So Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the +handmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of +holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little +drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the +portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth, +the best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision +made of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin +slices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows +of anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be +brought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is +rather a consuming vessel—the persecutors say a gorging vessel—and +can wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably +well. + +Mr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when +they are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his +hand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, "At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs. +Chadband, my love?" + +"At six," says Mrs. Snagsby. + +Mr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that "it's gone that." + +"Perhaps you'd like to begin without them," is Mrs. Snagsby's +reproachful remark. + +Mr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says, +with his cough of mildness, "No, my dear, no. I merely named the +time." + +"What's time," says Mrs. Snagsby, "to eternity?" + +"Very true, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. "Only when a person lays in +victuals for tea, a person does it with a view—perhaps—more to +time. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up +to it." + +"To come up to it!" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. "Up to it! As +if Mr. Chadband was a fighter!" + +"Not at all, my dear," says Mr. Snagsby. + +Here, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes +rustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular +ghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that Mr. +and Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the inner +door in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is +admonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her +patron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much +discomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order) +by this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to +announce "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay, +whatsername!" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence. + +Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general +appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs. +Chadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves +softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk +upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were +inconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a +perspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting +up his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is +going to edify them. + +"My friends," says Mr. Chadband, "peace be on this house! On the +master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on +the young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is +it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and +beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore, +my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours." + +In consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby +thinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received. + +"Now, my friends," proceeds Mr. Chadband, "since I am upon this +theme—" + +Guster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and +without removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful +distinctness, "Go away!" + +"Now, my friends," says Chadband, "since I am upon this theme, and in +my lowly path improving it—" + +Guster is heard unaccountably to murmur "one thousing seven hundred +and eighty-two." The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, "Go away!" + +"Now, my friends," says Mr. Chadband, "we will inquire in a spirit of +love—" + +Still Guster reiterates "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two." + +Mr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be +persecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile, +says, "Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!" + +"One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which +he wish to know what the shilling ware for," says Guster, breathless. + +"For?" returns Mrs. Chadband. "For his fare!" + +Guster replied that "he insistes on one and eightpence or on +summonsizzing the party." Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are +proceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the +tumult by lifting up his hand. + +"My friends," says he, "I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It +is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to +murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!" + +While Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, as +who should say, "You hear this apostle!" and while Mr. Chadband glows +with humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. It is Mr. +Chadband's habit—it is the head and front of his pretensions +indeed—to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the +smallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions. + +"My friends," says Chadband, "eightpence is not much; it might justly +have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. +O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!" + +With which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in +verse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair, +lifts up his admonitory hand. + +"My friends," says he, "what is this which we now behold as being +spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my +friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because +we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of +the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We +cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?" + +Mr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to +observe in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, "No wings." But is +immediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby. + +"I say, my friends," pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and +obliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, "why can we not fly? Is it +because we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends, +without strength? We could not. What should we do without strength, +my friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double +up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground. +Then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive +the strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it," says Chadband, +glancing over the table, "from bread in various forms, from butter +which is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow, +from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from +sausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good +things which are set before us!" + +The persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr. +Chadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after +this fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of their +determination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's +experience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely received and +much admired. + +Mr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at +Mr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion +of nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned +appears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this +exemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be +described as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or +other large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale +scale. On the present evening of the long vacation, in Cook's Court, +Cursitor Street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the +warehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease. + +At this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered +her first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means +of bringing the establishment and herself into contempt—among which +may be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing +military music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards +crowning that gentleman with muffins—at which period of the +entertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted. + +"And being wanted in the—not to put too fine a point upon it—in the +shop," says Mr. Snagsby, rising, "perhaps this good company will +excuse me for half a minute." + +Mr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently +contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm. + +"Why, bless my heart," says Mr. Snagsby, "what's the matter!" + +"This boy," says the constable, "although he's repeatedly told to, +won't move on—" + +"I'm always a-moving on, sar," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy +tears with his arm. "I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever +since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do +move!" + +"He won't move on," says the constable calmly, with a slight +professional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his +stiff stock, "although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and +therefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate a +young gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on." + +"Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!" cries the boy, clutching quite +desperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of +Mr. Snagsby's passage. + +"Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of +you!" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "My +instructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five +hundred times." + +"But where?" cries the boy. + +"Well! Really, constable, you know," says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and +coughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt, +"really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?" + +"My instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "My +instructions are that this boy is to move on." + +Do you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the +great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years +in this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand +recipe remains for you—the profound philosophical prescription—the +be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on! +You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can't at +all agree about that. Move on! + +Mr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed, +but coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any +direction. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby, +hearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. Guster having +never left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled. + +"The simple question is, sir," says the constable, "whether you know +this boy. He says you do." + +Mrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, "No he don't!" + +"My lit-tle woman!" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. "My +love, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do know +something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that +there's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable." To whom the +law-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience, suppressing +the half-crown fact. + +"Well!" says the constable, "so far, it seems, he had grounds for +what he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you +knew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was +acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if +I'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man don't seem +inclined to keep his word, but—Oh! Here IS the young man!" + +Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the +chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs. + +"I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row +going on," says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, "and as your name was +mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into." + +"It was very good-natured of you, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I am +obliged to you." And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, again +suppressing the half-crown fact. + +"Now, I know where you live," says the constable, then, to Jo. "You +live down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live +in, ain't it?" + +"I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir," replies Jo. "They +wouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent +place fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such +a reg'lar one as me!" + +"You are very poor, ain't you?" says the constable. + +"Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral," replies Jo. "I leave +you to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him," says the +constable, producing them to the company, "in only putting my hand +upon him!" + +"They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby," says Jo, "out of a sov-ring as wos +give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to +my crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the +ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground +wot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses ‘are you the boy at the +inkwhich?' she ses. I ses ‘yes' I ses. She ses to me she ses ‘can you +show me all them places?' I ses ‘yes I can' I ses. And she ses to me +‘do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I +an't had much of the sov'ring neither," says Jo, with dirty tears, +"fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd +square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved +another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence +and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it." + +"You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the +sovereign, do you?" says the constable, eyeing him aside with +ineffable disdain. + +"I don't know as I do, sir," replies Jo. "I don't expect nothink at +all, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it." + +"You see what he is!" the constable observes to the audience. "Well, +Mr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for +his moving on?" + +"No!" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs. + +"My little woman!" pleads her husband. "Constable, I have no doubt +he'll move on. You know you really must do it," says Mr. Snagsby. + +"I'm everyways agreeable, sir," says the hapless Jo. + +"Do it, then," observes the constable. "You know what you have got to +do. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. Catch +hold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better +for all parties." + +With this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as +a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good +afternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for +him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat +in his hand for a little ventilation. + +Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has +awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. Guppy, +who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has +been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation, +takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular +cross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by +the ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs +and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of +the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy +yielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into +the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a +witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape +like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him +according to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike many such +model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its +being lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs. +Snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition, +but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law. +During the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband, +being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be +floated off. + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "Either this boy sticks to it like +cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats +anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's." + +Mrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, "You don't say +so!" + +"For years!" replied Mrs. Chadband. + +"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby +triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. "Mrs. Chadband—this gentleman's +wife—Reverend Mr. Chadband." + +"Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy. + +"Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband. + +"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, transferring +his cross-examination. + +"No." + +"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy. + +Mrs. Chadband shakes her head. + +"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in +something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to +model his conversation on forensic principles. + +"Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke +with a hard-favoured smile. + +"Not exactly that, either!" repeats Mr. Guppy. "Very good. Pray, +ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions +(we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and +Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take +time, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?" + +"Neither," says Mrs. Chadband as before. + +"Oh! A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby +the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British +jurymen. "Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us +WHAT child." + +"You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another +hard-favoured smile. "Well, sir, it was before your time, most +likely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child +named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and +Carboy." + +"Miss Summerson, ma'am!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited. + +"I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity. +"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther. +‘Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it." + +"My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small +apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received that +young lady in London when she first came here from the establishment +to which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking +you by the hand." + +Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed +signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his +pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers "Hush!" + +"My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which +was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the +comforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon +the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may +it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it +proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of +anything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of +spiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual +profit? My young friend, stand forth!" + +Jo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch +forward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent +Chadband with evident doubts of his intentions. + +"My young friend," says Chadband, "you are to us a pearl, you are to +us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my +young friend?" + +"I don't know," replies Jo. "I don't know nothink." + +"My young friend," says Chadband, "it is because you know nothing +that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young +friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A +fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A +human boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young +friend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom, +because you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now +deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a +stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. + + O running stream of sparkling joy + To be a soaring human boy! + +And do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No. +Why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a +state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because +you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of +bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of +love, inquire." + +At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have +been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his +face and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses +her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend. + +"My friends," says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding +itself into its fat smile again as he looks round, "it is right that +I should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right +that I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I +stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three +hours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor +has accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be +joyful!" + +Great sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My friends," says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, "I will +not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my +young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to +deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty +swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the +day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?" +(This with a cow-like lightness.) + +Jo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms, +gives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs. +Snagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But +before he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken +meats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms. + +So, Mr. Chadband—of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he +should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable +nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave +off, having once the audacity to begin—retires into private life +until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo +moves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge, +where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast. + +And there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great +cross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a +red-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might +suppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion +of the great, confused city—so golden, so high up, so far out of his +reach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the +crowd flowing by him in two streams—everything moving on to some +purpose and to one end—until he is stirred up and told to "move on" +too. + +CHAPTER XX + +A New Lodger + +The long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river +very leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy +saunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his +penknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into +his desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will, +but he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting +nature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual +energies under too heavy contribution. He finds that nothing agrees +with him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool, +and stab his desk, and gape. + +Kenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken +out a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. Guppy's +two fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard +Carstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is for +the time being established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes. +So exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the +confidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce +in the Old Street Road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good +enough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming, +he would have got it painted. + +Mr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool +in Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course, +sinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants +to depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he +shuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these +profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains +to counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of +chess without any adversary. + +It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find +the new-comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and +Jarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure +can come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third +saunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's office, to +wit, Young Smallweed. + +Whether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick +Weed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is +much doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under fifteen and +an old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a +passion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of Chancery +Lane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another +lady, to whom he had been engaged some years. He is a town-made +article, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived +from a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become +a Guppy is the object of his ambition. He dresses at that gentleman +(by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds +himself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr. Guppy's particular +confidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his +experience, on difficult points in private life. + +Mr. Guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after trying +all the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, and after +several times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of +cooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice dispatched for effervescent +drinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official tumblers and +stirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy propounds for Mr. +Smallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the +thirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a +state of hopeless languor. + +While thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, +surveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, Mr. Guppy becomes +conscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below +and turning itself up in the direction of his face. At the same time, +a low whistle is wafted through the Inn and a suppressed voice cries, +"Hip! Gup-py!" + +"Why, you don't mean it!" says Mr. Guppy, aroused. "Small! Here's +Jobling!" Small's head looks out of window too and nods to Jobling. + +"Where have you sprung up from?" inquires Mr. Guppy. + +"From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any +longer. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. Upon +my soul, I'm hungry." + +Jobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to +seed in the market-gardens down by Deptford. + +"I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. I +want to get some dinner." + +"Will you come and dine with me?" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the +coin, which Mr. Jobling catches neatly. + +"How long should I have to hold out?" says Jobling. + +"Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes," +returns Mr. Guppy, butting inward with his head. + +"What enemy?" + +"A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?" + +"Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?" says Mr. +Jobling. + +Smallweed suggests the law list. But Mr. Jobling declares with much +earnestness that he "can't stand it." + +"You shall have the paper," says Mr. Guppy. "He shall bring it down. +But you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and +read. It's a quiet place." + +Jobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. The sagacious Smallweed +supplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops his eye upon +him from the landing as a precaution against his becoming disgusted +with waiting and making an untimely departure. At last the enemy +retreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling up. + +"Well, and how are you?" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him. + +"So, so. How are you?" + +Mr. Guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, Mr. Jobling +ventures on the question, "How is SHE?" This Mr. Guppy resents as a +liberty, retorting, "Jobling, there ARE chords in the human mind—" +Jobling begs pardon. + +"Any subject but that!" says Mr. Guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of his +injury. "For there ARE chords, Jobling—" + +Mr. Jobling begs pardon again. + +During this short colloquy, the active Smallweed, who is of the +dinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper, +"Return immediately." This notification to all whom it may concern, +he inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the +angle of inclination at which Mr. Guppy wears his, informs his patron +that they may now make themselves scarce. + +Accordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, of +the class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap-bang, +where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to +have made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it +may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are +nothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish +wisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain +there in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he +drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his +collar; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it, +whatever it is. In short, in his bringing up he has been so nursed by +Law and Equity that he has become a kind of fossil imp, to account +for whose terrestrial existence it is reported at the public offices +that his father was John Doe and his mother the only female member of +the Roe family, also that his first long-clothes were made from a +blue bag. + +Into the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the window +of artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant baskets of +peas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the spit, Mr. +Smallweed leads the way. They know him there and defer to him. He has +his favourite box, he bespeaks all the papers, he is down upon bald +patriarchs, who keep them more than ten minutes afterwards. It is of +no use trying him with anything less than a full-sized "bread" or +proposing to him any joint in cut unless it is in the very best cut. +In the matter of gravy he is adamant. + +Conscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience, +Mr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, turning +an appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue +of viands and saying "What do YOU take, Chick?" Chick, out of the +profundity of his artfulness, preferring "veal and ham and French +beans—and don't you forget the stuffing, Polly" (with an unearthly +cock of his venerable eye), Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the like +order. Three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. Quickly the +waitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of +Babel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers. +Mr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys +intelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then, +amid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a +clatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which +brings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more +nice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost +of nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and +steam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated +atmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break +out spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the +legal triumvirate appease their appetites. + +Mr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require. +His hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening +nature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. The same +phenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at +the seams. He has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed +circumstances; even his light whiskers droop with something of a +shabby air. + +His appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some +little time back. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and +ham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway in +theirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. "Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. +Jobling, "I really don't know but what I WILL take another." + +Another being brought, he falls to with great goodwill. + +Mr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half +way through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at +his pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his +legs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of contentment, +Mr. Guppy says, "You are a man again, Tony!" + +"Well, not quite yet," says Mr. Jobling. "Say, just born." + +"Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?" + +"Thank you, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling. "I really don't know but what I +WILL take summer cabbage." + +Order given; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of +"Without slugs, Polly!" And cabbage produced. + +"I am growing up, Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork +with a relishing steadiness. + +"Glad to hear it." + +"In fact, I have just turned into my teens," says Mr. Jobling. + +He says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as +Messrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the +ground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by a +veal and ham and a cabbage. + +"Now, Small," says Mr. Guppy, "what would you recommend about +pastry?" + +"Marrow puddings," says Mr. Smallweed instantly. + +"Aye, aye!" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. "You're there, are +you? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take a marrow +pudding." + +Three marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds in a pleasant +humour that he is coming of age fast. To these succeed, by command of +Mr. Smallweed, "three Cheshires," and to those "three small rums." +This apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. Jobling puts up +his legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to +himself), leans against the wall, and says, "I am grown up now, +Guppy. I have arrived at maturity." + +"What do you think, now," says Mr. Guppy, "about—you don't mind +Smallweed?" + +"Not the least in the world. I have the pleasure of drinking his good +health." + +"Sir, to you!" says Mr. Smallweed. + +"I was saying, what do you think NOW," pursues Mr. Guppy, "of +enlisting?" + +"Why, what I may think after dinner," returns Mr. Jobling, "is one +thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another +thing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What am I +to do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know," says Mr. Jobling, +pronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an +English stable. "Ill fo manger. That's the French saying, and +mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so." + +Mr. Smallweed is decidedly of opinion "much more so." + +"If any man had told me," pursues Jobling, "even so lately as when +you and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over +to see that house at Castle Wold—" + +Mr. Smallweed corrects him—Chesney Wold. + +"Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any +man had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time +as I literally find myself, I should have—well, I should have +pitched into him," says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water +with an air of desperate resignation; "I should have let fly at his +head." + +"Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then," +remonstrates Mr. Guppy. "You were talking about nothing else in the +gig." + +"Guppy," says Mr. Jobling, "I will not deny it. I was on the wrong +side of the post. But I trusted to things coming round." + +That very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their +being beaten round, or worked round, but in their "coming" round! As +though a lunatic should trust in the world's "coming" triangular! + +"I had confident expectations that things would come round and be all +square," says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression and +perhaps of meaning too. "But I was disappointed. They never did. And +when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people +that the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of +borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any +new professional connexion too, for if I was to give a reference +to-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. Then what's a +fellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap +down about the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap +when you have got no money? You might as well live dear." + +"Better," Mr. Smallweed thinks. + +"Certainly. It's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have +been my weaknesses, and I don't care who knows it," says Mr. Jobling. +"They are great weaknesses—Damme, sir, they are great. Well," +proceeds Mr. Jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water, +"what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?" + +Mr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in +his opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive +manner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise than +as he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart. + +"Jobling," says Mr. Guppy, "myself and our mutual friend Smallweed—" + +Mr. Smallweed modestly observes, "Gentlemen both!" and drinks. + +"—Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since +you—" + +"Say, got the sack!" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. "Say it, Guppy. You +mean it." + +"No-o-o! Left the Inn," Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests. + +"Since you left the Inn, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy; "and I have +mentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately thought +of proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?" + +"I know there is such a stationer," returns Mr. Jobling. "He was not +ours, and I am not acquainted with him." + +"He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him," Mr. Guppy +retorts. "Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him +through some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of +his in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer +in argument. They may—or they may not—have some reference to a +subject which may—or may not—have cast its shadow on my existence." + +As it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his +particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it, +to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the +human mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall by +remaining silent. + +"Such things may be," repeats Mr. Guppy, "or they may not be. They +are no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and +Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in +busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all +Tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our +mutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?" + +Mr. Smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn. + +"Now, gentlemen of the jury," says Mr. Guppy, "—I mean, now, +Jobling—you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. +But it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want +time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You +might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for +Snagsby." + +Mr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed checks +him with a dry cough and the words, "Hem! Shakspeare!" + +"There are two branches to this subject, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy. +"That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the +Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling," says Mr. Guppy in his +encouraging cross-examination-tone, "I think you know Krook, the +Chancellor, across the lane?" + +"I know him by sight," says Mr. Jobling. + +"You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?" + +"Everybody knows her," says Mr. Jobling. + +"Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties of +late to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the +amount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of +instructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her +presence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and into +a knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let. +You may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as +quietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He'll ask no questions +and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me—before the clock +strikes, if you chose. And I tell you another thing, Jobling," says +Mr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice and become familiar +again, "he's an extraordinary old chap—always rummaging among a +litter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and +write, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. He is a most +extraordinary old chap, sir. I don't know but what it might be worth +a fellow's while to look him up a bit." + +"You don't mean—" Mr. Jobling begins. + +"I mean," returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming +modesty, "that I can't make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend +Smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can't make +him out." + +Mr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, "A few!" + +"I have seen something of the profession and something of life, +Tony," says Mr. Guppy, "and it's seldom I can't make a man out, more +or less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret +(though I don't believe he is ever sober), I never came across. Now, +he must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him, +and he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a +smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a +money-lender—all of which I have thought likely at different +times—it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. I +don't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when everything else +suits." + +Mr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all lean their elbows on +the table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the ceiling. +After a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their hands in +their pockets, and look at one another. + +"If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy with a +sigh. "But there are chords in the human mind—" + +Expressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and-water, +Mr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony Jobling and +informing him that during the vacation and while things are slack, +his purse, "as far as three or four or even five pound goes," will be +at his disposal. "For never shall it be said," Mr. Guppy adds with +emphasis, "that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!" + +The latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that +Mr. Jobling says with emotion, "Guppy, my trump, your fist!" Mr. +Guppy presents it, saying, "Jobling, my boy, there it is!" Mr. +Jobling returns, "Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!" Mr. +Guppy replies, "Jobling, we have." + +They then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner, +"Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take another glass +for old acquaintance sake." + +"Krook's last lodger died there," observes Mr. Guppy in an incidental +way. + +"Did he though!" says Mr. Jobling. + +"There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don't mind that?" + +"No," says Mr. Jobling, "I don't mind it; but he might as well have +died somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at MY +place!" Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times +returning to it with such remarks as, "There are places enough to die +in, I should think!" or, "He wouldn't have liked my dying at HIS +place, I dare say!" + +However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to +dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, +as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr. +Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and +conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon +returns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and that he +has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises, +sleeping "like one o'clock." + +"Then I'll pay," says Mr. Guppy, "and we'll go and see him. Small, +what will it be?" + +Mr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one +hitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: "Four veals and +hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer +cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six +breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four +half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is +eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in +half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!" + +Not at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed +dismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a +little admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to +read the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to +himself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the Times to run his +eye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night and to +have disappeared under the bedclothes. + +Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where +they find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say, +breathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite +insensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. On the +table beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin-bottle +and a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that +even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut +and glimmer on the visitors, look drunk. + +"Hold up here!" says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old +man another shake. "Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!" + +But it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a +spirituous heat smouldering in it. "Did you ever see such a stupor as +he falls into, between drink and sleep?" says Mr. Guppy. + +"If this is his regular sleep," returns Jobling, rather alarmed, +"it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking." + +"It's always more like a fit than a nap," says Mr. Guppy, shaking him +again. "Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times +over! Open your eyes!" + +After much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his +visitors or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on another, +and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched +lips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before. + +"He is alive, at any rate," says Mr. Guppy. "How are you, my Lord +Chancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter +of business." + +The old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least +consciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They +help him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them. + +"How do you do, Mr. Krook?" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. "How +do you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope you are +pretty well?" + +The old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, or at +nothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against +the wall. So he remains for a minute or two, heaped up against it, +and then staggers down the shop to the front door. The air, the +movement in the court, the lapse of time, or the combination of these +things recovers him. He comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur +cap on his head and looking keenly at them. + +"Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake, +odd times." + +"Rather so, indeed, sir," responds Mr. Guppy. + +"What? You've been a-trying to do it, have you?" says the suspicious +Krook. + +"Only a little," Mr. Guppy explains. + +The old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up, +examines it, and slowly tilts it upside down. + +"I say!" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. "Somebody's been +making free here!" + +"I assure you we found it so," says Mr. Guppy. "Would you allow me to +get it filled for you?" + +"Yes, certainly I would!" cries Krook in high glee. "Certainly I +would! Don't mention it! Get it filled next door—Sol's Arms—the +Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!" + +He so presses the empty bottle upon Mr. Guppy that that gentleman, +with a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and +hurries in again with the bottle filled. The old man receives it in +his arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly. + +"But, I say," he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting +it, "this ain't the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. This is +eighteenpenny!" + +"I thought you might like that better," says Mr. Guppy. + +"You're a nobleman, sir," returns Krook with another taste, and his +hot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. "You're a baron +of the land." + +Taking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his +friend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object +of their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets +beyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time +to survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. "You'd +like to see the room, young man?" he says. "Ah! It's a good room! +Been whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It's +worth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and +such a cat to keep the mice away." + +Commending the room after this manner, the old man takes them +upstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and +also containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug up +from his inexhaustible stores. The terms are easily concluded—for +the Lord Chancellor cannot be hard on Mr. Guppy, associated as he is +with Kenge and Carboy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and other famous claims +on his professional consideration—and it is agreed that Mr. Weevle +shall take possession on the morrow. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy then +repair to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, where the personal +introduction of the former to Mr. Snagsby is effected and (more +important) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are secured. They +then report progress to the eminent Smallweed, waiting at the office +in his tall hat for that purpose, and separate, Mr. Guppy explaining +that he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at +the play but that there are chords in the human mind which would +render it a hollow mockery. + +On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at +Krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself +in his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him +in his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day +Mr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow, +borrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his +landlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and +knocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups, +milkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like +a shipwrecked sailor making the best of it. + +But what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next +after his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only +whiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of +copper-plate impressions from that truly national work The Divinities +of Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies +of title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined +with capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent +portraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion +among the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the +Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress, +plays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of +dog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every +variety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing. + +But fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To +borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read +about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting +across the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable +consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and +distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished +feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant +and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of +joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is +about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the +tapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become +acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle +reverts from this intelligence to the Galaxy portraits implicated, +and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them. + +For the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices +as before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to +carpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of +evening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is not +visited by Mr. Guppy or by a small light in his likeness quenched in +a dark hat, he comes out of his dull room—where he has inherited the +deal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink—and talks to +Krook or is "very free," as they call it in the court, commendingly, +with any one disposed for conversation. Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who +leads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks to Mrs. Perkins: +firstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em +to be identically like that young man's; and secondly, "Mark my +words, Mrs. Perkins, ma'am, and don't you be surprised, Lord bless +you, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook's money!" + +CHAPTER XXI + +The Smallweed Family + +In a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one +of its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin +Smallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as +Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and +its contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street, +always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like +a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree +whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of +youth. + +There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several +generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child, +until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her +intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With +such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory, +understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall +asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother has +undoubtedly brightened the family. + +Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a +helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper, +limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held, +the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of +the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and +other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used +to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in +his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life +he has never bred a single butterfly. + +The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of +Mount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting +species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired +into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's +god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it. +Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all +the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke +something—something necessary to his existence, therefore it +couldn't have been his heart—and made an end of his career. As his +character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a +complete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient +people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an +example of the failure of education. + +His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of +"going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp +scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman +improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and +developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the +discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as +his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and +anxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and +marrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, +twins. During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this +family tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late +to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has +discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, +fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities +whatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born +to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced +have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something +depressing on their minds. + +At the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below +the level of the street—a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only +ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest +of sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no +bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's +mind—seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side +of the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while +away the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the +pots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation +to watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a +sort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when +it is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded +by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain +property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with +which he is always provided in order that he may have something to +throw at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she +makes an allusion to money—a subject on which he is particularly +sensitive. + +"And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's +twin sister. + +"He an't come in yet," says Judy. + +"It's his tea-time, isn't it?" + +"No." + +"How much do you mean to say it wants then?" + +"Ten minutes." + +"Hey?" + +"Ten minutes." (Loud on the part of Judy.) + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes." + +Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at +the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and +screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten +ten-pound notes!" + +Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her. + +"Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man. + +The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles +up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and +causes her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly +unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr. +Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into HIS porter's chair like a +broken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being at these times a +mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not +present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two +operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like +a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some +indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and +the sharer of his life's evening again sit fronting one another in +their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten +on their post by the Black Serjeant, Death. + +Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so +indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded +into one would hardly make a young person of average proportions, +while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness +to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might +walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without +exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing +circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of +brown stuff. + +Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at +any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was +about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and +Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another +species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is +very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen +the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of +anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception. +If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way, +modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled +all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is +Judy. + +And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no +more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows +of the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at +cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But he is so much +the better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an +opening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of +Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining +enchanter. + +Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron +tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she +puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a +small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as +it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is. + +"Charley, do you mean?" says Judy. + +"Hey?" from Grandfather Smallweed. + +"Charley, do you mean?" + +This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as +usual at the trivets, cries, "Over the water! Charley over the water, +Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the +water, over the water to Charley!" and becomes quite energetic about +it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently +recovered his late exertion. + +"Ha!" he says when there is silence. "If that's her name. She eats a +deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep." + +Judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her +mouth into no without saying it. + +"No?" returns the old man. "Why not?" + +"She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says Judy. + +"Sure?" + +Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes +the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts +it into slices, "You, Charley, where are you?" Timidly obedient to +the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with +her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of +them, appears, and curtsys. + +"What work are you about now?" says Judy, making an ancient snap at +her like a very sharp old beldame. + +"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley. + +"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do for +me. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground. +"You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half." + +On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the +butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother, +looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens +the street-door. + +"Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Here you are, hey?" + +"Here I am," says Bart. + +"Been along with your friend again, Bart?" + +Small nods. + +"Dining at his expense, Bart?" + +Small nods again. + +"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take +warning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. The +only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage. + +His grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he +might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight +wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces +then hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs. +Smallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the +trivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a +large black draught. + +"Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of +wisdom. "That's such advice as your father would have given you, +Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true +son." Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly +pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear. + +"He was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread +and butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen years +ago." + +Mrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with +"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen +hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!" Her +worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately +discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her +chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His appearance, after +visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is +particularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because +the exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and +gives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters +violent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the +contrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure +is suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if +he could. All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family +circle that it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely +shaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is +restored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps +with her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again, +ready to be bowled down like a ninepin. + +Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is +sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it +up with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious +partner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth +but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he +might have been worth a deal of money—you brimstone chatterer!—but +just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been +making the foundations for, through many a year—you jade of a +magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!—he took ill and +died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of +business care—I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a +cushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of +yourself!—and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip, +just dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born—you +are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!" + +Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect +in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups +and saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little +charwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the +iron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of +loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence. + +"But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old gentleman, +"and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare +for you both that you went out early in life—Judy to the flower +business, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get +your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will +go back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law." + +One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay +with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been +apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A +close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her +brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone, +some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some +resentful opinion that it is time he went. + +"Now, if everybody has done," says Judy, completing her preparations, +"I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she +took it by herself in the kitchen." + +Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes, +sits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. In +the active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed +appears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the +remotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing +on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful, +evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached +by the oldest practitioners. + +"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries Judy, shaking +her head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance +which has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take your +victuals and get back to your work." + +"Yes, miss," says Charley. + +"Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girls +are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you." + +Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so +disperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to +gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting. +Charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the +general subject of girls but for a knock at the door. + +"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy. + +The object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss +Smallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the +bread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups +into the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers +the eating and drinking terminated. + +"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish Judy. + +It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or +ceremony, Mr. George walks in. + +"Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well! +Perhaps you do right to get used to one." Mr. George makes the latter +remark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed. + +"Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?" + +"Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your granddaughter I +have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss." + +"This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You ha'n't seen +him before. He is in the law and not much at home." + +"My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his +sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, laying a +great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective. + +"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed +inquires, slowly rubbing his legs. + +"Pretty much as usual. Like a football." + +He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with +crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and +powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to +a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits +forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space +for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. +His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty +clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is +set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great +moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his +broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might +guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time. + +A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper +was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a +broadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted +forms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little +narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones, +are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the +middle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands +upon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he +remained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family +and the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all. + +"Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather +Smallweed after looking round the room. + +"Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and—yes—it partly helps the +circulation," he replies. + +"The cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his +chest and seeming to become two sizes larger. "Not much of that, I +should think." + +"Truly I'm old, Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed. "But I can +carry my years. I'm older than HER," nodding at his wife, "and see +what she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden revival of +his late hostility. + +"Unlucky old soul!" says Mr. George, turning his head in that +direction. "Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor +cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up, +ma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr. +Smallweed," says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from assisting +her, "if your wife an't enough." + +"I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?" the old man hints +with a leer. + +The colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, "Why +no. I wasn't." + +"I am astonished at it." + +"So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to +have been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's the +long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody." + +"Surprising!" cries the old man. + +"However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the better +now. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two +months' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid to +order the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months' +interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it +together in my business.)" + +Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the +parlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black +leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the +document he has just received, and from the other takes another +similar document which he hands to Mr. George, who twists it up for a +pipelight. As the old man inspects, through his glasses, every +up-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them +from their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times +over and requires Judy to say every word she utters at least twice, +and is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to +be, this business is a long time in progress. When it is quite +concluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and +fingers from it and answers Mr. George's last remark by saying, +"Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir. +Judy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water +for Mr. George." + +The sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all +this time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern +cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but +leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller +to the parental bear. + +"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?" says Mr. George +with folded arms. + +"Just so, just so," the old man nods. + +"And don't you occupy yourself at all?" + +"I watch the fire—and the boiling and the roasting—" + +"When there is any," says Mr. George with great expression. + +"Just so. When there is any." + +"Don't you read or get read to?" + +The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We have +never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness. +Folly. No, no!" + +"There's not much to choose between your two states," says the +visitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks +from him to the old woman and back again. "I say!" in a louder voice. + +"I hear you." + +"You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear." + +"My dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both +hands to embrace him. "Never! Never, my dear friend! But my friend in +the city that I got to lend you the money—HE might!" + +"Oh! You can't answer for him?" says Mr. George, finishing the +inquiry in his lower key with the words "You lying old rascal!" + +"My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust him. +He will have his bond, my dear friend." + +"Devil doubt him," says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a +tray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the +brandy-and-water, he asks her, "How do you come here! You haven't got +the family face." + +"I goes out to work, sir," returns Charley. + +The trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off, +with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head. +"You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth +as much as it wants fresh air." Then he dismisses her, lights his +pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city—the one +solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination. + +"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?" + +"I think he might—I am afraid he would. I have known him do it," +says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times." + +Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing +over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty +thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty +guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty—" and is then cut +short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular +experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it +crushes her in the usual manner. + +"You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion—a brimstone scorpion! +You're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering clattering broomstick +witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old man, prostrate in his +chair. "My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?" + +Mr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the +other, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by +the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his +chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or +no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him +into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently +enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly +down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub +that the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards. + +"O Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed. "That'll do. Thank you, my dear +friend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!" And Mr. +Smallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear +friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever. + +The alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and +falls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the +philosophical reflection, "The name of your friend in the city begins +with a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond." + +"Did you speak, Mr. George?" inquires the old man. + +The trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow +on his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his +other hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a +martial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr. +Smallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of +smoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly. + +"I take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in his +position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a +round, full action, "that I am the only man alive (or dead either) +that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?" + +"Well," returns the old man, "it's true that I don't see company, Mr. +George, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as you, in +your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition—" + +"Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was a +fancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money." + +"Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, +rubbing his legs. + +"Very. I always was." Puff. "It's a sure sign of my prudence that I +ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I am." Puff. "I +am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, composedly smoking. "I +rose in life that way." + +"Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet." + +Mr. George laughs and drinks. + +"Ha'n't you no relations, now," asks Grandfather Smallweed with a +twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little principal or who +would lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in +the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be +sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations, +Mr. George?" + +Mr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, "If I had, I shouldn't +trouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day. +It MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted +the best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he +never was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. The +best kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my +opinion." + +"But natural affection, Mr. George," hints Grandfather Smallweed. + +"For two good names, hey?" says Mr. George, shaking his head and +still composedly smoking. "No. That's not my sort either." + +Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair +since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice +in it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the +usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him. +For he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating +his late attentions. + +"Ha!" he observes when he is in trim again. "If you could have traced +out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If +when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the +newspapers—when I say ‘our,' I'm alluding to the advertisements of +my friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital +in the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give +me a lift with my little pittance—if at that time you could have +helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you." + +"I was willing enough to be ‘made,' as you call it," says Mr. George, +smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of +Judy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of +the admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by +her grandfather's chair, "but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now." + +"Why, Mr. George? In the name of—of brimstone, why?" says +Grandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation. +(Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. Smallweed +in her slumber.) + +"For two reasons, comrade." + +"And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the—" + +"Of our friend in the city?" suggests Mr. George, composedly +drinking. + +"Aye, if you like. What two reasons?" + +"In the first place," returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy +as if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent +which of the two he addresses, "you gentlemen took me in. You +advertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying +‘Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his +advantage." + +"Well?" returns the old man shrilly and sharply. + +"Well!" says Mr. George, smoking on. "It wouldn't have been much to +his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and +judgment trade of London." + +"How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his +debts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us +immense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no +return. If I sit here thinking of him," snarls the old man, holding +up his impotent ten fingers, "I want to strangle him now." And in a +sudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending Mrs. +Smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair. + +"I don't need to be told," returns the trooper, taking his pipe from +his lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the +progress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, "that +he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand +many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him +when he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him +after he had run through everything and broken down everything +beneath him—when he held a pistol to his head." + +"I wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown +his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!" + +"That would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly; +"any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone +by, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to +a result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one." + +"I hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man. + +"Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must +have gone to the other world to look. He was there." + +"How do you know he was there?" + +"He wasn't here." + +"How do you know he wasn't here?" + +"Don't lose your temper as well as your money," says Mr. George, +calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "He was drowned long +before. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether +intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in +the city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?" he adds +after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the +empty pipe. + +"Tune!" replied the old man. "No. We never have tunes here." + +"That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it, +so it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty +granddaughter—excuse me, miss—will condescend to take care of this +pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good +evening, Mr. Smallweed!" + +"My dear friend!" the old man gives him both his hands. + +"So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall +in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant. + +"My dear friend, I am afraid he will," returns the old man, looking +up at him like a pygmy. + +Mr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting +salutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing +imaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes. + +"You're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous +grimace at the door as he shuts it. "But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll +lime you!" + +After this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting +regions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to +it, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, two +unrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black Serjeant. + +While the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides +through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough +face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He +stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to +Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and +the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye; +disapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful +swordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In the last +scene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and +condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the +Union Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion. + +The theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes +his way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and +Leicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent +foreign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts, +fighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses, +exhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of +sight. Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court +and a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of +bare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of +which, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S +SHOOTING GALLERY, &c. + +Into George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are +gaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for +rifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances, +and all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these +sports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery +to-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man +with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the +floor. + +The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize +apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and +begrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light before a +glaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is +the strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he +has been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed +together, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance +that one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of +business, at some odd time or times. + +"Phil!" says the trooper in a quiet voice. + +"All right!" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet. + +"Anything been doing?" + +"Flat as ever so much swipes," says Phil. "Five dozen rifle and a +dozen pistol. As to aim!" Phil gives a howl at the recollection. + +"Shut up shop, Phil!" + +As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is +lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his +face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black +one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather +sinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands +that could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all +the fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over. +He appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he +had no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round +the gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at +objects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them, +which has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally +called "Phil's mark." + +This custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes his +proceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all +the lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from +a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These being +drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed +and Phil makes his. + +"Phil!" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and +waistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. "You +were found in a doorway, weren't you?" + +"Gutter," says Phil. "Watchman tumbled over me." + +"Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning." + +"As nat'ral as possible," says Phil. + +"Good night!" + +"Good night, guv'ner." + +Phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to +shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his +mattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the +rifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the +skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to +bed too. + +CHAPTER XXII + +Mr. Bucket + +Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the +evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and +the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable +characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January +with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long +vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like +peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for +calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool +to-night. + +Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more +has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick +everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way +takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as +much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law—or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one +of its trustiest representatives—may scatter, on occasion, in the +eyes of the laity. + +In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which +his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth, +animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of +the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained +man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He +has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, +which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as +he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken +brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the +echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote +reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an +earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant +nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to +find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of +southern grapes. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys +his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and +seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever, +he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at +that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with +darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in +town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his +family history, and his money, and his will—all a mystery to every +one—and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and +a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was +seventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is +supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold +watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely +home to the Temple and hanged himself. + +But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual +length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and +uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining +man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him +fill his glass. + +"Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story +again." + +"If you please, sir." + +"You told me when you were so good as to step round here last +night—" + +"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but +I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person, +and I thought it possible that you might—just—wish—to—" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to +admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr. +Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask +you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure." + +"Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that you +put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to +your wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a matter of +such importance that it requires to be mentioned." + +"Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see, my little woman is—not +to put too fine a point upon it—inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor +little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have +her mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it—I should +say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it +concerns her or not—especially not. My little woman has a very +active mind, sir." + +Mr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his +hand, "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!" + +"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?" says Mr. +Tulkinghorn. "And to-night too?" + +"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in—not +to put too fine a point on it—in a pious state, or in what she +considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name +they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a +great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not +quite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there. +My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to +step round in a quiet manner." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby." + +"Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer with his cough of +deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!" + +"It is a rare wine now," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years +old." + +"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It +might be—any age almost." After rendering this general tribute to +the port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his +hand for drinking anything so precious. + +"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr. +Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty +smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair. + +"With pleasure, sir." + +Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer +repeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On +coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks +off with, "Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman +present!" + +Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face +between himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a +person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he +himself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of +the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not +creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third +person stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in +his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener. +He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of +about the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he +were going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about +him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing. + +"Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way. +"This is only Mr. Bucket." + +"Oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that +he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be. + +"I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I have +half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very +intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?" + +"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and +he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to +go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him +here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr. +Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way." + +"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in +explanation. + +"Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his +clump of hair to stand on end. + +"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the +place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to you +if you will do so." + +In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down +to the bottom of his mind. + +"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do +that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only +bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and +he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good +job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent +away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to +do that." + +"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And +reassured, "Since that's the case—" + +"Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him aside +by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a +confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of +business, and a man of sense. That's what YOU are." + +"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns +the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but—" + +"That's what YOU are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't necessary +to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a +business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his +senses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in +your business once)—it an't necessary to say to a man like you that +it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet. +Don't you see? Quiet!" + +"Certainly, certainly," returns the other. + +"I don't mind telling YOU," says Bucket with an engaging appearance +of frankness, "that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be +a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little +property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games +respecting that property, don't you see?" + +"Oh!" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly. + +"Now, what YOU want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on +the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is that every +person should have their rights according to justice. That's what YOU +want." + +"To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod. + +"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a—do you call +it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used +to call it." + +"Why, I generally say customer myself," replies Mr. Snagsby. + +"You're right!" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite +affectionately. "—On account of which, and at the same time to +oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in +confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever +afterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your +intentions, if I understand you?" + +"You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr. Snagsby. + +"Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate +with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am." + +They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his +unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the +streets. + +"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of +Gridley, do you?" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend +the stairs. + +"No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering, "I don't know anybody of that +name. Why?" + +"Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only having allowed his temper to +get a little the better of him and having been threatening some +respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have +got against him—which it's a pity that a man of sense should do." + +As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however +quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some +undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is +going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed +purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply, +at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a +police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the +constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come +towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and +to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind +some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair +twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without +glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man, +looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket +notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great +mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not +much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. + +When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a +moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the +constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own +particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr. +Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, +unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water—though the roads +are dry elsewhere—and reeking with such smells and sights that he, +who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses. +Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets +and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and +feels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal +gulf. + +"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby +palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's +the fever coming up the street!" + +As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of +attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible +faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and +with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth +flits about them until they leave the place. + +"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he +turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins. + +Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for +months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have +been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket +observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little +poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe +the dreadful air. + +There is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few +people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is +much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the +Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or +the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are +conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some +think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is +produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and +his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its +squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever +they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits +about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as +before. + +At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject, +lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may +be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress +of the house—a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring +out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her +private apartment—leads to the establishment of this conclusion. +Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick +woman but will be here anon. + +"And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another +door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, eh? And +two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm +from his face to look at him. "Are these your good men, my dears?" + +"Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands." + +"Brickmakers, eh?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London." + +"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire." + +"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?" + +"Saint Albans." + +"Come up on the tramp?" + +"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but +we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect." + +"That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his +head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground. + +"It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows +it full well." + +The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low +that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the +blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every +sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted +air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of +table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit +by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a +very young child. + +"Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It +looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about it; +and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is +strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he +has seen in pictures. + +"He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman. + +"Is he your child?" + +"Mine." + +The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops +down again and kisses it as it lies asleep. + +"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says Mr. +Bucket. + +"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died." + +"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much +better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!" + +"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket +sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?" + +"God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd stand +between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any +pretty lady." + +"Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified +again. "Why do you do it?" + +"It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes +filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it +was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I +know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers—warn't I, +Jenny?—and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this +place. Look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground. "Look +at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn. +Think of the children that your business lays with often and often, +and that YOU see grow up!" + +"Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll +be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know." + +"I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have been +a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of +all the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be +against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his +home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and +ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned +bad ‘spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should +sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I +should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as +Jenny's child died!" + +"There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take +him." + +In doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts +it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying. + +"It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses, +"that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that +makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken +away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would +I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we +knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!" + +As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a +step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway +and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE +do?" + +"That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby. + +Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a +magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the +law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving +him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be paid for, +Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a +little private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though +out of breath. + +"I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and +it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you." + +First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over +the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic +verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly, Mr. +Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for +an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo +by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him, +without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other +Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields. +These arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come +out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's. + +By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they +gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and +skulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration +of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse +of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more. +Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to +Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr. +Tulkinghorn's gate. + +As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on +the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the +outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man +so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the +door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of +preparation. + +Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, +and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room—the room where he drank his +old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned +candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light. + +Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to +Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little +way into this room, when Jo starts and stops. + +"What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper. + +"There she is!" cries Jo. + +"Who!" + +"The lady!" + +A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, +where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The +front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their +entrance and remains like a statue. + +"Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the +lady." + +"I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the +gownd." + +"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly +observant of him. "Look again." + +"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting +eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd." + +"What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket. + +"A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left +hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the +figure. + +The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand. + +"Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket. + +Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like +that." + +"What are you talking of?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and +well pleased too. + +"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller," +returns Jo. + +"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do +you recollect the lady's voice?" + +"I think I does," says Jo. + +The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as +you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this +voice?" + +Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!" + +"Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you +say it was the lady for?" + +"Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken +in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the +gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her +rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and +the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's +her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it." + +"Well!" says Mr. Bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of +YOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you +spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket stealthily +tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters—which is +a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of +skill—and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and +takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means +comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the +veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the +veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is +revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest. + +"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his +usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this +little wager." + +"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at +present placed?" says mademoiselle. + +"Certainly, certainly!" + +"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished +recommendation?" + +"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense." + +"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful." + +"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle." + +"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir." + +"Good night." + +Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr. +Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the +ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not +without gallantry. + +"Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return. + +"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a +doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was +exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you +as a man that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't +done!" + +"You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I can +be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman +will be getting anxious—" + +"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am +quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already." + +"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night." + +"You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door +and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like in you +is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU are. +When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's +done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what YOU do." + +"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby. + +"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to +do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the +tenderest manner, "it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in a man +in your way of business." + +Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused +by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake +and out—doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he +goes—doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He +is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable +reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect +beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to +the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being +made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through +every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as the little +woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it! + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Esther's Narrative + +We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were +often in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge where +we had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's +wife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on +Sundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although several +beautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence +on me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether it was +painful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me +shrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear, and I +know that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they +had done at first, to that old time of my life. + +I had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this lady +so curiously was to me, I was to her—I mean that I disturbed her +thoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But +when I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant and +unapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt +the whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and +unreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as much as I +could. + +One incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, I +had better mention in this place. + +I was walking in the garden with Ada when I was told that some one +wished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this person was +waiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes +and walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered and +lightened. + +"Mademoiselle," she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager +eyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and +speaking neither with boldness nor servility, "I have taken a great +liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so +amiable, mademoiselle." + +"No excuse is necessary," I returned, "if you wish to speak to me." + +"That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the +permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?" she said in a +quick, natural way. + +"Certainly," said I. + +"Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have +left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high. +Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!" Her quickness anticipated what +I might have said presently but as yet had only thought. "It is not +for me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high, +so very high. I will not say a word more. All the world knows that." + +"Go on, if you please," said I. + +"Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness. +Mademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a +young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good, +accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honour +of being your domestic!" + +"I am sorry—" I began. + +"Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!" she said with an +involuntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. "Let me hope a +moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than +that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this service +would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well! I +wish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. Good. I +am content." + +"I assure you," said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having +such an attendant, "that I keep no maid—" + +"Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so +devoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so +true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I wish +with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present. +Take me as I am. For nothing!" + +She was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her. +Without appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still pressed +herself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always +with a certain grace and propriety. + +"Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and +where we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me; I +was too high for her. It is done—past—finished! Receive me as your +domestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for you than you +figure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will—no matter, I will +do my utmost possible in all things. If you accept my service, you +will not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and I will +serve you well. You don't know how well!" + +There was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me +while I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without +thinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so), +which seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets +of Paris in the reign of terror. + +She heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty +accent and in her mildest voice, "Hey, mademoiselle, I have received +my answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and seek what I +have not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss your hand?" + +She looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take +note, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. "I fear I +surprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?" she said with +a parting curtsy. + +I confessed that she had surprised us all. + +"I took an oath, mademoiselle," she said, smiling, "and I wanted to +stamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will! +Adieu, mademoiselle!" + +So ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I +supposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; and +nothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until +six weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now by +saying. + +At that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard was +constant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and +remaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on +horseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back +again early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was +very industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It +appeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not +find that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in +connexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much +sorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told +us, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he +and Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds must +be finally established if there were any sense or justice in the +Court of Chancery—but oh, what a great IF that sounded in my +ears—and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer +delayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that +side he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the +infatuation. He had even begun to haunt the court. He told us how he +saw Miss Flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did +her little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied +her from his heart. But he never thought—never, my poor, dear, +sanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such +better things before him—what a fatal link was riveting between his +fresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged +birds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind. + +Ada loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or +did, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east +wind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict +silence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London to +meet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to be in +waiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk +together. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in +arm. + +"Well, Richard," said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with +him, "are you beginning to feel more settled now?" + +"Oh, yes, my dear!" returned Richard. "I'm all right enough." + +"But settled?" said I. + +"How do you mean, settled?" returned Richard with his gay laugh. + +"Settled in the law," said I. + +"Oh, aye," replied Richard, "I'm all right enough." + +"You said that before, my dear Richard." + +"And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not. +Settled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?" + +"Yes." + +"Why, no, I can't say I am settling down," said Richard, strongly +emphasizing "down," as if that expressed the difficulty, "because one +can't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled +state. When I say this business, of course I mean the—forbidden +subject." + +"Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?" said I. + +"Not the least doubt of it," answered Richard. + +We walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard +addressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: "My dear +Esther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more constant +sort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her +dearly—better and better every day—but constant to myself. +(Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but you'll +make it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have +held on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like grim death, and +should have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and +shouldn't be in debt, and—" + +"ARE you in debt, Richard?" + +"Yes," said Richard, "I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have taken +rather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the murder's +out; you despise me, Esther, don't you?" + +"You know I don't," said I. + +"You are kinder to me than I often am to myself," he returned. "My +dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but +how CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you +couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything +you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to +anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this +unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began +to unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at +law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever +since; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a +worthless fellow to love my confiding cousin Ada." + +We were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and +sobbed as he said the words. + +"Oh, Richard!" said I. "Do not be so moved. You have a noble nature, +and Ada's love may make you worthier every day." + +"I know, my dear," he replied, pressing my arm, "I know all that. You +mustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all this upon +my mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, and +have sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. I know what +the thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. I am too +unsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly, and yet I do her +wrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. But it can't last +for ever. We shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in +our favour, and then you and Ada shall see what I can really be!" + +It had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out +between his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me +than the hopeful animation with which he said these words. + +"I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in them +for months," he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment, +"and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to +years of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! And +there is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a +speedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It will be all right at +last, and then you shall see!" + +Recalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in the +same category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to be +articled in Lincoln's Inn. + +"There again! I think not at all, Esther," he returned with an +effort. "I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce +and Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law +and satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it. Besides, I find it +unsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of +action. So what," continued Richard, confident again by this time, +"do I naturally turn my thoughts to?" + +"I can't imagine," said I. + +"Don't look so serious," returned Richard, "because it's the best +thing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted +a profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination, +and then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is +in its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my +temporary condition—I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I +naturally turn my thoughts to?" + +I looked at him and shook my head. + +"What," said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, "but the +army!" + +"The army?" said I. + +"The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission; +and—there I am, you know!" said Richard. + +And then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his +pocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred +pounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted +no debt at all within a corresponding period in the army—as to which +he had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of +four hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years, +which was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so ingenuously and +sincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time +from Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired—as in thought +he always did, I know full well—to repay her love, and to ensure her +happiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire +the very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely. +For, I thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon +and so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal +blight that ruined everything it rested on! + +I spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the hope +I could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake not to +put any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily assented, +riding over the court and everything else in his easy way and drawing +the brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into—alas, +when the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him! We had a long +talk, but it always came back to that, in substance. + +At last we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed to +wait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Newman Street. +Caddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as soon as I +appeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us together. + +"Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther," said Caddy, "and got the +key for us. So if you will walk round and round here with me, we can +lock ourselves in and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted to see +your dear good face about." + +"Very well, my dear," said I. "Nothing could be better." So Caddy, +after affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she called it, +locked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the +garden very cosily. + +"You see, Esther," said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little +confidence, "after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry +without Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark +respecting our engagement—though I don't believe Ma cares much for +me, I must say—I thought it right to mention your opinions to +Prince. In the first place because I want to profit by everything you +tell me, and in the second place because I have no secrets from +Prince." + +"I hope he approved, Caddy?" + +"Oh, my dear! I assure you he would approve of anything you could +say. You have no idea what an opinion he has of you!" + +"Indeed!" + +"Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous," said Caddy, +laughing and shaking her head; "but it only makes me joyful, for you +are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have, +and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me." + +"Upon my word, Caddy," said I, "you are in the general conspiracy to +keep me in a good humour. Well, my dear?" + +"Well! I am going to tell you," replied Caddy, crossing her hands +confidentially upon my arm. "So we talked a good deal about it, and +so I said to Prince, ‘Prince, as Miss Summerson—'" + +"I hope you didn't say ‘Miss Summerson'?" + +"No. I didn't!" cried Caddy, greatly pleased and with the brightest +of faces. "I said, ‘Esther.' I said to Prince, ‘As Esther is +decidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it to me, and +always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so +fond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to disclose the truth +to Ma whenever you think proper. And I think, Prince,' said I, ‘that +Esther thinks that I should be in a better, and truer, and more +honourable position altogether if you did the same to your papa.'" + +"Yes, my dear," said I. "Esther certainly does think so." + +"So I was right, you see!" exclaimed Caddy. "Well! This troubled +Prince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, but +because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop; +and he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop might break his +heart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in some affecting +manner or other if he made such an announcement. He feared old Mr. +Turveydrop might consider it undutiful and might receive too great a +shock. For old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is very beautiful, you +know, Esther," said Caddy, "and his feelings are extremely +sensitive." + +"Are they, my dear?" + +"Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my +darling child—I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther," +Caddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, "but I generally +call Prince my darling child." + +I laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on. + +"This has caused him, Esther—" + +"Caused whom, my dear?" + +"Oh, you tiresome thing!" said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty face +on fire. "My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has caused +him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day, in a +very anxious manner. At last he said to me, ‘Caddy, if Miss +Summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be +prevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I +could do it.' So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my mind, +besides," said Caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly, "that if +you consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me to Ma. This +is what I meant when I said in my note that I had a great favour and +a great assistance to beg of you. And if you thought you could grant +it, Esther, we should both be very grateful." + +"Let me see, Caddy," said I, pretending to consider. "Really, I think +I could do a greater thing than that if the need were pressing. I am +at your service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like." + +Caddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, I believe, +as susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as any tender +heart that ever beat in this world; and after another turn or two +round the garden, during which she put on an entirely new pair of +gloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that she might do +no avoidable discredit to the Master of Deportment, we went to Newman +Street direct. + +Prince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged with a not very +hopeful pupil—a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a deep +voice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama—whose case was certainly +not rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we threw her +preceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after proceeding as +discordantly as possible; and when the little girl had changed her +shoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in shawls, she was +taken away. After a few words of preparation, we then went in search +of Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with his hat and gloves, as +a model of deportment, on the sofa in his private apartment—the only +comfortable room in the house. He appeared to have dressed at his +leisure in the intervals of a light collation, and his dressing-case, +brushes, and so forth, all of quite an elegant kind, lay about. + +"Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby." + +"Charmed! Enchanted!" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his +high-shouldered bow. "Permit me!" Handing chairs. "Be seated!" +Kissing the tips of his left fingers. "Overjoyed!" Shutting his eyes +and rolling. "My little retreat is made a paradise." Recomposing +himself on the sofa like the second gentleman in Europe. + +"Again you find us, Miss Summerson," said he, "using our little arts +to polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the +condescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these times (and +we have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of +his Royal Highness the Prince Regent—my patron, if I may presume to +say so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under +foot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my +dear madam." + +I said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply; and he took a pinch +of snuff. + +"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "you have four schools this +afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich." + +"Thank you, father," returned Prince, "I will be sure to be punctual. +My dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for what I am +going to say?" + +"Good heaven!" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as Prince and +Caddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. "What is this? Is this +lunacy! Or what is this?" + +"Father," returned Prince with great submission, "I love this young +lady, and we are engaged." + +"Engaged!" cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting +out the sight with his hand. "An arrow launched at my brain by my own +child!" + +"We have been engaged for some time, father," faltered Prince, "and +Miss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the +fact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present +occasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, +father." + +Mr. Turveydrop uttered a groan. + +"No, pray don't! Pray don't, father," urged his son. "Miss Jellyby is +a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to +consider your comfort." + +Mr. Turveydrop sobbed. + +"No, pray don't, father!" cried his son. + +"Boy," said Mr. Turveydrop, "it is well that your sainted mother is +spared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir, +strike home!" + +"Pray don't say so, father," implored Prince, in tears. "It goes to +my heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention +is to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not forget our +duty—what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often said +together—and with your approval and consent, father, we will devote +ourselves to making your life agreeable." + +"Strike home," murmured Mr. Turveydrop. "Strike home!" But he seemed +to listen, I thought, too. + +"My dear father," returned Prince, "we well know what little comforts +you are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will always be our +study and our pride to provide those before anything. If you will +bless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think +of being married until it is quite agreeable to you; and when we ARE +married, we shall always make you—of course—our first +consideration. You must ever be the head and master here, father; and +we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if we failed to know it +or if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please +you." + +Mr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came upright +on the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff cravat, a +perfect model of parental deportment. + +"My son!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "My children! I cannot resist your +prayer. Be happy!" + +His benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched +out his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect and +gratitude) was the most confusing sight I ever saw. + +"My children," said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy with +his left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand +gracefully on his hip. "My son and daughter, your happiness shall be +my care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with +me"—meaning, of course, I will always live with you—"this house is +henceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May you long +live to share it with me!" + +The power of his deportment was such that they really were as much +overcome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon +them for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent +sacrifice in their favour. + +"For myself, my children," said Mr. Turveydrop, "I am falling into +the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the +last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this +weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society +and will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are few and +simple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet, +my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. I charge +your dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and I +charge myself with all the rest." + +They were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity. + +"My son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "for those little points in which you +are deficient—points of deportment, which are born with a man, which +may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated—you may +still rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since the days of +his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not desert it now. +No, my son. If you have ever contemplated your father's poor position +with a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing +to tarnish it. For yourself, Prince, whose character is different (we +cannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be +industrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as +possible." + +"That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart," +replied Prince. + +"I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Turveydrop. "Your qualities are not +shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both +of you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of a +sainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I +believe, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take care +of my simple wants, and bless you both!" + +Old Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the +occasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at once +if we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure after a +very loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed, and during our +walk she was so happy and so full of old Mr. Turveydrop's praises +that I would not have said a word in his disparagement for any +consideration. + +The house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows announcing that it +was to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than +ever. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of +bankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the +dining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags, +account-books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to +understand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his +comprehension, for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake +and we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly fenced into +a corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, he seemed +to have given up the whole thing and to be speechless and insensible. + +Going upstairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all +screaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we +found that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, opening, +reading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of torn +covers on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she did not +know me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, bright-eyed, +far-off look of hers. + +"Ah! Miss Summerson!" she said at last. "I was thinking of something +so different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see you. Mr. +Jarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?" + +I hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well. + +"Why, not quite, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby in the calmest manner. +"He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of +spirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time to +think about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and +seventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each, +either gone or going to the left bank of the Niger." + +I thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor +going to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be so +placid. + +"You have brought Caddy back, I see," observed Mrs. Jellyby with a +glance at her daughter. "It has become quite a novelty to see her +here. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact obliges +me to employ a boy." + +"I am sure, Ma—" began Caddy. + +"Now you know, Caddy," her mother mildly interposed, "that I DO +employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your +contradicting?" + +"I was not going to contradict, Ma," returned Caddy. "I was only +going to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my +life." + +"I believe, my dear," said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters, +casting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as she +spoke, "that you have a business example before you in your mother. +Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the destinies of +the human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. But you +have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have no such sympathy." + +"Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not." + +"Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much engaged, +Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her eyes for a +moment on me and considering where to put the particular letter she +had just opened, "this would distress and disappoint me. But I have +so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha and it is so +necessary I should concentrate myself that there is my remedy, you +see." + +As Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was +looking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I +thought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit and +to attract Mrs. Jellyby's attention. + +"Perhaps," I began, "you will wonder what has brought me here to +interrupt you." + +"I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, +pursuing her employment with a placid smile. "Though I wish," and she +shook her head, "she was more interested in the Borrioboolan +project." + +"I have come with Caddy," said I, "because Caddy justly thinks she +ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall +encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how) in +imparting one." + +"Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation +and then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, "you are going +to tell me some nonsense." + +Caddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and +letting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily, +said, "Ma, I am engaged." + +"Oh, you ridiculous child!" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an abstracted +air as she looked over the dispatch last opened; "what a goose you +are!" + +"I am engaged, Ma," sobbed Caddy, "to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the +academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man +indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us +yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, never +could!" sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general complainings and +of everything but her natural affection. + +"You see again, Miss Summerson," observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely, +"what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have +this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy +engaged to a dancing-master's son—mixed up with people who have no +more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has +herself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first philanthropists +of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be +interested in her!" + +"Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!" sobbed Caddy. + +"Caddy, Caddy!" returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with +the greatest complacency. "I have no doubt you did. How could you do +otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he +overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me, +if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these +petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I +permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom +I expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the great African +continent? No. No," repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm clear voice, and +with an agreeable smile, as she opened more letters and sorted them. +"No, indeed." + +I was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception, +though I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say. +Caddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and +sort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of +voice and with a smile of perfect composure, "No, indeed." + +"I hope, Ma," sobbed poor Caddy at last, "you are not angry?" + +"Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl," returned Mrs. Jellyby, +"to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation of +my mind." + +"And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?" said +Caddy. + +"You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind," +said Mrs. Jellyby; "and a degenerate child, when you might have +devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is taken, +and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray, +Caddy," said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her, "don't delay me +in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before +the afternoon post comes in!" + +I thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained +for a moment by Caddy's saying, "You won't object to my bringing him +to see you, Ma?" + +"Oh, dear me, Caddy," cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into that +distant contemplation, "have you begun again? Bring whom?" + +"Him, Ma." + +"Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little +matters. "Then you must bring him some evening which is not a Parent +Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. You must +accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My dear Miss +Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this +silly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new +letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details +of the native and coffee-cultivation question this morning, I need +not apologize for having very little leisure." + +I was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went +downstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying she +would far rather have been scolded than treated with such +indifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in +clothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't +know. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things she +would do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had a home +of her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp dark +kitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were +grovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play +with them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I +was obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I heard +loud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a violent +tumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am afraid was +caused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the dining-table and +making rushes at the window with the intention of throwing himself +into the area whenever he made any new attempt to understand his +affairs. + +As I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a +good deal of Caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in +spite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier and +better for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance of her +and her husband ever finding out what the model of deportment really +was, why that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be +wiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser and indeed was half +ashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. And I looked up at +the stars, and thought about travellers in distant countries and the +stars THEY saw, and hoped I might always be so blest and happy as to +be useful to some one in my small way. + +They were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were, +that I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a +method of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from +the lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome, +and spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that I +suppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the +world. + +We got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my +guardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went on +prose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to my +own room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and then I +heard a soft tap at my door. So I said, "Come in!" and there came in +a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a +curtsy. + +"If you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "I am +Charley." + +"Why, so you are," said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving +her a kiss. "How glad am I to see you, Charley!" + +"If you please, miss," pursued Charley in the same soft voice, "I'm +your maid." + +"Charley?" + +"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's +love." + +I sat down with my hand on Charley's neck and looked at Charley. + +"And oh, miss," says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears +starting down her dimpled cheeks, "Tom's at school, if you please, +and learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss, +a-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at school—and +Emma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder—and me, I should +have been here—all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought +that Tom and Emma and me had better get a little used to parting +first, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please, miss!" + +"I can't help it, Charley." + +"No, miss, nor I can't help it," says Charley. "And if you please, +miss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now +and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see each other +once a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss," cried Charley +with a heaving heart, "and I'll try to be such a good maid!" + +"Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!" + +"No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all you, +miss." + +"I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley." + +"Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you +might be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present with +his love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to +be sure to remember it." + +Charley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her +matronly little way about and about the room and folding up +everything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came +creeping back to my side and said, "Oh, don't cry, if you please, +miss." + +And I said again, "I can't help it, Charley." + +And Charley said again, "No, miss, nor I can't help it." And so, +after all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she. + +CHAPTER XXIV + +An Appeal Case + +As soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have +given an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr. +Jarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise +when he received the representation, though it caused him much +uneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted +together, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole +days in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and +laboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were +thus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable +inconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so +constantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right +place, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but +maintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost +endeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances +that everything was going on capitally and that it really was all +right at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him. + +We learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was +made to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a +ward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of +talking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as +a vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned +and readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about +until Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered +the army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty +years of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord +Chancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor +very seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing +his mind—"a pretty good joke, I think," said Richard, "from that +quarter!"—and at last it was settled that his application should be +granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for +an ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an +agent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a +violent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every +morning to practise the broadsword exercise. + +Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We +sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or out +of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken +to; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a +professor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently +than before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so +time passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received +directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland. + +He arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a +long conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before +my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting +and said, "Come in, my dears!" We went in and found Richard, whom we +had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking +mortified and angry. + +"Rick and I, Ada," said Mr. Jarndyce, "are not quite of one mind. +Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!" + +"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "The harder because +you have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have +done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have +been set right without you, sir." + +"Well, well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "I want to set you more right yet. I +want to set you more right with yourself." + +"I hope you will excuse my saying, sir," returned Richard in a fiery +way, but yet respectfully, "that I think I am the best judge about +myself." + +"I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick," observed Mr. +Jarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, "that it's +quite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my +duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope +you will always care for me, cool and hot." + +Ada had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading-chair +and sat beside her. + +"It's nothing, my dear," he said, "it's nothing. Rick and I have only +had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are +the theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming." + +"I am not indeed, cousin John," replied Ada with a smile, "if it is +to come from you." + +"Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention, +without looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear +girl," putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the +easy-chair, "you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little +woman told me of a little love affair?" + +"It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your +kindness that day, cousin John." + +"I can never forget it," said Richard. + +"And I can never forget it," said Ada. + +"So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for us +to agree," returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the +gentleness and honour of his heart. "Ada, my bird, you should know +that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All that +he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He +has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he +has planted." + +"Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am +quite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir," said +Richard, "is not all I have." + +"Rick, Rick!" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner, +and in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have +stopped his ears. "For the love of God, don't found a hope or +expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the +grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom +that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg, +better to die!" + +We were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit his +lip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and knew +that I felt too, how much he needed it. + +"Ada, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness, +"these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and have +seen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start him in +the race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his +sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the +understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must +go further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely +in me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to +relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship." + +"Better to say at once, sir," returned Richard, "that you renounce +all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same." + +"Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it." + +"You think I have begun ill, sir," retorted Richard. "I HAVE, I +know." + +"How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke +of these things last," said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and encouraging +manner. "You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time +for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now +fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young, +my dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may +come must come of being worked out, Rick, and no sooner." + +"You are very hard with me, sir," said Richard. "Harder than I could +have supposed you would be." + +"My dear boy," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am harder with myself when I do +anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands. +Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that there +should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for +her, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what +is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves." + +"Why is it best, sir?" returned Richard hastily. "It was not when we +opened our hearts to you. You did not say so then." + +"I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have had +experience since." + +"You mean of me, sir." + +"Well! Yes, of both of you," said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. "The time is +not come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right, +and I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin +afresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to +write your lives in." + +Richard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing. + +"I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther," said +Mr. Jarndyce, "until now, in order that we might be open as the day, +and all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most +earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. Leave all else +to time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do +wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you +together." + +A long silence succeeded. + +"Cousin Richard," said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to +his face, "after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice is +left us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave +me here under his care and will be sure that I can have nothing to +wish for—quite sure if I guide myself by his advice. I—I don't +doubt, cousin Richard," said Ada, a little confused, "that you are +very fond of me, and I—I don't think you will fall in love with +anybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it too, as +I should like you to be in all things very happy. You may trust in +me, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I am not +unreasonable, and should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry +to part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, Richard, though I know +it's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately, +and often talk of you with Esther, and—and perhaps you will +sometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. So now," said Ada, +going up to him and giving him her trembling hand, "we are only +cousins again, Richard—for the time perhaps—and I pray for a +blessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!" + +It was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my +guardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he +himself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But it +was certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from this +hour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been +before. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and +solely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them. + +In the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself, +and even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire +while he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a week. He +remembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears, and at +such times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. But in a +few minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by +which they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would +become as gay as possible. + +It was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, buying +a variety of things of which he stood in need. Of the things he would +have bought if he had been left to his own ways I say nothing. He was +perfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and +feelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so +much upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations that +I could never have been tired if I had tried. + +There used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging +to fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry +soldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing, +with whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much +about him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, that I +was purposely in the room with my work one morning after breakfast +when he came. + +"Good morning, Mr. George," said my guardian, who happened to be +alone with me. "Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss +Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down." + +He sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and +without looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across +his upper lip. + +"You are as punctual as the sun," said Mr. Jarndyce. + +"Military time, sir," he replied. "Force of habit. A mere habit in +me, sir. I am not at all business-like." + +"Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?" said Mr. +Jarndyce. + +"Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a +one." + +"And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of +Mr. Carstone?" said my guardian. + +"Pretty good, sir," he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest +and looking very large. "If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to +it, he would come out very good." + +"But he don't, I suppose?" said my guardian. + +"He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps +he has something else upon it—some young lady, perhaps." His bright +dark eyes glanced at me for the first time. + +"He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George," said I, +laughing, "though you seem to suspect me." + +He reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow. +"No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs." + +"Not at all," said I. "I take it as a compliment." + +If he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or +four quick successive glances. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said to +my guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, "but you did me the +honour to mention the young lady's name—" + +"Miss Summerson." + +"Miss Summerson," he repeated, and looked at me again. + +"Do you know the name?" I asked. + +"No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you +somewhere." + +"I think not," I returned, raising my head from my work to look at +him; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that +I was glad of the opportunity. "I remember faces very well." + +"So do I, miss!" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of +his dark eyes and broad forehead. "Humph! What set me off, now, upon +that!" + +His once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by +his efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his +relief. + +"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?" + +"They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to +live by." + +"And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?" + +"All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to +'prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show +themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of +course, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open." + +"People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their +practice with live targets, I hope?" said my guardian, smiling. + +"Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come +for skill—or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. I +beg your pardon," said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and +squaring an elbow on each knee, "but I believe you're a Chancery +suitor, if I have heard correct?" + +"I am sorry to say I am." + +"I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir." + +"A Chancery suitor?" returned my guardian. "How was that?" + +"Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being +knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post," said Mr. +George, "that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of +taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and +violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away +till he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by +and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, ‘If this +practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don't +altogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of +mind; I'd rather you took to something else.' I was on my guard for a +blow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part +and left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of +friendship." + +"What was that man?" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest. + +"Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a +baited bull of him," said Mr. George. + +"Was his name Gridley?" + +"It was, sir." + +Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me +as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the +coincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name. +He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he +called my condescension. + +"I don't know," he said as he looked at me, "what it is that sets me +off again—but—bosh! What's my head running against!" He passed one +of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken +thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm +akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at +the ground. + +"I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley +into new troubles and that he is in hiding," said my guardian. + +"So I am told, sir," returned Mr. George, still musing and looking on +the ground. "So I am told." + +"You don't know where?" + +"No, sir," returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out +of his reverie. "I can't say anything about him. He will be worn out +soon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a good +many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last." + +Richard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me +another of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and +strode heavily out of the room. + +This was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. We +had no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his packing +early in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when +he was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being +again expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we +should go down to the court and hear what passed. As it was his last +day, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I gave my +consent and we walked down to Westminster, where the court was then +sitting. We beguiled the way with arrangements concerning the letters +that Richard was to write to me and the letters that I was to write +to him and with a great many hopeful projects. My guardian knew where +we were going and therefore was not with us. + +When we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor—the same +whom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn—sitting in +great state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a +red table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little +garden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was a +long row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at +their feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and +gowns—some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying +much attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in +his very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and his +forehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed; +some read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in groups: +all seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very +unconcerned, and extremely comfortable. + +To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness +of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and +ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it +represented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was +raging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to +day, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold +the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him +looking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever +heard that all over England the name in which they were assembled was +a bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and +indignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little +short of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one—this +was so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of +it, that it was at first incredible, and I could not comprehend it. I +sat where Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me; +but there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor +little Miss Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at +it. + +Miss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. She gave me a +gracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification +and pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to +us and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the +bland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a very good day for a +visit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it +was imposing, it was imposing. + +When we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress—if I +may use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion—seemed to die out +of its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to +come, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of +papers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said, +"Jarndyce and Jarndyce." Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and +a general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great +heaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers. + +I think it came on "for further directions"—about some bill of +costs, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough. +But I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were "in +it," and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I. +They chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted and +explained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way, +and some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely +proposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more +buzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle +entertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an +hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut +short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge said, and +the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished +bringing them in. + +I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings +and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "It +can't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!" was all he +said. + +I had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr. +Kenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered +me desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm and +was taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone," said he in a whisper, "and Miss +Summerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who +knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands." As he +spoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape from +my remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house. + +"How do you do, Esther?" said she. "Do you recollect me?" + +I gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little +altered. + +"I wonder you remember those times, Esther," she returned with her +old asperity. "They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and +glad you are not too proud to know me." But indeed she seemed +disappointed that I was not. + +"Proud, Mrs. Rachael!" I remonstrated. + +"I am married, Esther," she returned, coldly correcting me, "and am +Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do well." + +Mr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a +sigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through the +confused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which we +were in the midst of and which the change in the business had brought +together. Richard and I were making our way through it, and I was yet +in the first chill of the late unexpected recognition when I saw, +coming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person than Mr. +George. He made nothing of the people about him as he tramped on, +staring over their heads into the body of the court. + +"George!" said Richard as I called his attention to him. + +"You are well met, sir," he returned. "And you, miss. Could you point +a person out for me, I want? I don't understand these places." + +Turning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when we +were out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain. + +"There's a little cracked old woman," he began, "that—" + +I put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept +beside me all the time and having called the attention of several of +her legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my confusion) by +whispering in their ears, "Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my left!" + +"Hem!" said Mr. George. "You remember, miss, that we passed some +conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley," in a low +whisper behind his hand. + +"Yes," said I. + +"He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. Hadn't his +authority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her. +He says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as +good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her, for when I +sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the roll of the +muffled drums." + +"Shall I tell her?" said I. + +"Would you be so good?" he returned with a glance of something like +apprehension at Miss Flite. "It's a providence I met you, miss; I +doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady." And he +put one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as +I informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his kind +errand. + +"My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!" +she exclaimed. "Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with the +greatest pleasure." + +"He is living concealed at Mr. George's," said I. "Hush! This is Mr. +George." + +"In—deed!" returned Miss Flite. "Very proud to have the honour! A +military man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!" she whispered to +me. + +Poor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as a +mark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it +was no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this was at last +done, and addressing Mr. George as "General," she gave him her arm, +to the great entertainment of some idlers who were looking on, he was +so discomposed and begged me so respectfully "not to desert him" that +I could not make up my mind to do it, especially as Miss Flite was +always tractable with me and as she too said, "Fitz Jarndyce, my +dear, you will accompany us, of course." As Richard seemed quite +willing, and even anxious, that we should see them safely to their +destination, we agreed to do so. And as Mr. George informed us that +Gridley's mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all the afternoon after +hearing of their interview in the morning, I wrote a hasty note in +pencil to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. Mr. George +sealed it at a coffee-house, that it might lead to no discovery, and +we sent it off by a ticket-porter. + +We then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of +Leicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which Mr. +George apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of +which was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by a chain to +the door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair, +wearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and gaiters and a +broad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded cane, addressed +him. + +"I ask your pardon, my good friend," said he, "but is this George's +Shooting Gallery?" + +"It is, sir," returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters +in which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall. + +"Oh! To be sure!" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. "Thank +you. Have you rung the bell?" + +"My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell." + +"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Your name is George? Then I am +here as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?" + +"No, sir. You have the advantage of me." + +"Oh, indeed?" said the old gentleman. "Then it was your young man who +came for me. I am a physician and was requested—five minutes ago—to +come and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery." + +"The muffled drums," said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and +gravely shaking his head. "It's quite correct, sir. Will you please +to walk in." + +The door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking +little man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and +dress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into +a large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and +guns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When we had all +arrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared +to vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in +his place. + +"Now lookee here, George," said the man, turning quickly round upon +him and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. "You know +me, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man of the +world. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a +peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a +long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit." + +Mr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head. + +"Now, George," said the other, keeping close to him, "you're a +sensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond a +doubt. And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character, +because you have served your country and you know that when duty +calls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to give +trouble. If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's what YOU'D +do. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like +that"—the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder +against the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a manner that +looked threatening—"because I know you and won't have it." + +"Phil!" said Mr. George. + +"Yes, guv'ner." + +"Be quiet." + +The little man, with a low growl, stood still. + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Bucket, "you'll excuse anything that +may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector Bucket +of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I know where +my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through +the skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, you know," +pointing; "that's where HE is—on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and +I must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me, +and you know I don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. You +give me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier, +mind you, likewise), that it's honourable between us two, and I'll +accommodate you to the utmost of my power." + +"I give it," was the reply. "But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr. +Bucket." + +"Gammon, George! Not handsome?" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on his +broad breast again and shaking hands with him. "I don't say it wasn't +handsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally +good-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life +Guardsman! Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself, +ladies and gentlemen. I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a figure +of a man!" + +The affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little +consideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called +him), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away +to the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by +a table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this opportunity of +entering into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid +of fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a +good shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those +rifles and what it might be worth first-hand, telling him in return +that it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was +naturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and +making himself generally agreeable. + +After a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and +Richard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after us. +He said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take +a visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips +when the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, "on the chance," he +slightly observed, "of being able to do any little thing for a poor +fellow involved in the same misfortune as himself." We all four went +back together and went into the place where Gridley was. + +It was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted +wood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and +only enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery +roof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had +looked down. The sun was low—near setting—and its light came redly +in above, without descending to the ground. Upon a plain +canvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed much as we +had seen him last, but so changed that at first I recognized no +likeness in his colourless face to what I recollected. + +He had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on +his grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were +covered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of +such tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little +mad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. She sat on a +chair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them. + +His voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his +strength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that had +at last subdued him. The faintest shadow of an object full of form +and colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from +Shropshire whom we had spoken with before. + +He inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian. + +"Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not +long to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You +are a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour you." + +They shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of +comfort to him. + +"It may seem strange to you, sir," returned Gridley; "I should not +have liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting. +But you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my +single hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the +last, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so +I don't mind your seeing me, this wreck." + +"You have been courageous with them many and many a time," returned +my guardian. + +"Sir, I have been," with a faint smile. "I told you what would come +of it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us—look at us!" +He drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and brought her +something nearer to him. + +"This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and +hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone +comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many +suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on +earth that Chancery has not broken." + +"Accept my blessing, Gridley," said Miss Flite in tears. "Accept my +blessing!" + +"I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr. +Jarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that I +could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until +I died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long I have +been wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an hour. I +hope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody here will +lead them to believe that I died defying them, consistently and +perseveringly, as I did through so many years." + +Here Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door, +good-naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer. + +"Come, come!" he said from his corner. "Don't go on in that way, Mr. +Gridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low +sometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You'll lose your temper with the +whole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you on a score +of warrants yet, if I have luck." + +He only shook his head. + +"Don't shake your head," said Mr. Bucket. "Nod it; that's what I want +to see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had +together! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again for +contempt? Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no other +purpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Don't you +remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace +was sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask the little old +lady there; she has been always present. Hold up, Mr. Gridley, hold +up, sir!" + +"What are you going to do about him?" asked George in a low voice. + +"I don't know yet," said Bucket in the same tone. Then resuming his +encouragement, he pursued aloud: "Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After +dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here +like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain't like +being worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you want. You +want excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what YOU want. +You're used to it, and you can't do without it. I couldn't myself. +Very well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn of +Lincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since. +What do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and +having a good angry argument before the magistrates? It'll do you +good; it'll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn +at the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your +energy talk of giving in. You mustn't do that. You're half the fun of +the fair in the Court of Chancery. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a +hand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down." + +"He is very weak," said the trooper in a low voice. + +"Is he?" returned Bucket anxiously. "I only want to rouse him. I +don't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would +cheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little waxy +with me. He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. I +shall never take advantage of it." + +The roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in my +ears. + +"Oh, no, Gridley!" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back from +before her. "Not without my blessing. After so many years!" + +The sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and +the shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, one +living and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than the +darkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell words I +heard it echoed: "Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits +and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul +alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many +suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on +earth that Chancery has not broken!" + +CHAPTER XXV + +Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All + +There is disquietude in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Black +suspicion hides in that peaceful region. The mass of Cook's Courtiers +are in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; but Mr. +Snagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it. + +For Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields persist in harnessing +themselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of Mr. +Snagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers are +Jo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though the +law-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. Even in +the little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles +away at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when Mr. Snagsby pauses +in carving the first slice of the leg of mutton baked with potatoes +and stares at the kitchen wall. + +Mr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with. +Something is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of +it, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter +is the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the robes and +coronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the +surface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the +mysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers, +whom all the Inns of Court, all Chancery Lane, and all the legal +neighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of Detective Mr. +Bucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, impossible to +be evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a party to some +dangerous secret without knowing what it is. And it is the fearful +peculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of his daily life, at +any opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, at any +entrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may +take air and fire, explode, and blow up—Mr. Bucket only knows whom. + +For which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as many +men unknown do) and says, "Is Mr. Snagsby in?" or words to that +innocent effect, Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty +breast. He undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they are +made by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over the +counter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why they +can't speak out at once? More impracticable men and boys persist in +walking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with +unaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little +dairy in Cursitor Street breaks out in his usual absurd way about the +morning, Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his +little woman shaking him and saying "What's the matter with the man!" + +The little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. To +know that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has under +all circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double tooth, +which her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, gives Mr. +Snagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of a dog who +has a reservation from his master and will look anywhere rather than +meet his eye. + +These various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not +lost upon her. They impel her to say, "Snagsby has something on his +mind!" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. +From suspicion to jealousy, Mrs. Snagsby finds the road as natural +and short as from Cook's Court to Chancery Lane. And thus jealousy +gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Once there (and it was +always lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in Mrs. +Snagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of Mr. +Snagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; to +private researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, and +iron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a +general putting of this and that together by the wrong end. + +Mrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes +ghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. The 'prentices +think somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. Guster +holds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at Tooting, where +they were found floating among the orphans) that there is buried +money underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a white +beard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he said +the Lord's Prayer backwards. + +"Who was Nimrod?" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. "Who +was that lady—that creature? And who is that boy?" Now, Nimrod being +as dead as the mighty hunter whose name Mrs. Snagsby has +appropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her mental +eye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. "And who," +quoth Mrs. Snagsby for the thousand and first time, "is that boy? Who +is that—!" And there Mrs. Snagsby is seized with an inspiration. + +He has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure, and he wouldn't +have, of course. Naturally he wouldn't, under those contagious +circumstances. He was invited and appointed by Mr. Chadband—why, +Mrs. Snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!—to come back, and +be told where he was to go, to be addressed by Mr. Chadband; and he +never came! Why did he never come? Because he was told not to come. +Who told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! Mrs. Snagsby sees it all. + +But happily (and Mrs. Snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly +smiles) that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets; +and that boy, as affording a subject which Mr. Chadband desires to +improve for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was +seized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to +the police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and +unless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in +Cook's Court to-morrow night, "to—mor—row—night," Mrs. Snagsby +repeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight +shake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, and +to-morrow night Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye upon him and upon some +one else; and oh, you may walk a long while in your secret ways (says +Mrs. Snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), but you can't blind ME! + +Mrs. Snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her +purpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. To-morrow comes, the savoury +preparations for the Oil Trade come, the evening comes. Comes Mr. +Snagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come (when the gorging +vessel is replete) the 'prentices and Guster, to be edified; comes at +last, with his slouching head, and his shuffle backward, and his +shuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, and his shuffle to the +left, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, which he picks as if +it were some mangy bird he had caught and was plucking before eating +raw, Jo, the very, very tough subject Mr. Chadband is to improve. + +Mrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into the +little drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the moment he +comes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. Snagsby looks at +him. Why should he do that, but that Mrs. Snagsby sees it all? Why +else should that look pass between them, why else should Mr. Snagsby +be confused and cough a signal cough behind his hand? It is as clear +as crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's father. + +"Peace, my friends," says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily +exudations from his reverend visage. "Peace be with us! My friends, +why with us? Because," with his fat smile, "it cannot be against us, +because it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is +softening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home +unto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My +human boy, come forward!" + +Stretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo's +arm and considers where to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his +reverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that something +practical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, "You let +me alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone." + +"No, my young friend," says Chadband smoothly, "I will not let you +alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a +toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are +become as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so +employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your +profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young +friend, sit upon this stool." + +Jo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman +wants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got +into the required position with great difficulty and every possible +manifestation of reluctance. + +When he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, retiring +behind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, "My friends!" +This is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. The +'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. Guster falls into +a staring and vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of Mr. +Chadband and pity for the friendless outcast whose condition touches +her nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs. +Chadband composes herself grimly by the fire and warms her knees, +finding that sensation favourable to the reception of eloquence. + +It happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member +of his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his points with +that particular person, who is understood to be expected to be moved +to an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of +inward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by +some elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated like a game of +forfeits through a circle of the more fermentable sinners present, +serves the purpose of parliamentary cheering and gets Mr. Chadband's +steam up. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chadband in saying "My +friends!" has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that +ill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate +recipient of his discourse. + +"We have here among us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and a +heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on +upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends," +and Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, +bestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw +him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, +"a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid +of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious +stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these +possessions? Why? Why is he?" Mr. Chadband states the question as if +he were propounding an entirely new riddle of much ingenuity and +merit to Mr. Snagsby and entreating him not to give it up. + +Mr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received +just now from his little woman—at about the period when Mr. Chadband +mentioned the word parents—is tempted into modestly remarking, "I +don't know, I'm sure, sir." On which interruption Mrs. Chadband +glares and Mrs. Snagsby says, "For shame!" + +"I hear a voice," says Chadband; "is it a still small voice, my +friends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so—" + +"Ah—h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Which says, ‘I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this +brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of +relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and +of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in +upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is +that light?" + +Mr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not +to be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning +forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly +into Mr. Snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned. + +"It is," says Chadband, "the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon +of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth." + +Mr. Chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at Mr. +Snagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that. + +"Of Terewth," says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. "Say not to me +that it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to you, a +million of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will +proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less +you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a +speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it, +you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you +shall be flawed, you shall be smashed." + +The present effect of this flight of oratory—much admired for its +general power by Mr. Chadband's followers—being not only to make Mr. +Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby +in the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of +brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet +more disconcerted and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and +false position when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him. + +"My friends," he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some +time—and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his +pocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab—"to +pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to +improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to +which I have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the +'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, "if I am told by the +doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask +what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of +that before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young +friends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love), +what is the common sort of Terewth—the working clothes—the +every-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?" + +"Ah—h!" from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Is it suppression?" + +A shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby. + +"Is it reservation?" + +A shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby—very long and very tight. + +"No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names +belongs to it. When this young heathen now among us—who is now, my +friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set +upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should +have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for +his sake—when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock, +and of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was THAT the +Terewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my +friends, no!" + +If Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters +at his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole +tenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops. + +"Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, descending to the level of +their comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his +greasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose, +"if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there +see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the +mistress of this house, and was to say, ‘Sarah, rejoice with me, for +I have seen an elephant!' would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby in tears. + +"Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and +returning said ‘Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' +would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly. + +"Or put it, my juvenile friends," said Chadband, stimulated by the +sound, "that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen—for +parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt—after casting +him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the +young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and +had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their +dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and +poultry, would THAT be Terewth?" + +Mrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an +unresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's +Court re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she +has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After +unspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is +pronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though +much exhausted, in which state of affairs Mr. Snagsby, trampled and +crushed in the piano-forte removal, and extremely timid and feeble, +ventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room. + +All this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever +picking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them +out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to +be an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good HIS trying to keep +awake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that +there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near +the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common +men, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the +light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it +unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without +their modest aid—it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from +it yet! + +Jo never heard of any such book. Its compilers and the Reverend +Chadband are all one to him, except that he knows the Reverend +Chadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him +talk for five minutes. "It an't no good my waiting here no longer," +thinks Jo. "Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me to-night." +And downstairs he shuffles. + +But downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of +the kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same +having been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own +supper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo, with whom she ventures to +interchange a word or so for the first time. + +"Here's something to eat, poor boy," says Guster. + +"Thank'ee, mum," says Jo. + +"Are you hungry?" + +"Jist!" says Jo. + +"What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?" + +Jo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For this orphan +charge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting has patted +him on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any +decent hand has been so laid upon him. + +"I never know'd nothink about 'em," says Jo. + +"No more didn't I of mine," cries Guster. She is repressing symptoms +favourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at something and +vanishes down the stairs. + +"Jo," whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the +step. + +"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!" + +"I didn't know you were gone—there's another half-crown, Jo. It was +quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when +we were out together. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet, +Jo." + +"I am fly, master!" + +And so, good night. + +A ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer +to the room he came from and glides higher up. And henceforth he +begins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his +own, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his +own. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may +pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs. +Snagsby is there too—bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of +his shadow. + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Sharpshooters + +Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the +neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to +get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of +times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are +wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy +blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less +under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and +false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. +Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal +experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong +governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, +broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, +and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath +their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, +and more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be +in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a +more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin +in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or +colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about +bills and promissory notes, than in any other form he wears. And in +such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading +the tributary channels of Leicester Square. + +But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. +George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up +and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself +before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, +bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon +comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and +exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, +blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling +tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so +that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive +instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb—as he rubs, and puffs, +and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more +conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well +bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his +knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for +him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to +take in the superfluous health his master throws off. + +When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two +hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, +shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, +winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. +George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and +marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a +powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes +gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is +devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave. + +"And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several +turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" + +Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled +out of bed. + +"Yes, guv'ner." + +"What was it like?" + +"I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering. + +"How did you know it was the country?" + +"On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil +after further consideration. + +"What were the swans doing on the grass?" + +"They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil. + +The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of +breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being +limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for +two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty +grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the +gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at +once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast +is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his +pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and +sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit, +sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his +plate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened +hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating. + +"The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I +suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?" + +"I see the marshes once," says Phil, contentedly eating his +breakfast. + +"What marshes?" + +"THE marshes, commander," returns Phil. + +"Where are they?" + +"I don't know where they are," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. +They was flat. And miste." + +Governor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil, +expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody +but Mr. George. + +"I was born in the country, Phil." + +"Was you indeed, commander?" + +"Yes. And bred there." + +Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his +master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still +staring at him. + +"There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not +many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree +that I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country +boy, once. My good mother lived in the country." + +"She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes. + +"Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr. +George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright +as me, and near as broad across the shoulders." + +"Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil. + +"No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the +trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and +good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes +upon the country—marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?" + +Phil shakes his head. + +"Do you want to see it?" + +"N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil. + +"The town's enough for you, eh?" + +"Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with +anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to +novelties." + +"How old ARE you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his +smoking saucer to his lips. + +"I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty. +Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres." + +Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its +contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil—" when +he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers. + +"I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, +when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him +a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery +comfortable, and he says, ‘Would you like to come along a me, my +man?' I says ‘Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to +Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up +to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, +‘Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after +that, I says, ‘Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In +course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight +in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is +how I always know there's a eight in it." + +"Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the +tinker?" + +"Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him—in +a glass-case, I HAVE heerd," Phil replies mysteriously. + +"By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?" + +"Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much +of a beat—round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, +and there—poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till +they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and +lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings. +But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a +good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot +you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing +with a pot but mend it or bile it—never had a note of music in me. +Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me." + +"They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, +Phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile. + +"No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I +was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to +boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I +was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and +swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in +the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich +means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, +almost whenever he was too far gone in drink—which was almost +always—my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to +since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was +given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a +gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at +the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!" + +Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied +manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking +it, he says, "It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see +you, commander. You remember?" + +"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun." + +"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall—" + +"True, Phil—shouldering your way on—" + +"In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited. + +"In a night-cap—" + +"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more +excited. + +"With a couple of sticks. When—" + +"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and +saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to +me, ‘What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to +you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so +strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a +limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, +delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was +like a glass of something hot, ‘What accident have you met with? You +have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us +about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, +you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and +here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has +started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a +mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers +take aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on! +If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me +well about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be +throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em +throw me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of +styles, all my life!" + +With this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied +by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil +Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and +abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his +head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to +clear away the breakfast. + +Mr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the +shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery +into business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells, +and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting "too +fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice. +Meanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws +and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small +apertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and +undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun. + +Master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage, +where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual +company. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery, +bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any +day in the year but the fifth of November. + +It consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two +bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched +mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses +commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England +up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as +the chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, "O +Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adds, "How de do, my dear friend, +how de do?" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the +venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his +granddaughter Judy as body-guard. + +"Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, removing +his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly +throttled coming along, "how de do? You're surprised to see me, my +dear friend." + +"I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in +the city," returns Mr. George. + +"I am very seldom out," pants Mr. Smallweed. "I haven't been out for +many months. It's inconvenient—and it comes expensive. But I longed +so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?" + +"I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same." + +"You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him by +both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep +her away. She longed so much to see you." + +"Hum! She bears it calmly!" mutters Mr. George. + +"So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the +corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried +me here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment! +This," says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has +been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his +windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by +agreement included in his fare. This person," the other bearer, "we +engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence. +Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of +your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this +person." + +Grandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable +terror and a half-subdued "O Lord! Oh, dear me!" Nor in his +apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for +Phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap +before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air +of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old +bird of the crow species. + +"Judy, my child," says Grandfather Smallweed, "give the person his +twopence. It's a great deal for what he has done." + +The person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human +fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London, +ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for holding +horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but +transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and +retires. + +"My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so +kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and +I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!" + +His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by +the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up, +chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone. + +"O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My +dear friend, your workman is very strong—and very prompt. O Lord, he +is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in +the legs," which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by +the smell of his worsted stockings. + +The gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the +fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his +overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed +again says, "Oh, dear me! O Lord!" and looking about and meeting Mr. +George's glance, again stretches out both hands. + +"My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your +establishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never +find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear +friend?" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease. + +"No, no. No fear of that." + +"And your workman. He—Oh, dear me!—he never lets anything off +without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?" + +"He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling. + +"But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal, +and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. "He +mightn't mean it—or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to +leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?" + +Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to +the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to +rubbing his legs. + +"And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, squarely +standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand. +"You are prospering, please the Powers?" + +Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not come +to say that, I know." + +"You are so sprightly, Mr. George," returns the venerable +grandfather. "You are such good company." + +"Ha ha! Go on!" says Mr. George. + +"My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It +might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. +Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the +trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me money, +and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I +wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head +off." + +Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old +man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly, +"Now for it!" + +"Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle. +"Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?" + +"For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his +chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it +and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully. + +This tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so +difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes +exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent +vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the +visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long +and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and +watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to +slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he +becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of +Judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than +the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him +in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the +science of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous +distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer. + +When Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a +white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out +her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The +trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed +grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at +the fire. + +"Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U—u—u—ugh!" chatters Grandfather Smallweed, +swallowing his rage. "My dear friend!" (still clawing). + +"I tell you what," says Mr. George. "If you want to converse with me, +you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and +about. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't +suit me. When you go winding round and round me," says the trooper, +putting his pipe between his lips again, "damme, if I don't feel as +if I was being smothered!" + +And he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure +himself that he is not smothered yet. + +"If you have come to give me a friendly call," continues Mr. George, +"I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether +there's any property on the premises, look about you; you are +welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!" + +The blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her +grandfather one ghostly poke. + +"You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman +won't sit down like a Christian," says Mr. George with his eyes +musingly fixed on Judy, "I can't comprehend." + +"She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says Grandfather +Smallweed. "I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some +attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot" +(snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but I need +attention, my dear friend." + +"Well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man. +"Now then?" + +"My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a +pupil of yours." + +"Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it." + +"Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "He is a fine young +soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came +forward and paid it all up, honourable." + +"Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the city +would like a piece of advice?" + +"I think he would, my dear friend. From you." + +"I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's +no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is +brought to a dead halt." + +"No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir," +remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs. +"Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good +for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, +and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his +chance in a wife, and—oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend +would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says +Grandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his +ear like a monkey. + +Mr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his +chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he +were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has +taken. + +"But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. +"‘To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr. +George, from the ensign to the captain." + +"What are you up to, now?" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in +stroking the recollection of his moustache. "What captain?" + +"Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon." + +"Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees +both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "You are +there! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more. +Speak!" + +"My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied—Judy, shake me +up a little!—I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my +opinion still is that the captain is not dead." + +"Bosh!" observes Mr. George. + +"What was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with his +hand to his ear. + +"Bosh!" + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Mr. George, of my opinion you can +judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the +reasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer +making the inquiries wants?" + +"A job," says Mr. George. + +"Nothing of the kind!" + +"Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms with an +air of confirmed resolution. + +"My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see +some fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it. +He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his +possession." + +"Well?" + +"Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning +Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting +him, he looked it up and came to me—just as you did, my dear friend. +WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed +forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!" + +"Well, Mr. Smallweed?" says Mr. George again after going through the +ceremony with some stiffness. + +"I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague +pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," says +the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a +prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, "I +have half a million of his signatures, I think! But you," +breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the +cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear Mr. George, are +likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose. +Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand." + +"Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, I +have." + +"My dearest friend!" + +"May be, I have not." + +"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen. + +"But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a +cartridge without knowing why." + +"Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why." + +"Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know more, +and approve it." + +"Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and +see the gentleman?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean +old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "I told him +it was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this +forenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the +gentleman, Mr. George?" + +"Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this should +concern you so much, I don't know." + +"Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything +to light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us +immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him +concern more than me? Not, my dear friend," says Grandfather +Smallweed, lowering his tone, "that I want YOU to betray anything. +Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?" + +"Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know." + +"No, my dear Mr. George; no." + +"And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place, +wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires, +getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves. + +This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and +low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his +paralytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he +unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the +gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately +takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it +in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed +pokes Judy once. + +"I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry +this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him." + +"Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's so +very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?" + +Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away, +tightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along +the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old +gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however, +terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy +takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and +Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box. + +Mr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time +to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where +the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his +cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and +looking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression +of being jolted in the back. + +CHAPTER XXVII + +More Old Soldiers Than One + +Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for +their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his +horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says, +"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" + +"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?" + +"Why, I have heard of him—seen him too, I think. But I don't know +him, and he don't know me." + +There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to +perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr. +Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the +fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be +back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus +much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves. + +Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at +the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates +the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the +boxes. + +"‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully. +"Ha! ‘Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking at +these boxes a long while—as if they were pictures—and comes back to +the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of +Chesney Wold, hey?" + +"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather Smallweed, +rubbing his legs. "Powerfully rich!" + +"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?" + +"This gentleman, this gentleman." + +"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not +bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See the +strong-box yonder!" + +This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no +change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his +hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry. +In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually +not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have +warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn, +after all, if everything were known. + +"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes in. +"You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant." + +As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he +looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper +stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!" + +"Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is +set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and raw +this morning, cold and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars, +alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from +behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a +little semicircle before him. + +"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two senses), +"Mr. Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear +his part in the conversation. "You have brought our good friend the +sergeant, I see." + +"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's +wealth and influence. + +"And what does the sergeant say about this business?" + +"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his +shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir." + +Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and +profoundly silent—very forward in his chair, as if the full +complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George—I believe your name is +George?" + +"It is so, Sir." + +"What do you say, George?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish to +know what YOU say?" + +"Do you mean in point of reward?" + +"I mean in point of everything, sir." + +This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly +breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks +pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the +tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my +dear." + +"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one +side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might +have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest +compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and +were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services, +and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?" + +"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity. + +"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession +something—anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, +a letter, anything—in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare +his writing with some that I have. If you can give me the +opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, +five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say." + +"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his +eyes. + +"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can +demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against +your inclination—though I should prefer to have it." + +Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the +painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed +scratches the air. + +"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued, +uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's +writing?" + +"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir," repeats +Mr. George. + +"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?" + +"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, +sir," repeats Mr. George. + +"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that," +says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written +paper tied together. + +"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr. George. + +All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner, +looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at +the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him +for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but +continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation. + +"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?" + +"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, "I +would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?" + +"Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I am +not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in +Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand +any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr. +Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of +this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my +sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, "at the +present moment." + +With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on +the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former +station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground +and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to +prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever. + +Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of +disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my +dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the +possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in +his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear +friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so +eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace, +confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr. +Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are the +best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "Take care you do no harm +by this." "Please yourself, please yourself." "If you know what you +mean, that's quite enough." These he utters with an appearance of +perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and +prepares to write a letter. + +Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the +ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. +Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again, +often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests. + +"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it offensively, +that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered +fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you +gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's +hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man of +business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are +confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such +wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of +doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest +about that." + +"Aye! He is dead, sir." + +"IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. + +"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another +disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more +satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I +should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing +to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for +business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to +consult with him. I—I really am so completely smothered myself at +present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his +brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me." + +Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so +strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel +with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of +five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr. +Tulkinghorn says nothing either way. + +"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the trooper, +"and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer +in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried +downstairs—" + +"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me +speak half a word with this gentleman in private?" + +"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper +retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious +inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise. + +"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers Grandfather +Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his +coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry +eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in +his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak +up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say +you saw him put it there!" + +This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a +thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and +he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him, +until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken. + +"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then +remarks coolly. + +"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and +galling—it's—it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a +grandmother," to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire, +"to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to +give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the +most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him +periodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If +he won't do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, +sir! Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at +the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind +assistance, my excellent friend!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting +itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his +back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and +acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod. + +It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George +finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is +replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the +guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button—having, +in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him—that +some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a +separation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in +quest of his adviser. + +By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a +glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in +his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George +sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that +ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the +bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost +his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron +monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares. +To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's +shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a +tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music, +Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from +it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts +tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub +commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement, +Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing greens. I never +saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing +greens!" + +The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in +washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr. +George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when +she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing +near her. Her reception of him is not flattering. + +"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!" + +The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the +musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon +the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon +it. + +"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute +when you're near him. You are that restless and that roving—" + +"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am." + +"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that? WHY +are you?" + +"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper +good-humouredly. + +"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction +will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have +tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or +Australey?" + +Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a +little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which +have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and +bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from +forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed +(though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she +stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her +finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will +never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust. + +"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat +will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far." + +"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," Mrs. +Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and +married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have +combed your hair for you." + +"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half +laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a +respectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good—there +was something in her, and something of her—but I couldn't make up my +mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat +found!" + +Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve +with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow +herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr. +George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the +little room behind the shop. + +"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation, into +that department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!" + +These young ladies—not supposed to have been actually christened by +the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from +the places of their birth in barracks—are respectively employed on +three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in +learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine +perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail +Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing +and romping plant their stools beside him. + +"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George. + +"Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans +(for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "Would +you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, +to play the fife in a military piece." + +"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh. + +"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what +Woolwich is. A Briton!" + +"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians +one and all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children growing up. +Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else, +corresponded with, and helped a little, and—well, well! To be sure, +I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I +have not much to do with all this!" + +Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the +whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and +contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or +dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots +and pannikins upon the dresser shelves—Mr. George is becoming +thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet +and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an +ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers +like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid +complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all +unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed +there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding, +brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human +orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer. + +Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due +season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet +hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after +dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without +first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to +this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic +preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street, +which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it +were a rampart. + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that +advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. +Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind. +Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do—do it!" + +"I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her +opinion than that of a college." + +"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. "What +college could you leave—in another quarter of the world—with +nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella—to make its way home to +Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!" + +"You are right," says Mr. George. + +"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life—with two +penn'orth of white lime—a penn'orth of fuller's earth—a ha'porth of +sand—and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That's +what the old girl started on. In the present business." + +"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat." + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a stocking +somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it. +Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up." + +"She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George. + +"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be +maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical +abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old +girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old +girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility; +try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster +of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got +another, get a living by it!" + +George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an +apple. + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine +woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as +she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it +before her. Discipline must be maintained!" + +Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down +the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec +and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs. +Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the +distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty, +Mrs. Bagnet develops an exact system, sitting with every dish before +her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of +pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out +complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus +supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to +satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the +mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly +composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several +parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is +of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong +shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that +young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the +complete round of foreign service. + +The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who +polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the +dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away, +first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor +may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household +cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard +and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to +assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl +reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her +needlework, then and only then—the greens being only then to be +considered as entirely off her mind—Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper +to state his case. + +This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address +himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all +the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies +herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet +resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. + +"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he. + +"That's the whole of it." + +"You act according to my opinion?" + +"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it." + +"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell +him what it is." + +It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too +deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters +he does not understand—that the plain rule is to do nothing in the +dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never +to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is +Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so +relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and +banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe +on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with +the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of +experience. + +Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again +rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on +when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the +theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his +domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and +insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with +felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George +again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small it +is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that +evolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a +vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn't hold +to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I +didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber +nobody; that's something. I have not done that for many a long year!" + +So he whistles it off and marches on. + +Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair, +he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper +not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark +besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a +bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn +comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, "Who is +that? What are you doing there?" + +"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant." + +"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?" + +"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the trooper, +rather nettled. + +"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr. +Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance. + +"In the same mind, sir." + +"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man," +says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose +hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?" + +"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs +down. "What then, sir?" + +"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen +the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being +that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow." + +With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the +lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering +noise. + +Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because +a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and +evidently applies them to him. "A pretty character to bear," the +trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. "A +threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And looking up, he sees +the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp. +This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill +humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home +to the shooting gallery. + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The Ironmaster + +Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the +family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a +figurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place in +Lincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds, +and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well defended, +and eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires of faggot and +coal—Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest—that blaze upon the +broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods, +sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy. The +hot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the +cushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to +supply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy Sir Leicester's need. +Hence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the +listening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to +town for a few weeks. + +It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor +relations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair share of +poor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior quality, +like inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud and WILL be +heard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many +Murders in the respect that they "will out." Among whom there are +cousins who are so poor that one might almost dare to think it would +have been the happier for them never to have been plated links upon +the Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron at +first and done base service. + +Service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not +profitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they +visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live +but shabbily when they can't, and find—the women no husbands, and +the men no wives—and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts +that are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The +rich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the +something over that nobody knows what to do with. + +Everybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of his +way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my +Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir +Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of +relationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the +Everybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified +way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in +despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins +at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr. + +Of these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a young +lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be +a poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss +Volumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting +ornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar +in the Spanish tongue, and propounding French conundrums in country +houses, passed the twenty years of her existence between twenty and +forty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of date +and being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the +Spanish language, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on +an annual present from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional +resurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an +extensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with +thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that +dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of +an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an +obsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs. + +In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case +for the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and +when William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would +be put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William Buffy somehow +discovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the +times when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication +Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going +to pieces. + +There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm +mashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot +than most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly +desirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments, +unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well-regulated +body politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young +gentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but +somehow William Buffy found when he came in that these were not times +in which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the +second indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the +country was going to pieces. + +The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and +capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have +done well enough in life if they could have overcome their +cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and +lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as +much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be +how to dispose of them. + +In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme. +Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world +(for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to +pole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and +indifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The +cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir +Leicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob +Stables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and +lunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed +woman in the whole stud. + +Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal +night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however) +might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is +near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, +raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom +candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins +yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water +tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the +fire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are +two), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of the broad hearth, my +Lady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins, +in a luxurious chair between them. Sir Leicester glancing, with +magnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace. + +"I occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls Volumnia, whose +thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long +evening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, I think, +that I ever saw in my life." + +"A _protégée_ of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester. + +"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked +that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty +perhaps," says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in its +way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!" + +Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the +rouge, appears to say so too. + +"Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eye in +the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her +discovery." + +"Your maid, I suppose?" + +"No. My anything; pet—secretary—messenger—I don't know what." + +"You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, +or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle—no, not a poodle, though—or +anything else that was equally pretty?" says Volumnia, sympathizing. +"Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs. +Rouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as +active and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have, positively!" + +Sir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper +of Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, he +has a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised. +So he says, "You are right, Volumnia," which Volumnia is extremely +glad to hear. + +"She has no daughter of her own, has she?" + +"Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two." + +My Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by +Volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and +heaves a noiseless sigh. + +"And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the +present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening +of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions," says Sir Leicester +with stately gloom, "that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn +that Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into Parliament." + +Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream. + +"Yes, indeed," repeats Sir Leicester. "Into Parliament." + +"I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?" +exclaims Volumnia. + +"He is called, I believe—an—ironmaster." Sir Leicester says it +slowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is +called a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word +expressive of some other relationship to some other metal. + +Volumnia utters another little scream. + +"He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn +be correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn being always +correct and exact; still that does not," says Sir Leicester, "that +does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange +considerations—startling considerations, as it appears to me." + +Miss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicester +politely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, and +lights it at my Lady's shaded lamp. + +"I must beg you, my Lady," he says while doing so, "to remain a few +moments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening +shortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note"—Sir +Leicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it—"I am +bound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour +of a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject of this +young girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I +replied that we would see him before retiring." + +Miss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her +hosts—O Lud!—well rid of the—what is it?—ironmaster! + +The other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. Sir +Leicester rings the bell, "Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, in +the housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now." + +My Lady, who has heard all this with slight attention outwardly, +looks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over +fifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear +voice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a +shrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman +dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a +perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by +the great presence into which he comes. + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for +intruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you, +Sir Leicester." + +The head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between himself +and my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there. + +"In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in +progress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places +that we are always on the flight." + +Sir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that +there is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that +quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and +the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the +fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the +terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much +the property of every Dedlock—while he lasted—as the house and +lands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose +and that of Chesney Wold to the restless flights of ironmasters. + +"Lady Dedlock has been so kind," proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a +respectful glance and a bow that way, "as to place near her a young +beauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa +and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to +their becoming engaged if she will take him—which I suppose she +will. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some confidence +in my son's good sense—even in love. I find her what he represents +her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with +great commendation." + +"She in all respects deserves it," says my Lady. + +"I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment on +the value to me of your kind opinion of her." + +"That," observes Sir Leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he +thinks the ironmaster a little too glib, "must be quite unnecessary." + +"Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young man, +and Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make +his; and his being married at present is out of the question. But +supposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty +girl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, I think it a +piece of candour to say at once—I am sure, Sir Leicester and Lady +Dedlock, you will understand and excuse me—I should make it a +condition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before +communicating further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that +if her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I +will hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave +it precisely where it is." + +Not remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir Leicester's +old misgivings relative to Wat Tyler and the people in the iron +districts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come in a shower +upon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as of his +whiskers, actually stirs with indignation. + +"Am I to understand, sir," says Sir Leicester, "and is my Lady to +understand"—he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of +gallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance on +her sense—"am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady to +understand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for +Chesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?" + +"Certainly not, Sir Leicester," + +"I am glad to hear it." Sir Leicester very lofty indeed. + +"Pray, Mr. Rouncewell," says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off with +the slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly, +"explain to me what you mean." + +"Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more." + +Addressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too +quick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness, +however habitual, to the strong Saxon face of the visitor, a picture +of resolution and perseverance, my Lady listens with attention, +occasionally slightly bending her head. + +"I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my +childhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a +century and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those +examples—perhaps as good a one as there is—of love, and attachment, +and fidelity in such a nation, which England may well be proud of, +but of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole +merit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides—on +the great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly." + +Sir Leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this way, +but in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though silently, +admits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition. + +"Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn't have it +hastily supposed," with the least turn of his eyes towards Sir +Leicester, "that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or +wanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family. +I certainly may have desired—I certainly have desired, Lady +Dedlock—that my mother should retire after so many years and end +her days with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond +would be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea." + +Sir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. Rouncewell +being spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an +ironmaster. + +"I have been," proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, "an +apprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages, years and +years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife +was a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three +daughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being +fortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had +ourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one of +our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station." + +A little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in +his heart, "even of the Chesney Wold station." Not a little more +magnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester. + +"All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the +class to which I belong, that what would be generally called unequal +marriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. A son +will sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in +love, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once +worked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first +very possibly. It may be that he had other views for his son. +However, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to +be of unblemished character, he will say to his son, ‘I must be quite +sure you are in earnest here. This is a serious matter for both of +you. Therefore I shall have this girl educated for two years,' or it +may be, ‘I shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters +for such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour +to see her only so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she +has so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair +equality, you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make +you happy.' I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and +I think they indicate to me my own course now." + +Sir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly. + +"Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with his right hand in the +breast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is painted +in the gallery, "do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a—" +Here he resists a disposition to choke, "a factory?" + +"I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very +different; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may +be justly drawn between them." + +Sir Leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long +drawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is awake. + +"Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady—my Lady—has +placed near her person was brought up at the village school outside +the gates?" + +"Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and +handsomely supported by this family." + +"Then, Mr. Rouncewell," returns Sir Leicester, "the application of +what you have said is, to me, incomprehensible." + +"Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say," the +ironmaster is reddening a little, "that I do not regard the village +school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's +wife?" + +From the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute, +to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of +society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in +consequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what not) +not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto +which they are called—necessarily and for ever, according to Sir +Leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to +find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out +of THEIR stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the +floodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the +Dedlock mind. + +"My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment!" She has +given a faint indication of intending to speak. "Mr. Rouncewell, our +views of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education, +and our views of—in short, ALL our views—are so diametrically +opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your +feelings and repellent to my own. This young woman is honoured with +my Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from +that notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the +influence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions—you will allow +me to say, in his peculiar opinions, though I readily admit that he +is not accountable for them to me—who may, in his peculiar opinions, +withdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at +liberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which +you have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other, +on the young woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no +terms; and here we beg—if you will be so good—to leave the +subject." + +The visitor pauses a moment to give my Lady an opportunity, but she +says nothing. He then rises and replies, "Sir Leicester and Lady +Dedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe +that I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present +inclinations. Good night!" + +"Mr. Rouncewell," says Sir Leicester with all the nature of a +gentleman shining in him, "it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope +your time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady and +myself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to-night at +least." + +"I hope so," adds my Lady. + +"I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to +reach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time +in the morning." + +Therewith the ironmaster takes his departure, Sir Leicester ringing +the bell and my Lady rising as he leaves the room. + +When my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the +fire, and inattentive to the Ghost's Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in +an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her. + +"Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?" + +"Oh! My Lady!" + +My Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling, +"Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?" + +"Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love with +him—yet." + +"Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?" + +"I think he likes me a little, my Lady." And Rosa bursts into tears. + +Is this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing +her dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so +full of musing interest? Aye, indeed it is! + +"Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are +attached to me." + +"Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I +wouldn't do to show how much." + +"And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even +for a lover?" + +"No, my Lady! Oh, no!" Rosa looks up for the first time, quite +frightened at the thought. + +"Confide in me, my child. Don't fear me. I wish you to be happy, and +will make you so—if I can make anybody happy on this earth." + +Rosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My +Lady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with +her eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own +two hands, and gradually lets it fall. Seeing her so absorbed, Rosa +softly withdraws; but still my Lady's eyes are on the fire. + +In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that +never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? +Or does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step does it +most resemble? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little child's +feet, ever coming on—on—on? Some melancholy influence is upon her, +or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the +hearth so desolate? + +Volumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before +dinner. Not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from Sir +Leicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and +opening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society, +manifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the batch +but is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of +William Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a +stake in the country—or the pension list—or something—by fraud and +wrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by Sir +Leicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general +rising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl +necklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets—for it is one +appurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult they may find +it to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and valets—the cousins +disperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that +blows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house, +as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves. + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The Young Man + +Chesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in +corners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown +holland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the Dedlock +ancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around the +house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling +down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener +sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full +barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the +shrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain beats, the windows +rattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the +points of view, and move in funeral-wise across the rising grounds. +On all the house there is a cold, blank smell like the smell of a +little church, though something dryer, suggesting that the dead and +buried Dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour +of their graves behind them. + +But the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as Chesney +Wold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or mourning +when it mourns, excepting when a Dedlock dies—the house in town +shines out awakened. As warm and bright as so much state may be, as +delicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no trace of winter +as hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking +of the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the +stillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those chilled bones of Sir +Leicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir Leicester is glad to +repose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library, +condescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine +arts with a glance of approbation. For he has his pictures, ancient +and modern. Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally +condescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like +the miscellaneous articles in a sale. As "Three high-backed chairs, a +table and cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one +Spanish female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg +the model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote." Or "One +stone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian +senator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with +profile portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly +mounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very +rare), and Othello." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate +business to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady +pretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as +indifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet it +may be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it. +It may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of +compunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty and all the +state and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest +for what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it. +Whether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made +his duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined +to have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed +among secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the +splendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always +treasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous +clients—whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my +Lady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon +her, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer +with his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with +ribbons at the knees. + +Sir Leicester sits in my Lady's room—that room in which Mr. +Tulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce—particularly +complacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her +screen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because +he has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly +on the floodgates and the framework of society. They apply so happily +to the late case that Sir Leicester has come from the library to my +Lady's room expressly to read them aloud. "The man who wrote this +article," he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he +were nodding down at the man from a mount, "has a well-balanced +mind." + +The man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady, +who, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid +resignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and +falls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at +Chesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite +unconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally +stopping to remove his glass and express approval, as "Very true +indeed," "Very properly put," "I have frequently made the same remark +myself," invariably losing his place after each observation, and +going up and down the column to find it again. + +Sir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the +door opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange +announcement, "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy." + +Sir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, "The young +man of the name of Guppy?" + +Looking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much +discomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of +introduction in his manner and appearance. + +"Pray," says Sir Leicester to Mercury, "what do you mean by +announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?" + +"I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the +young man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir +Leicester." + +With this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at +the young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, "What do you +come calling here for and getting ME into a row?" + +"It's quite right. I gave him those directions," says my Lady. "Let +the young man wait." + +"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will not +interrupt you." Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather +declining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and +majestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive +appearance. + +Lady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has +left the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She +suffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants. + +"That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a +little conversation," returns Mr. Guppy, embarrassed. + +"You are, of course, the person who has written me so many letters?" + +"Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended to +favour me with an answer." + +"And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation +unnecessary? Can you not still?" + +Mr. Guppy screws his mouth into a silent "No!" and shakes his head. + +"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after all, +that what you have to say does not concern me—and I don't know how +it can, and don't expect that it will—you will allow me to cut you +short with but little ceremony. Say what you have to say, if you +please." + +My Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards +the fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of the +name of Guppy. + +"With your ladyship's permission, then," says the young man, "I will +now enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my +first letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt the habit +of not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did not mention +to your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am connected and +in which my standing—and I may add income—is tolerably good. I may +now state to your ladyship, in confidence, that the name of that firm +is Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln's Inn, which may not be altogether +unknown to your ladyship in connexion with the case in Chancery of +Jarndyce and Jarndyce." + +My Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She has +ceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were listening. + +"Now, I may say to your ladyship at once," says Mr. Guppy, a little +emboldened, "it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce +that made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I +have no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive—in fact, almost +blackguardly." + +After waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the contrary, +and not receiving any, Mr. Guppy proceeds, "If it had been Jarndyce +and Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your ladyship's +solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the pleasure of +being acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn—at least we move when we meet +one another—and if it had been any business of that sort, I should +have gone to him." + +My Lady turns a little round and says, "You had better sit down." + +"Thank your ladyship." Mr. Guppy does so. "Now, your ladyship"—Mr. +Guppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made small +notes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him in the +densest obscurity whenever he looks at it—"I—Oh, yes!—I place +myself entirely in your ladyship's hands. If your ladyship was to +make any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn of the +present visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation. +That, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your ladyship's +honour." + +My Lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the screen, +assures him of his being worth no complaint from her. + +"Thank your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy; "quite satisfactory. +Now—I—dash it!—The fact is that I put down a head or two here of +the order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're +written short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your +ladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I—" + +Mr. Guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds, to +whom he says in his confusion, "I beg your pardon, I am sure." This +does not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. He murmurs, +growing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now close to his +eyes, now a long way off, "C.S. What's C.S. for? Oh! C.S.! Oh, I +know! Yes, to be sure!" And comes back enlightened. + +"I am not aware," says Mr. Guppy, standing midway between my Lady and +his chair, "whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or to +see, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson." + +My Lady's eyes look at him full. "I saw a young lady of that name not +long ago. This past autumn." + +"Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?" asks +Mr. Guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and +scratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda. + +My Lady removes her eyes from him no more. + +"No." + +"Not like your ladyship's family?" + +"No." + +"I think your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "can hardly remember Miss +Summerson's face?" + +"I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with me?" + +"Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson's image +imprinted on my 'eart—which I mention in confidence—I found, when I +had the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney Wold +while on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a friend, +such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship's +own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that I +didn't at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked me over. And +now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (I have often, +since that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your +carriage in the park, when I dare say you was not aware of me, but I +never saw your ladyship so near), it's really more surprising than I +thought it." + +Young man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies +lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call, +when that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute's +purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at +this moment. + +My Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him again +what he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with her. + +"Your ladyship," replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, "I +am coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! ‘Mrs. Chadband.' Yes." Mr. +Guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again. My +Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of +graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady +gaze. "A—stop a minute, though!" Mr. Guppy refers again. "E.S. +twice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on." + +Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech +with, Mr. Guppy proceeds. + +"Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's +birth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because—which I +mention in confidence—I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge +and Carboy's. Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss +Summerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. If I could clear this +mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having +the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship's family she had a +right to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make +a sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more +dedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In +fact, as yet she hasn't favoured them at all." + +A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face. + +"Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship," says Mr. +Guppy, "though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of +us professional men—which I may call myself, for though not +admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge +and Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of her little +income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy—that I have +encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought +Miss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady +was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship." + +Is the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from the screen which +has a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised hand as if +she had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on +her? + +"Did your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "ever happen to hear of Miss +Barbary?" + +"I don't know. I think so. Yes." + +"Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?" + +My Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head. + +"NOT connected?" says Mr. Guppy. "Oh! Not to your ladyship's +knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes." After each of these +interrogatories, she has inclined her head. "Very good! Now, this +Miss Barbary was extremely close—seems to have been extraordinarily +close for a female, females being generally (in common life at least) +rather given to conversation—and my witness never had an idea +whether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion, and only +one, she seems to have been confidential to my witness on a single +point, and she then told her that the little girl's real name was not +Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon." + +"My God!" + +Mr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him looking him through, +with the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to +the holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a +little contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees her consciousness +return, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water, +sees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees +her force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what +he has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead +condition seem to have passed away like the features of those +long-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which, +struck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath. + +"Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?" + +"I have heard it before." + +"Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's family?" + +"No." + +"Now, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy, "I come to the last point of +the case, so far as I have got it up. It's going on, and I shall +gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must +know—if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know +already—that there was found dead at the house of a person named +Krook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great +distress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which +law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. But, +your ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law-writer's +name was Hawdon." + +"And what is THAT to me?" + +"Aye, your ladyship, that's the question! Now, your ladyship, a queer +thing happened after that man's death. A lady started up, a disguised +lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went +to look at his grave. She hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it +her. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in +corroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any +time." + +The wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does NOT wish to have +him produced. + +"Oh, I assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed," says Mr. +Guppy. "If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on +her fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it quite +romantic." + +There are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. My +Lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with +that expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to +the young man of the name of Guppy. + +"It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind +him by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. He left a +bundle of old letters." + +The screen still goes, as before. All this time her eyes never once +release him. + +"They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship, +they will come into my possession." + +"Still I ask you, what is this to me?" + +"Your ladyship, I conclude with that." Mr. Guppy rises. "If you think +there's enough in this chain of circumstances put together—in the +undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which +is a positive fact for a jury; in her having been brought up by Miss +Barbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss Summerson's real name to be +Hawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both these names VERY WELL; and in +Hawdon's dying as he did—to give your ladyship a family interest in +going further into the case, I will bring these papers here. I don't +know what they are, except that they are old letters: I have never +had them in my possession yet. I will bring those papers here as soon +as I get them and go over them for the first time with your ladyship. +I have told your ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I +should be placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint +was made, and all is in strict confidence." + +Is this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or +has he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth, depth, +of his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they +hide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at him, but he +can look at the table and keep that witness-box face of his from +telling anything. + +"You may bring the letters," says my Lady, "if you choose." + +"Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour," +says Mr. Guppy, a little injured. + +"You may bring the letters," she repeats in the same tone, "if +you—please." + +"It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day." + +On a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and clasped +like an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes it to her +and unlocks it. + +"Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of that +sort," says Mr. Guppy, "and I couldn't accept anything of the kind. I +wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the +same." + +So the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the +supercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave +his Olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out. + +As Sir Leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper, +is there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to make +the very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms, the very +portraits frown, the very armour stir? + +No. Words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and +shut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered +trumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber to carry any faint +vibration to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the house, +going upward from a wild figure on its knees. + +"O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my +cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had +renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!" + +CHAPTER XXX + +Esther's Narrative + +Richard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a +few days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, who, +having come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and having +written to my guardian, "by her son Allan's desire," to report that +she had heard from him and that he was well "and sent his kind +remembrances to all of us," had been invited by my guardian to make a +visit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly three weeks. She took +very kindly to me and was extremely confidential, so much so that +sometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew +very well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt +it was unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite +help it. + +She was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands +folded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to me +that perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her being +so upright and trim, though I don't think it was that, because I +thought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the general +expression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an +old lady. I don't know what it was. Or at least if I do now, I +thought I did not then. Or at least—but it don't matter. + +Of a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me +into her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair; +and, dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap-Kerrig until I +was quite low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from +Crumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinnwillinwodd (if those are the right +names, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery +with the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they +were (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic +of the lineage of Morgan ap-Kerrig. + +"So, Miss Summerson," she would say to me with stately triumph, +"this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son +goes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have money, but +he always has what is much better—family, my dear." + +I had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap-Kerrig in +India and China, but of course I never expressed them. I used to say +it was a great thing to be so highly connected. + +"It IS, my dear, a great thing," Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. "It has +its disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is +limited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is +limited in much the same manner." + +Then she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to +assure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us +notwithstanding. + +"Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear," she would say, and always with some +emotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate +heart, "was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of +MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal +Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last +representatives of two old families. With the blessing of heaven he +will set them up again and unite them with another old family." + +It was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to try, +only for the sake of novelty or perhaps because—but I need not be so +particular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it. + +"My dear," she said one night, "you have so much sense and you look +at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life that +it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of +mine. You don't know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of +him, I dare say, to recollect him?" + +"Yes, ma'am. I recollect him." + +"Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character, +and I should like to have your opinion of him." + +"Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt," said I, "that is so difficult!" + +"Why is it so difficult, my dear?" she returned. "I don't see it +myself." + +"To give an opinion—" + +"On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT'S true." + +I didn't mean that, because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a +good deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my guardian. +I said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his +profession—we thought—and that his kindness and gentleness to Miss +Flite were above all praise. + +"You do him justice!" said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. "You +define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession +faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he +is not without faults, love." + +"None of us are," said I. + +"Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to +correct," returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. "I +am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, as a +third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself." + +I said I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have +been otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the +pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned. + +"You are right again, my dear," the old lady retorted, "but I don't +refer to his profession, look you." + +"Oh!" said I. + +"No," said she. "I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is +always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has +been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really +cared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this to do any +harm or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still, +it's not right, you know; is it?" + +"No," said I, as she seemed to wait for me. + +"And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear." + +I supposed it might. + +"Therefore, I have told him many times that he really should be more +careful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. And he +has always said, ‘Mother, I will be; but you know me better than +anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm—in short, mean +nothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no +justification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an +indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and +introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear," +said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, "regarding your +dear self, my love?" + +"Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?" + +"Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek +his fortune and to find a wife—when do you mean to seek YOUR fortune +and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!" + +I don't think I did blush—at all events, it was not important if I +did—and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had +no wish to change it. + +"Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to +come for you, my love?" said Mrs. Woodcourt. + +"If you believe you are a good prophet," said I. + +"Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very +worthy, much older—five and twenty years, perhaps—than yourself. +And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy." + +"That is a good fortune," said I. "But why is it to be mine?" + +"My dear," she returned, "there's suitability in it—you are so busy, +and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there's +suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love, +will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than I +shall." + +It was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think it +did. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night +uncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to +confess it even to Ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still. I +would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old +lady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me +the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was +a story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth. +Now I suspected that she was very cunning, next moment I believed her +honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And after +all, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? Why could +not I, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by +her fire and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least +as well as to anybody else, and not trouble myself about the harmless +things she said to me? Impelled towards her, as I certainly was, for +I was very anxious that she should like me and was very glad indeed +that she did, why should I harp afterwards, with actual distress and +pain, on every word she said and weigh it over and over again in +twenty scales? Why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house, +and confidential to me every night, when I yet felt that it was +better and safer somehow that she should be there than anywhere else? +These were perplexities and contradictions that I could not account +for. At least, if I could—but I shall come to all that by and by, +and it is mere idleness to go on about it now. + +So when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but was +relieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down, and Caddy brought +such a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation. + +First Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that I +was the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was no +news at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then Caddy +told us that she was going to be married in a month and that if Ada +and I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the +world. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we never +should have done talking about it, we had so much to say to Caddy, +and Caddy had so much to say to us. + +It seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his +bankruptcy—"gone through the Gazette," was the expression Caddy +used, as if it were a tunnel—with the general clemency and +commiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in +some blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had +given up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should +think, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied +every one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. So, he had +been honourably dismissed to "the office" to begin the world again. +What he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said he was a +"custom-house and general agent," and the only thing I ever +understood about that business was that when he wanted money more +than usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found +it. + +As soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn +lamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden +(where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting +the horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves +with it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr. +Turveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had +deferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had +become excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop, thus +familiarized with the idea of his son's marriage, had worked up his +parental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being +near at hand and had given his gracious consent to the young couple +commencing housekeeping at the academy in Newman Street when they +would. + +"And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?" + +"Oh! Poor Pa," said Caddy, "only cried and said he hoped we might get +on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so before Prince, +he only said so to me. And he said, ‘My poor girl, you have not been +very well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you +mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder +him than marry him—if you really love him.'" + +"And how did you reassure him, Caddy?" + +"Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and +hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying myself. +But I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped +our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in +of an evening and that I hoped and thought I could be a better +daughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy's coming +to stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and said the children +were Indians." + +"Indians, Caddy?" + +"Yes," said Caddy, "wild Indians. And Pa said"—here she began to +sob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world—"that +he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their +being all tomahawked together." + +Ada suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did +not mean these destructive sentiments. + +"No, of course I know Pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering in +their blood," said Caddy, "but he means that they are very +unfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in +being Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems +unnatural to say so." + +I asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed. + +"Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther," she returned. "It's impossible to +say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough; +and when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was +I don't know what—a steeple in the distance," said Caddy with a +sudden idea; "and then she shakes her head and says ‘Oh, Caddy, +Caddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the Borrioboola +letters." + +"And about your wardrobe, Caddy?" said I. For she was under no +restraint with us. + +"Well, my dear Esther," she returned, drying her eyes, "I must do the +best I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind +remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question +concerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and +would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor +cares." + +Caddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother, +but mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am +afraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much +to admire in the good disposition which had survived under such +discouragement that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) proposed a +little scheme that made her perfectly joyful. This was her staying +with us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all +three contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and +saving, and doing the very best we could think of to make the most of +her stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was, +we took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out +again in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be +squeezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby had found in the +docks I suppose, but which he at all events gave her. What my +guardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would +be difficult to say, but we thought it right to compound for no more +than her wedding-dress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise, and +if Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat +down to work. + +She was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her +fingers as much as she had been used to ink them. She could not help +reddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and partly +with vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon got over +that and began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, and my +darling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner out of the town, +and I, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible. + +Over and above this, Caddy was very anxious "to learn housekeeping," +as she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her learning +housekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that I +laughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical confusion when she +proposed it. However, I said, "Caddy, I am sure you are very welcome +to learn anything that you can learn of ME, my dear," and I showed +her all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. You would have +supposed that I was showing her some wonderful inventions, by her +study of them; and if you had seen her, whenever I jingled my +housekeeping keys, get up and attend me, certainly you might have +thought that there never was a greater imposter than I with a blinder +follower than Caddy Jellyby. + +So what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and +backgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the +three weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see +what could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind to take +care of my guardian. + +When I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging in +Hatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, where +preparations were in progress too—a good many, I observed, for +enhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting +the newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house—but +our great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the +wedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some +faint sense of the occasion. + +The latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs. +Jellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the +back one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with +waste-paper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be +littered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong +coffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by +appointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a +decline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby came home, +he usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. There he got +something to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then, +feeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about Hatton +Garden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down +the house as they had always been accustomed to do. + +The production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable +condition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, I +proposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on +her marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should +confine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a +clean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good deal of +attention, the lattice-work up her back having widened considerably +since I first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a +dustman's horse. + +Thinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means +of approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look +at it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome +boy was gone. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," said she, rising from her desk with her +usual sweetness of temper, "these are really ridiculous preparations, +though your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. There is +something so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being +married! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss!" + +She came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes +in her customary far-off manner. They suggested one distinct idea to +her, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, "My +good Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have +been equipped for Africa!" + +On our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked me whether this +troublesome business was really to take place next Wednesday. And on +my replying yes, she said, "Will my room be required, my dear Miss +Summerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers away." + +I took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be wanted +and that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. "Well, my +dear Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Jellyby, "you know best, I dare say. +But by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has embarrassed me to that +extent, overwhelmed as I am with public business, that I don't know +which way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday +afternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious." + +"It is not likely to occur again," said I, smiling. "Caddy will be +married but once, probably." + +"That's true," Mrs. Jellyby replied; "that's true, my dear. I suppose +we must make the best of it!" + +The next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed on the +occasion. I thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely +from her writing-table while Caddy and I discussed it, occasionally +shaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a superior +spirit who could just bear with our trifling. + +The state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion +in which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at +length we devised something not very unlike what a common-place +mother might wear on such an occasion. The abstracted manner in which +Mrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on +by the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then +observe to me how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to +Africa, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour. + +The lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if +Mrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's or +Saint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size +of the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to +be dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the family which it +had been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those +preparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been +possible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic +object which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee +to the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate +upon it. + +Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he +was at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he +saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among +all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. But such +wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were +opened—bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's caps, +letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood, +wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, +footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's bonnets, books +with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out +by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, +heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, +umbrellas—that he looked frightened, and left off again. But he came +regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head +against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known +how. + +"Poor Pa!" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when +we really had got things a little to rights. "It seems unkind to +leave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first +knew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's +useless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. We +never have a servant who don't drink. Ma's ruinous to everything." + +Mr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low +indeed and shed tears, I thought. + +"My heart aches for him; that it does!" sobbed Caddy. "I can't help +thinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince, +and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a +disappointed life!" + +"My dear Caddy!" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the +wail. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three +words together. + +"Yes, Pa!" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him +affectionately. + +"My dear Caddy," said Mr. Jellyby. "Never have—" + +"Not Prince, Pa?" faltered Caddy. "Not have Prince?" + +"Yes, my dear," said Mr. Jellyby. "Have him, certainly. But, never +have—" + +I mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that +Richard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after +dinner without saying anything. It was a habit of his. He opened his +mouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy +manner. + +"What do you wish me not to have? Don't have what, dear Pa?" asked +Caddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck. + +"Never have a mission, my dear child." + +Mr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and +this was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to +expressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question. I suppose he +had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been +completely exhausted long before I knew him. + +I thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have left off serenely looking +over her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve o'clock +before we could obtain possession of the room, and the clearance it +required then was so discouraging that Caddy, who was almost tired +out, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. But she soon +cheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed. + +In the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity +of soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. The plain +breakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly charming. But +when my darling came, I thought—and I think now—that I never had +seen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's. + +We made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put Peepy at +the head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal dress, +and they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried to think +that she was going away from them and hugged them over and over again +until we brought Prince up to fetch her away—when, I am sorry to +say, Peepy bit him. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop downstairs, in +a state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly blessing Caddy +and giving my guardian to understand that his son's happiness was his +own parental work and that he sacrificed personal considerations to +ensure it. "My dear sir," said Mr. Turveydrop, "these young people +will live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation, +and they shall not want the shelter of my roof. I could have +wished—you will understand the allusion, Mr. Jarndyce, for you +remember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent—I could have +wished that my son had married into a family where there was more +deportment, but the will of heaven be done!" + +Mr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were of the party—Mr. Pardiggle, an +obstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who +was always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or Mrs. +Pardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. Mr. Quale, with his hair +brushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very much, was +also there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the +accepted of a young—at least, an unmarried—lady, a Miss Wisk, who +was also there. Miss Wisk's mission, my guardian said, was to show +the world that woman's mission was man's mission and that the only +genuine mission of both man and woman was to be always moving +declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. +The guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's, +all devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned, +there was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the +ticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected +home, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church +was like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was +his mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms +of coolness with the whole of his large family, completed the party. + +A party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly +have been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as the +domestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them; +indeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat +down to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in +the narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of +her tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a +mission—except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly +said, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission—cared at all +for anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only +one infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and +applying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as Miss Wisk +was that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation +of woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. Mrs. Jellyby, all the +while, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but +Borrioboola-Gha. + +But I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride +home instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr. +Jellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. Turveydrop, with +his hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman +like a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig, +stood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the +ceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say enough to do +it justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as prepossessing in +appearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings, +as part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with +her calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all +the company. + +We duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of +the table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen +upstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was +Turveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an +agreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such transports +of kicking grief that I could do nothing on being sent for but accede +to the proposal that he should be admitted to the breakfast table. So +he came down and sat in my lap; and Mrs. Jellyby, after saying, in +reference to the state of his pinafore, "Oh, you naughty Peepy, what +a shocking little pig you are!" was not at all discomposed. He was +very good except that he brought down Noah with him (out of an ark I +had given him before we went to church) and WOULD dip him head first +into the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth. + +My guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his +amiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial +company. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or +her, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about even +that as part of a world in which there was anything else; but my +guardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of Caddy and the +honour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly. +What we should have done without him, I am afraid to think, for all +the company despising the bride and bridegroom and old Mr. +Turveydrop—and old Mr. Thurveydrop, in virtue of his deportment, +considering himself vastly superior to all the company—it was a very +unpromising case. + +At last the time came when poor Caddy was to go and when all her +property was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take her +and her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see Caddy clinging, +then, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's neck with +the greatest tenderness. + +"I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma," sobbed +Caddy. "I hope you forgive me now." + +"Oh, Caddy, Caddy!" said Mrs. Jellyby. "I have told you over and over +again that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it." + +"You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are +sure before I go away, Ma?" + +"You foolish Caddy," returned Mrs. Jellyby, "do I look angry, or have +I inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?" + +"Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!" + +Mrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. "You romantic child," +said she, lightly patting Caddy's back. "Go along. I am excellent +friends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very happy!" + +Then Caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers as +if he were some poor dull child in pain. All this took place in the +hall. Her father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and +sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he +found some consolation in walls. I almost think he did. + +And then Prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion and +respect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was +overwhelming. + +"Thank you over and over again, father!" said Prince, kissing his +hand. "I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration +regarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy." + +"Very," sobbed Caddy. "Ve-ry!" + +"My dear son," said Mr. Turveydrop, "and dear daughter, I have done +my duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks +down on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my +recompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and daughter, I +believe?" + +"Dear father, never!" cried Prince. + +"Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!" said Caddy. + +"This," returned Mr. Turveydrop, "is as it should be. My children, my +home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave +you; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you contemplate an +absence of a week, I think?" + +"A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week." + +"My dear child," said Mr. Turveydrop, "let me, even under the present +exceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. It is highly +important to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all +neglected, are apt to take offence." + +"This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner." + +"Good!" said Mr. Turveydrop. "You will find fires, my dear Caroline, +in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes, +Prince!" anticipating some self-denying objection on his son's part +with a great air. "You and our Caroline will be strange in the upper +part of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my +apartment. Now, bless ye!" + +They drove away, and whether I wondered most at Mrs. Jellyby or at +Mr. Turveydrop, I did not know. Ada and my guardian were in the same +condition when we came to talk it over. But before we drove away too, +I received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from Mr. +Jellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed +them earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure of his +meaning that I said, quite flurried, "You are very welcome, sir. Pray +don't mention it!" + +"I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian," said I when we +three were on our road home. + +"I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see." + +"Is the wind in the east to-day?" I ventured to ask him. + +He laughed heartily and answered, "No." + +"But it must have been this morning, I think," said I. + +He answered "No" again, and this time my dear girl confidently +answered "No" too and shook the lovely head which, with its blooming +flowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. "Much YOU +know of east winds, my ugly darling," said I, kissing her in my +admiration—I couldn't help it. + +Well! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a +long time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it +gives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind +where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there +was sunshine and summer air. + +CHAPTER XXXI + +Nurse and Patient + +I had not been at home again many days when one evening I went +upstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder and +see how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying +business to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen, +but in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, +and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into +corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters +Charley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and +tottering, it so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert +at other things and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched. + +"Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which +it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed +in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. If we only get to make it +round, we shall be perfect, Charley." + +Then I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join +Charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot. + +"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time." + +Charley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut +her cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride +and half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy. + +"Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person of +the name of Jenny?" + +"A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes." + +"She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said +you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady's little +maid—meaning you for the young lady, miss—and I said yes, miss." + +"I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley." + +"So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to +live—she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of +Liz, miss?" + +"I think I do, Charley, though not by name." + +"That's what she said!" returned Charley. "They have both come back, +miss, and have been tramping high and low." + +"Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss." If Charley could only have made the letters in her copy +as round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they would +have been excellent. "And this poor person came about the house three +or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss—all she wanted, +she said—but you were away. That was when she saw me. She saw me +a-going about, miss," said Charley with a short laugh of the greatest +delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like your maid!" + +"Did she though, really, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss!" said Charley. "Really and truly." And Charley, with +another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round +again and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired of +seeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing +before me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner, +and her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the +pleasantest way. + +"And where did you see her, Charley?" said I. + +My little maid's countenance fell as she replied, "By the doctor's +shop, miss." For Charley wore her black frock yet. + +I asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It +was some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down to +Saint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy, +Charley said. No father, no mother, no any one. "Like as Tom might +have been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father," said Charley, +her round eyes filling with tears. + +"And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?" + +"She said, miss," returned Charley, "how that he had once done as +much for her." + +My little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded so +closely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had no great +difficulty in reading her thoughts. "Well, Charley," said I, "it +appears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to +Jenny's and see what's the matter." + +The alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and +having dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and +made herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her +readiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to any one, went +out. + +It was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The +rain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission +for many days. None was falling just then, however. The sky had +partly cleared, but was very gloomy—even above us, where a few stars +were shining. In the north and north-west, where the sun had set +three hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and +awful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea +stricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards London a lurid glare +overhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two +lights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an +unearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and +on all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was +as solemn as might be. + +I had no thought that night—none, I am quite sure—of what was soon +to happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when we had +stopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when we went +upon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself +as being something different from what I then was. I know it was then +and there that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with +that spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and +time, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and +the sound of wheels coming down the miry hill. + +It was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place +where we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it quieter than +I had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. The kilns were +burning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale-blue glare. + +We came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the +patched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the +little child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the +poor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported +by the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He held under his +arm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried +to warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and window shook. The +place was closer than before and had an unhealthy and a very peculiar +smell. + +I had not lifted my veil when I first spoke to the woman, which was +at the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly and +stared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror. + +His action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident +that I stood still instead of advancing nearer. + +"I won't go no more to the berryin ground," muttered the boy; "I +ain't a-going there, so I tell you!" + +I lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low +voice, "Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head," and +said to him, "Jo, Jo, what's the matter?" + +"I know wot she's come for!" cried the boy. + +"Who?" + +"The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the +berryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't like the +name on it. She might go a-berryin ME." His shivering came on again, +and as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel. + +"He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am," said +Jenny softly. "Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo." + +"Is it?" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm +held out above his burning eyes. "She looks to me the t'other one. It +ain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to me the +t'other one." + +My little Charley, with her premature experience of illness and +trouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up +to him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick nurse. +Except that no such attendant could have shown him Charley's youthful +face, which seemed to engage his confidence. + +"I say!" said the boy. "YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'other +lady?" + +Charley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him +and made him as warm as she could. + +"Oh!" the boy muttered. "Then I s'pose she ain't." + +"I came to see if I could do you any good," said I. "What is the +matter with you?" + +"I'm a-being froze," returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze +wandering about me, "and then burnt up, and then froze, and then +burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all sleepy, and +all a-going mad-like—and I'm so dry—and my bones isn't half so much +bones as pain." + +"When did he come here?" I asked the woman. + +"This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had +known him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?" + +"Tom-all-Alone's," the boy replied. + +Whenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very +little while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll it +heavily, and speak as if he were half awake. + +"When did he come from London?" I asked. + +"I come from London yes'day," said the boy himself, now flushed and +hot. "I'm a-going somewheres." + +"Where is he going?" I asked. + +"Somewheres," repeated the boy in a louder tone. "I have been moved +on, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the t'other one +give me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and +a-driving of me—what have I done to her?—and they're all a-watching +and a-driving of me. Every one of 'em's doing of it, from the time +when I don't get up, to the time when I don't go to bed. And I'm +a-going somewheres. That's where I'm a-going. She told me, down in +Tom-all-Alone's, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the +Stolbuns Road. It's as good as another." + +He always concluded by addressing Charley. + +"What is to be done with him?" said I, taking the woman aside. "He +could not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew +where he was going!" + +"I know no more, ma'am, than the dead," she replied, glancing +compassionately at him. "Perhaps the dead know better, if they could +only tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and I've +given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will +take him in (here's my pretty in the bed—her child, but I call it +mine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home +and find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and might do him +a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!" + +The other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up +with a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When the +little child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it out +of bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know. There she +was, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she were living +in Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again. + +The friend had been here and there, and had been played about from +hand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too +early for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last +it was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent +her back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it +appeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in +evading their duties instead of performing them. And now, after all, +she said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was +frightened too, "Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's +not far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for +him!" They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his +hand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he +shuffled out of the house. + +"Give me the child, my dear," said its mother to Charley, "and thank +you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my +master don't fall out with me, I'll look down by the kiln by and by, +where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!" She +hurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her +child at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her +drunken husband. + +I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I should +bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave +the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did, +and whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before +me, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln. + +I think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under +his arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried +his wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went +bare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we +called to him and again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing +with his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his +shivering fit. + +I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some +shelter for the night. + +"I don't want no shelter," he said; "I can lay amongst the warm +bricks." + +"But don't you know that people die there?" replied Charley. + +"They dies everywheres," said the boy. "They dies in their +lodgings—she knows where; I showed her—and they dies down in +Tom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according +to what I see." Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, "If she ain't the +t'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?" + +Charley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightened at +myself when the boy glared on me so. + +But he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding that +he acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home. It +was not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but one man. I +doubted if we should have got home without assistance, the boy's +steps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint, however, +and was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may say so strange +a thing. + +Leaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the +window-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be +called wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went into +the drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. Skimpole, +who had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice, +and never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing +everything he wanted. + +They came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servants had +gathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with +Charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found +in a ditch. + +"This is a sorrowful case," said my guardian after asking him a +question or two and touching him and examining his eyes. "What do you +say, Harold?" + +"You had better turn him out," said Mr. Skimpole. + +"What do you mean?" inquired my guardian, almost sternly. + +"My dear Jarndyce," said Mr. Skimpole, "you know what I am: I am a +child. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a constitutional +objection to this sort of thing. I always had, when I was a medical +man. He's not safe, you know. There's a very bad sort of fever about +him." + +Mr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again +and said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we stood +by. + +"You'll say it's childish," observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily at +us. "Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never +pretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only +put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you +know. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or +five shillings, or five pound ten—you are arithmeticians, and I am +not—and get rid of him!" + +"And what is he to do then?" asked my guardian. + +"Upon my life," said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his +engaging smile, "I have not the least idea what he is to do then. But +I have no doubt he'll do it." + +"Now, is it not a horrible reflection," said my guardian, to whom I +had hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, "is it +not a horrible reflection," walking up and down and rumpling his +hair, "that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, his +hospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well taken +care of as any sick boy in the kingdom?" + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "you'll pardon the +simplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is +perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisoner +then?" + +My guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of +amusement and indignation in his face. + +"Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should +imagine," said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. "It seems to me +that it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more +respectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into +prison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and +consequently more of a certain sort of poetry." + +"I believe," returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, "that +there is not such another child on earth as yourself." + +"Do you really?" said Mr. Skimpole. "I dare say! But I confess I +don't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to +invest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt +born with an appetite—probably, when he is in a safer state of +health, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young +friend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young +friend says in effect to society, ‘I am hungry; will you have the +goodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' Society, which has taken +upon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and +professes to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT produce that +spoon; and our young friend, therefore, says ‘You really must excuse +me if I seize it.' Now, this appears to me a case of misdirected +energy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain +amount of romance; and I don't know but what I should be more +interested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case, +than merely as a poor vagabond—which any one can be." + +"In the meantime," I ventured to observe, "he is getting worse." + +"In the meantime," said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, "as Miss Summerson, +with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. +Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still +worse." + +The amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget. + +"Of course, little woman," observed my guardian, turning to me, "I +can ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there +to enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his +condition, that is necessary. But it's growing late, and is a very +bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the +wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till +morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We'll do that." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano as +we moved away. "Are you going back to our young friend?" + +"Yes," said my guardian. + +"How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce!" returned Mr. Skimpole +with playful admiration. "You don't mind these things; neither does +Miss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do +anything. Such is will! I have no will at all—and no won't—simply +can't." + +"You can't recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?" said my +guardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half +angrily, for he never seemed to consider Mr. Skimpole an accountable +being. + +"My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his +pocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. You +can tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he +sleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But it +is mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss +Summerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the +administration of detail that she knows all about it." + +We went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed to +do, which Charley explained to him again and which he received with +the languid unconcern I had already noticed, wearily looking on at +what was done as if it were for somebody else. The servants +compassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help, +we soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the house +carried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was pleasant to +observe how kind they were to him and how there appeared to be a +general impression among them that frequently calling him "Old Chap" +was likely to revive his spirits. Charley directed the operations and +went to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little +stimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. My +guardian himself saw him before he was left for the night and +reported to me when he returned to the growlery to write a letter on +the boy's behalf, which a messenger was charged to deliver at +day-light in the morning, that he seemed easier and inclined to +sleep. They had fastened his door on the outside, he said, in case of +his being delirious, but had so arranged that he could not make any +noise without being heard. + +Ada being in our room with a cold, Mr. Skimpole was left alone all +this time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic +airs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with +great expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the +drawing-room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come +into his head "apropos of our young friend," and he sang one about a +peasant boy, + + "Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, + Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home." + +quite exquisitely. It was a song that always made him cry, he told +us. + +He was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely +chirped—those were his delighted words—when he thought by what a +happy talent for business he was surrounded. He gave us, in his glass +of negus, "Better health to our young friend!" and supposed and gaily +pursued the case of his being reserved like Whittington to become +Lord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would establish the +Jarndyce Institution and the Summerson Almshouses, and a little +annual Corporation Pilgrimage to St. Albans. He had no doubt, he +said, that our young friend was an excellent boy in his way, but his +way was not the Harold Skimpole way; what Harold Skimpole was, Harold +Skimpole had found himself, to his considerable surprise, when he +first made his own acquaintance; he had accepted himself with all his +failings and had thought it sound philosophy to make the best of the +bargain; and he hoped we would do the same. + +Charley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, from +my window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and I went +to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered. + +There was more movement and more talking than usual a little before +daybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my +window and asked one of our men who had been among the active +sympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the +house. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window. + +"It's the boy, miss," said he. + +"Is he worse?" I inquired. + +"Gone, miss." + +"Dead!" + +"Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off." + +At what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed +hopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and +the lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he +had got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty +cart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and +it looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was +missing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to +the painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and +that, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary +horror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of +us, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in +his usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend +that he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him, +and that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off. + +Every possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The +brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women +were particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and +nobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had for +some time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit +of any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and +stack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the +boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing +was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From the time when +he was left in the loft-room, he vanished. + +The search continued for five days. I do not mean that it ceased even +then, but that my attention was then diverted into a current very +memorable to me. + +As Charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and as +I sat opposite to her at work, I felt the table tremble. Looking up, +I saw my little maid shivering from head to foot. + +"Charley," said I, "are you so cold?" + +"I think I am, miss," she replied. "I don't know what it is. I can't +hold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss. +Don't be uneasy, I think I'm ill." + +I heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door of +communication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked +it. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the +key. + +Ada called to me to let her in, but I said, "Not now, my dearest. Go +away. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you presently." Ah! +It was a long, long time before my darling girl and I were companions +again. + +Charley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill. I moved her to my +room, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse her. I +told my guardian all about it, and why I felt it was necessary that I +should seclude myself, and my reason for not seeing my darling above +all. At first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and +even reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter +saying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she +loved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than +the garden. After that she came beneath the window even oftener than +she had come to the door, and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet +voice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love +it then, when I stood behind the window-curtain listening and +replying, but not so much as looking out! How did I learn to love it +afterwards, when the harder time came! + +They put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door +wide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had vacated +that part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. There +was not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they +would all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night +without the least fear or unwillingness, but I thought it best to +choose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could +trust to come and go with all precaution. Through her means I got out +to take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting +Ada, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than +in any other respect. + +And thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy +danger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day +and night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such +a gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding her +head in my arms—repose would come to her, so, when it would come to +her in no other attitude—I silently prayed to our Father in heaven +that I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught +me. + +I was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would +change and be disfigured, even if she recovered—she was such a child +with her dimpled face—but that thought was, for the greater part, +lost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and her mind +rambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and the little +children, she still knew me so far as that she would be quiet in my +arms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur out the +wanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I used to +think, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby +who had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their +need was dead! + +There were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me, +telling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was +sure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley would +speak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could +to comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was +the only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's +daughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. And +Charley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and +prayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and +given back to his poor children, and that if she should never get +better and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come +into Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. Then would I show +Tom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on +earth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven! + +But of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there +was not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. And +there were many, many when I thought in the night of the last high +belief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in God, on +the part of her poor despised father. + +And Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the +dangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend. +The hope that never had been given, from the first, of Charley being +in outward appearance Charley any more soon began to be encouraged; +and even that prospered, and I saw her growing into her old childish +likeness again. + +It was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood +out in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at +last took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, I +felt that I was stricken cold. + +Happily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed +again and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of her +illness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I felt at +tea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that I was +rapidly following in Charley's steps. + +I was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to +return my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk +with her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression that +I had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside +myself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at +times—with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too +large altogether. + +In the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare +Charley, with which view I said, "You're getting quite strong, +Charley, are you not?" + +"Oh, quite!" said Charley. + +"Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?" + +"Quite strong enough for that, miss!" cried Charley. But Charley's +face fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in MY +face; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my bosom, +and said "Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!" and a great deal +more out of the fullness of her grateful heart. + +"Now, Charley," said I after letting her go on for a little while, +"if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. And +unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for +yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley." + +"If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss," said Charley. "Oh, my +dear, my dear! If you'll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, my +dear!"—how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as she +clung to my neck, I never can remember without tears—"I'll be good." + +So I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good. + +"Trust in me now, if you please, miss," said Charley quietly. "I am +listening to everything you say." + +"It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor +to-night that I don't think I am well and that you are going to nurse +me." + +For that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. "And in the +morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be +quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, Charley, +and say I am asleep—that I have rather tired myself, and am asleep. +At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one +come." + +Charley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the +doctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask +relative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. I +have a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day, +and of day melting into night again; but I was just able on the first +morning to get to the window and speak to my darling. + +On the second morning I heard her dear voice—Oh, how dear +now!—outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech +being painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer +softly, "Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!" + +"How does my own Pride look, Charley?" I inquired. + +"Disappointed, miss," said Charley, peeping through the curtain. + +"But I know she is very beautiful this morning." + +"She is indeed, miss," answered Charley, peeping. "Still looking up +at the window." + +With her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when +raised like that! + +I called Charley to me and gave her her last charge. + +"Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way +into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to the +last! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for +one moment as I lie here, I shall die." + +"I never will! I never will!" she promised me. + +"I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for a +little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you, +Charley; I am blind." + +CHAPTER XXXII + +The Appointed Time + +It is night in Lincoln's Inn—perplexed and troublous valley of the +shadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day—and +fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled down +the crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. The bell that rings at nine +o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are +shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of +sleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase windows +clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a +fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at +the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little +patches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and +conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes +of sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an +acre of land. Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their +species linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they may give, +for every day, some good account at last. + +In the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and +bottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and +supper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, whose respective sons, engaged +with a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, have been +lying in ambush about the by-ways of Chancery Lane for some hours and +scouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the confusion of +passengers—Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins have but now exchanged +congratulations on the children being abed, and they still linger on +a door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook and his lodger, and +the fact of Mr. Krook's being "continually in liquor," and the +testamentary prospects of the young man are, as usual, the staple of +their conversation. But they have something to say, likewise, of the +Harmonic Meeting at the Sol's Arms, where the sound of the piano +through the partly opened windows jingles out into the court, and +where Little Swills, after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar +like a very Yorick, may now be heard taking the gruff line in a +concerted piece and sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to +"Listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!" Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. +Piper compare opinions on the subject of the young lady of +professional celebrity who assists at the Harmonic Meetings and who +has a space to herself in the manuscript announcement in the window, +Mrs. Perkins possessing information that she has been married a year +and a half, though announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted siren, +and that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's Arms every +night to receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments. +"Sooner than which, myself," says Mrs. Perkins, "I would get my +living by selling lucifers." Mrs. Piper, as in duty bound, is of the +same opinion, holding that a private station is better than public +applause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, Mrs. +Perkins') respectability. By this time the pot-boy of the Sol's Arms +appearing with her supper-pint well frothed, Mrs. Piper accepts that +tankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good night to Mrs. +Perkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever since it was +fetched from the same hostelry by young Perkins before he was sent to +bed. Now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court +and a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen +in upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too, +the policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be +suspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis +that every one is either robbing or being robbed. + +It is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and there +is a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine steaming +night to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome trades, the +sewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and give the +registrar of deaths some extra business. It may be something in the +air—there is plenty in it—or it may be something in himself that is +in fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is very ill at ease. He +comes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty +times an hour. He has been doing so ever since it fell dark. Since +the Chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early to-night, +Mr. Weevle has been down and up, and down and up (with a cheap tight +velvet skull-cap on his head, making his whiskers look out of all +proportion), oftener than before. + +It is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for +he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the +secret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery of which he is a +partaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby haunts what +seems to be its fountain-head—the rag and bottle shop in the court. +It has an irresistible attraction for him. Even now, coming round by +the Sol's Arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out +at the Chancery Lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated +after-supper stroll of ten minutes' long from his own door and back +again, Mr. Snagsby approaches. + +"What, Mr. Weevle?" says the stationer, stopping to speak. "Are YOU +there?" + +"Aye!" says Weevle, "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby." + +"Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?" the stationer +inquires. + +"Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not +very freshening," Weevle answers, glancing up and down the court. + +"Very true, sir. Don't you observe," says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to +sniff and taste the air a little, "don't you observe, Mr. Weevle, +that you're—not to put too fine a point upon it—that you're rather +greasy here, sir?" + +"Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in +the place to-night," Mr. Weevle rejoins. "I suppose it's chops at the +Sol's Arms." + +"Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh?" Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes +again. "Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook at +the Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning 'em, sir! +And I don't think"—Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then +spits and wipes his mouth—"I don't think—not to put too fine a +point upon it—that they were quite fresh when they were shown the +gridiron." + +"That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather." + +"It IS a tainting sort of weather," says Mr. Snagsby, "and I find it +sinking to the spirits." + +"By George! I find it gives me the horrors," returns Mr. Weevle. + +"Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, +with a black circumstance hanging over it," says Mr. Snagsby, looking +in past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and then falling +back a step to look up at the house. "I couldn't live in that room +alone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and worried of an +evening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and +stand here sooner than sit there. But then it's very true that you +didn't see, in your room, what I saw there. That makes a difference." + +"I know quite enough about it," returns Tony. + +"It's not agreeable, is it?" pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his cough +of mild persuasion behind his hand. "Mr. Krook ought to consider it +in the rent. I hope he does, I am sure." + +"I hope he does," says Tony. "But I doubt it." + +"You find the rent too high, do you, sir?" returns the stationer. +"Rents ARE high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but the +law seems to put things up in price. Not," adds Mr. Snagsby with his +apologetic cough, "that I mean to say a word against the profession I +get my living by." + +Mr. Weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at the +stationer. Mr. Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward for a +star or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly seeing his +way out of this conversation. + +"It's a curious fact, sir," he observes, slowly rubbing his hands, +"that he should have been—" + +"Who's he?" interrupts Mr. Weevle. + +"The deceased, you know," says Mr. Snagsby, twitching his head and +right eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on +the button. + +"Ah, to be sure!" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of +the subject. "I thought we had done with him." + +"I was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should +have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that +you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which +there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation," +says Mr. Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have +unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr. Weevle, "because +I have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses and done +really very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir," adds Mr. +Snagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter. + +"It's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers Weevle, once more +glancing up and down the court. + +"Seems a fate in it, don't there?" suggests the stationer. + +"There does." + +"Just so," observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. "Quite +a fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid I must bid +you good night"—Mr. Snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go, +though he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since +he stopped to speak—"my little woman will be looking for me else. +Good night, sir!" + +If Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of +looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His +little woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's Arms all this +time and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over +her head, honouring Mr. Weevle and his doorway with a searching +glance as she goes past. + +"You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says Mr. Weevle to +himself; "and I can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever you +are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER +coming!" + +This fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr. Weevle softly holds up his +finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door. +Then they go upstairs, Mr. Weevle heavily, and Mr. Guppy (for it is +he) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back room, they +speak low. + +"I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming here," +says Tony. + +"Why, I said about ten." + +"You said about ten," Tony repeats. "Yes, so you did say about ten. +But according to my count, it's ten times ten—it's a hundred +o'clock. I never had such a night in my life!" + +"What has been the matter?" + +"That's it!" says Tony. "Nothing has been the matter. But here have I +been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have had the +horrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE'S a blessed-looking +candle!" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his +table with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet. + +"That's easily improved," Mr. Guppy observes as he takes the snuffers +in hand. + +"IS it?" returns his friend. "Not so easily as you think. It has been +smouldering like that ever since it was lighted." + +"Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?" inquires Mr. Guppy, looking +at him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on the +table. + +"William Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the downs. It's this +unbearably dull, suicidal room—and old Boguey downstairs, I +suppose." Mr. Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him with +his elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender, +and looks at the fire. Mr. Guppy, observing him, slightly tosses his +head and sits down on the other side of the table in an easy +attitude. + +"Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?" + +"Yes, and he—yes, it was Snagsby," said Mr. Weevle, altering the +construction of his sentence. + +"On business?" + +"No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to prose." + +"I thought it was Snagsby," says Mr. Guppy, "and thought it as well +that he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone." + +"There we go again, William G.!" cried Tony, looking up for an +instant. "So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to +commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!" + +Mr. Guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the +conversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round the +room at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, terminating his survey +with the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf, in which she +is represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the terrace, and a +vase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, and a prodigious +piece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the prodigious piece of +fur, and a bracelet on her arm. + +"That's very like Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Guppy. "It's a speaking +likeness." + +"I wish it was," growls Tony, without changing his position. "I +should have some fashionable conversation, here, then." + +Finding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a +more sociable humour, Mr. Guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack and +remonstrates with him. + +"Tony," says he, "I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for +no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I +do, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who +has an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. But there are bounds +to these things when an unoffending party is in question, and I will +acknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think your manner on the +present occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly." + +"This is strong language, William Guppy," returns Mr. Weevle. + +"Sir, it may be," retorts Mr. William Guppy, "but I feel strongly +when I use it." + +Mr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy +to think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got the +advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured +remonstrance. + +"No! Dash it, Tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to be +careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited +image imprinted on his 'eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those +chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, possess in +yourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the +taste. It is not—happily for you, perhaps, and I may wish that I +could say the same—it is not your character to hover around one +flower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry +you through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am sure, to wound +even your feelings without a cause!" + +Tony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, saying +emphatically, "William Guppy, drop it!" Mr. Guppy acquiesces, with +the reply, "I never should have taken it up, Tony, of my own accord." + +"And now," says Tony, stirring the fire, "touching this same bundle +of letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have +appointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?" + +"Very. What did he do it for?" + +"What does he do anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his +birthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll +have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day." + +"He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?" + +"Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw him +to-night, about eight—helped him to shut up his shop—and he had got +the letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed 'em +me. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his +cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I +heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming +like the wind, the only song he knows—about Bibo, and old Charon, +and Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been +as quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole." + +"And you are to go down at twelve?" + +"At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a +hundred." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy after considering a little with his legs +crossed, "he can't read yet, can he?" + +"Read! He'll never read. He can make all the letters separately, and +he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on +that much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too old to +acquire the knack of it now—and too drunk." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, "how do +you suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?" + +"He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he has +and how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye +alone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and +asked me what it meant." + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again, +"should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?" + +"A woman's. Fifty to one a lady's—slopes a good deal, and the end of +the letter ‘n,' long and hasty." + +Mr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue, +generally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. As he +is going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. It +takes his attention. He stares at it, aghast. + +"Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is +there a chimney on fire?" + +"Chimney on fire!" + +"Ah!" returns Mr. Guppy. "See how the soot's falling. See here, on my +arm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won't blow +off—smears like black fat!" + +They look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a +little way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and says +it's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to +Mr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms. + +"And it was then," resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable +aversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before +the fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table, with their heads +very near together, "that he told you of his having taken the bundle +of letters from his lodger's portmanteau?" + +"That was the time, sir," answers Tony, faintly adjusting his +whiskers. "Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable +William Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and +advising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots." + +The light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed +by Mr. Weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he abandons that and +his whiskers together, and after looking over his shoulder, appears +to yield himself up a prey to the horrors again. + +"You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and +to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's +the arrangement, isn't it, Tony?" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting +his thumb-nail. + +"You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed." + +"I tell you what, Tony—" + +"You can't speak too low," says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his +sagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper. + +"I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another +packet like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one +while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy." + +"And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with +his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely +than not," suggests Tony. + +"Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never +did. You found that, and you placed them in my hands—a legal friend +of yours—for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible, +won't they?" + +"Ye-es," is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission. + +"Why, Tony," remonstrates his friend, "how you look! You don't doubt +William Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?" + +"I don't suspect anything more than I know, William," returns the +other gravely. + +"And what do you know?" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little; +but on his friend's once more warning him, "I tell you, you can't +speak too low," he repeats his question without any sound at all, +forming with his lips only the words, "What do you know?" + +"I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in +secrecy, a pair of conspirators." + +"Well!" says Mr. Guppy. "And we had better be that than a pair of +noodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it's +the only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?" + +"Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable, +after all." + +Mr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the +mantelshelf and replies, "Tony, you are asked to leave that to the +honour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve that +friend in those chords of the human mind which—which need not be +called into agonizing vibration on the present occasion—your friend +is no fool. What's that?" + +"It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen and +you'll hear all the bells in the city jangling." + +Both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant, +resounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than +their situations. When these at length cease, all seems more +mysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of +whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, +haunted by the ghosts of sound—strange cracks and tickings, the +rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of +dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter +snow. So sensitive the two friends happen to be that the air is full +of these phantoms, and the two look over their shoulders by one +consent to see that the door is shut. + +"Yes, Tony?" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting +his unsteady thumb-nail. "You were going to say, thirdly?" + +"It's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in +the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it." + +"But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony." + +"May be not, still I don't like it. Live here by yourself and see how +YOU like it." + +"As to dead men, Tony," proceeds Mr. Guppy, evading this proposal, +"there have been dead men in most rooms." + +"I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and—and +they let you alone," Tony answers. + +The two look at each other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark to +the effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he +hopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by stirring +the fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart had been +stirred instead. + +"Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about," says he. "Let +us open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It's too close." + +He raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in +and half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to +admit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and looking +up, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the rolling of +distant carriages, and the new expression that there is of the stir +of men, they find to be comfortable. Mr. Guppy, noiselessly tapping +on the window-sill, resumes his whispering in quite a light-comedy +tone. + +"By the by, Tony, don't forget old Smallweed," meaning the younger of +that name. "I have not let him into this, you know. That grandfather +of his is too keen by half. It runs in the family." + +"I remember," says Tony. "I am up to all that." + +"And as to Krook," resumes Mr. Guppy. "Now, do you suppose he really +has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to +you, since you have been such allies?" + +Tony shakes his head. "I don't know. Can't imagine. If we get through +this business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be better +informed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, when he don't +know himself? He is always spelling out words from them, and chalking +them over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and +what that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be +the waste-paper he bought it as, for anything I can say. It's a +monomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. He has been +going to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, I should +judge, from what he tells me." + +"How did he first come by that idea, though? That's the question," +Mr. Guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic +meditation. "He may have found papers in something he bought, where +papers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd +head from the manner and place of their concealment that they are +worth something." + +"Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he may +have been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS got, +and by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court and +hearing of documents for ever," returns Mr. Weevle. + +Mr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and balancing +all these possibilities in his mind, continues thoughtfully to tap +it, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, until he hastily +draws his hand away. + +"What, in the devil's name," he says, "is this! Look at my fingers!" + +A thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch +and sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil +with some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder. + +"What have you been doing here? What have you been pouring out of +window?" + +"I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have been +here!" cries the lodger. + +And yet look here—and look here! When he brings the candle here, +from the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away +down the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool. + +"This is a horrible house," says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the window. +"Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off." + +He so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he +has not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood +silently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and +all those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various +heights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is quiet +again, the lodger says, "It's the appointed time at last. Shall I +go?" + +Mr. Guppy nods and gives him a "lucky touch" on the back, but not +with the washed hand, though it is his right hand. + +He goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the +fire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or two the +stairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back. + +"Have you got them?" + +"Got them! No. The old man's not there." + +He has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his +terror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly, +"What's the matter?" + +"I couldn't make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked +in. And the burning smell is there—and the soot is there, and the +oil is there—and he is not there!" Tony ends this with a groan. + +Mr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and +holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has +retreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something +on the ground before the fire. There is a very little fire left in +the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room +and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and +table, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as +usual. On one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat. + +"Look!" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to these +objects with a trembling finger. "I told you so. When I saw him last, +he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung +his cap on the back of the chair—his coat was there already, for he +had pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up—and I left +him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that +crumbled black thing is upon the floor." + +Is he hanging somewhere? They look up. No. + +"See!" whispers Tony. "At the foot of the same chair there lies a +dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went +round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, +before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it +fall." + +"What's the matter with the cat?" says Mr. Guppy. "Look at her!" + +"Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place." + +They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains +where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground +before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the +light. + +Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a +little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to +be steeped in something; and here is—is it the cinder of a small +charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it +coal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away, +striking out the light and overturning one another into the street, +is all that represents him. + +Help, help, help! Come into this house for heaven's sake! Plenty will +come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court, true +to his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord +chancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under +all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice +is done. Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute +it to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you +will, it is the same death eternally—inborn, inbred, engendered +in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that +only—spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that +can be died. + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +Interlopers + +Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons +who attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in +the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly +fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute +perquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and +write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note +down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery +Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the +most intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and +horrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be +remembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the +public mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the +first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general +marine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits, +far advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable +coincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be +recollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a +well-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question +on the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr. +James George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible) +how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was +observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical +occurrence which forms the subject of that present account +transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr. +Swills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby, +has himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M. +Melvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise +engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called +Harmonic Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at +the Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of +George the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously +affected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression +at the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he +hadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills is +entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in +the same court and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and +Mrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded +them as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook, +the unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more the two +gentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy +catastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the +court (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's +Arms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about +it. + +The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, +and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the +ill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued +from her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a +bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts +its door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for +the Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house +has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in +brandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard +what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his +shoulders and said, "There'll be a run upon us!" In the first outcry, +young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph +at a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to +that fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and +torches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all +chinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in +company with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in +charge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of +sixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid +form. + +Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and +are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only +stay there. "This is not a time," says Mr. Bogsby, "to haggle about +money," though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; +"give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever +you put a name to." + +Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names +to so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to +put a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to +all new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of +what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile, +one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing +it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from +outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well +know what they are up to in there. + +Thus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of +bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, +still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little +money left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with slow-retreating +steps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an +executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire +that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh, +whether or no. + +And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court +has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen +drowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors +instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court +itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and +beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half +dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who +are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do +to keep the door. + +"Good gracious, gentlemen!" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. "What's this +I hear!" + +"Why, it's true," returns one of the policemen. "That's what it is. +Now move on here, come!" + +"Why, good gracious, gentlemen," says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly +backed away, "I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven +o'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here." + +"Indeed?" returns the policeman. "You will find the young man next +door then. Now move on here, some of you." + +"Not hurt, I hope?" says Mr. Snagsby. + +"Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!" + +Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his +troubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle +languishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him +of exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke. + +"And Mr. Guppy likewise!" quoth Mr. Snagsby. "Dear, dear, dear! What +a fate there seems in all this! And my lit—" + +Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the +words "my little woman." For to see that injured female walk into the +Sol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the +beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, +strikes him dumb. + +"My dear," says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, "will you +take anything? A little—not to put too fine a point upon it—drop of +shrub?" + +"No," says Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My love, you know these two gentlemen?" + +"Yes!" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their +presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye. + +The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs. +Snagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask. + +"My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do +it." + +"I can't help my looks," says Mrs. Snagsby, "and if I could I +wouldn't." + +Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, "Wouldn't you +really, my dear?" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble and +says, "This is a dreadful mystery, my love!" still fearfully +disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye. + +"It IS," returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, "a dreadful +mystery." + +"My little woman," urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, "don't for +goodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me +in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good +Lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any +person, my dear?" + +"I can't say," returns Mrs. Snagsby. + +On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby "can't +say" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have +had something to do with it. He has had something—he don't know +what—to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it +is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the +present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his +handkerchief and gasps. + +"My life," says the unhappy stationer, "would you have any objections +to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your +conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?" + +"Why do YOU come here?" inquires Mrs. Snagsby. + +"My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has +happened to the venerable party who has been—combusted." Mr. Snagsby +has made a pause to suppress a groan. "I should then have related +them to you, my love, over your French roll." + +"I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby." + +"Every—my lit—" + +"I should be glad," says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his +increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, "if you would +come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than +anywhere else." + +"My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to +go." + +Mr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs. +Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with +which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the +Sol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible +for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of +the whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. +Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are +so great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up +to justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with +the utmost rigour of the law if guilty. + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into +Lincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as +many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may. + +"There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony," says +Mr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the +square, "for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must, +with very little delay, come to an understanding." + +"Now, I tell you what, William G.!" returns the other, eyeing his +companion with a bloodshot eye. "If it's a point of conspiracy, you +needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, +and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire +next or blowing up with a bang." + +This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy +that his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, "Tony, I should have +thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson +to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived." To which +Mr. Weevle returns, "William, I should have thought it would have +been a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you +lived." To which Mr. Guppy says, "Who's conspiring?" To which Mr. +Jobling replies, "Why, YOU are!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "No, I +am not." To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, "Yes, you are!" To which +Mr. Guppy retorts, "Who says so?" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, "I +say so!" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, "Oh, indeed?" To which Mr. +Jobling retorts, "Yes, indeed!" And both being now in a heated state, +they walk on silently for a while to cool down again. + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy then, "if you heard your friend out instead of +flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is +hasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all +that is calculated to charm the eye—" + +"Oh! Blow the eye!" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. "Say what +you have got to say!" + +Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy +only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of +injury in which he recommences, "Tony, when I say there is a point on +which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite +apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is +professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what +facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that +we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the +death of this unfortunate old mo—gentleman?" (Mr. Guppy was going to +say "mogul," but thinks "gentleman" better suited to the +circumstances.) + +"What facts? THE facts." + +"The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are"—Mr. Guppy tells them +off on his fingers—"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him +last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and +how we made it." + +"Yes," says Mr. Weevle. "Those are about the facts." + +"We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric +way, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you +were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on +account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with +you, was called down—and so forth. The inquiry being only into the +circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary +to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?" + +"No!" returns Mr. Weevle. "I suppose not." + +"And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?" says the injured Guppy. + +"No," returns his friend; "if it's nothing worse than this, I +withdraw the observation." + +"Now, Tony," says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him +slowly on, "I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you +have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live +at that place?" + +"What do you mean?" says Tony, stopping. + +"Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your +continuing to live at that place?" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on +again. + +"At what place? THAT place?" pointing in the direction of the rag and +bottle shop. + +Mr. Guppy nods. + +"Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that +you could offer me," says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring. + +"Do you mean it though, Tony?" + +"Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that," +says Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder. + +"Then the possibility or probability—for such it must be +considered—of your never being disturbed in possession of those +effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no +relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find +out what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at +all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?" says Mr. Guppy, +biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation. + +"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?" +cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself." + +"Oh! I, Tony!" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. "I have never lived +there and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got +one." + +"You are welcome to it," rejoins his friend, "and—ugh!—you may make +yourself at home in it." + +"Then you really and truly at this point," says Mr. Guppy, "give up +the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?" + +"You never," returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, "said +a truer word in all your life. I do!" + +While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square, +on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to +the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the +multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach +stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. +Smallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy. + +An air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall +hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed +the elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, "How +de do, sir! How de do!" + +"What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, +I wonder!" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar. + +"My dear sir," cries Grandfather Smallweed, "would you do me a +favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me +into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring +their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, +sir?" + +Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, "The +public-house in the court?" And they prepare to bear the venerable +burden to the Sol's Arms. + +"There's your fare!" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce +grin and shaking his incapable fist at him. "Ask me for a penny more, +and I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy +with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't +squeeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my +bones!" + +It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an +apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With +no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of +divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he +fulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman +is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms. + +"Oh, Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from +an arm-chair. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and +pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling +poll-parrot! Sit down!" + +This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a +propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds +herself on her feet to amble about and "set" to inanimate objects, +accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A +nervous affection has probably as much to do with these +demonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but +on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion +with the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is +seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held +her down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with +great volubility, the endearing epithet of "a pig-headed jackdaw," +repeated a surprising number of times. + +"My dear sir," Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. +Guppy, "there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either +of you?" + +"Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it." + +"You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it!" + +The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the +compliment. + +"My dear friends," whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his +hands, "I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy +office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother." + +"Eh?" says Mr. Guppy. + +"Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend—her only relation. We were +not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on +terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric—he was very +eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I +shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look +after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I +have come down," repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air +towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to look after the +property." + +"I think, Small," says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, "you might have +mentioned that the old man was your uncle." + +"You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to +be the same," returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye. +"Besides, I wasn't proud of him." + +"Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or +not," says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye. + +"He never saw me in his life to know me," observed Small; "I don't +know why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!" + +"No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored," the old +gentleman strikes in, "but I have come to look after the property—to +look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make +good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, +of Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as +my solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye. +Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but +Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of +your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years +of age." + +Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up, +"Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of +money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of +bank-notes!" + +"Will somebody give me a quart pot?" exclaims her exasperated +husband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within +his reach. "Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody +hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, +you dog, you brimstone barker!" Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the +highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her +grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin +at the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping +into his chair in a heap. + +"Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good," says the voice from +within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. "I +have come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the +police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the +property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the +property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch +the property!" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and +putting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and +punching, he still repeats like an echo, "The—the property! The +property! Property!" + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having +relinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited +countenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. +But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed +interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in +the chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is +answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that +the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due +time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert +his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next +house and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks +like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary. + +The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court +still makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle. +Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there +really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be +made him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members +of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the +foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump +and under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings +take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson +enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that +these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals +and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up "The popular song of King +Death, with chorus by the whole strength of the company," as the +great Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that "J. +G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in +consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the +bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a +late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation." There is +one point connected with the deceased upon which the court is +particularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin +should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the +undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that +he has received orders to construct "a six-footer," the general +solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. +Smallweed's conduct does him great honour. + +Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable +excitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and +carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same +intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and +phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of +these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that +the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being +reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence +for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical +Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical +jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess +Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of +Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard +of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the +testimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who +WOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative +testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once +upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a +case occurred and even to write an account of it—still they regard +the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such +by-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the +court understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the +greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms. +Then there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground +and figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish +coast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, and in +Mrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws +in upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact, +considerably larger, making a very temple of it. Similarly, being +permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts +that apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high, +at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time the two +gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist +at the philosophical disputations—go everywhere and listen to +everybody—and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour and +writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper. + +At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that +the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and +tells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that "that +would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined +house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't +account for!" After which the six-footer comes into action and is +much admired. + +In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when +he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual +and can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the +mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of +bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings +draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the +catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady +Dedlock. + +For which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense +of guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms +have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at +the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests +to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; +don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage +at the door; but he wants to see my Lady too. + +Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a +fellow-gentleman in waiting, "to pitch into the young man"; but his +instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the +young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young +man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him. + +Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering +everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or +wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it—? No, it's no ghost, but +fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed. + +"I have to beg your ladyship's pardon," Mr. Guppy stammers, very +downcast. "This is an inconvenient time—" + +"I told you, you could come at any time." She takes a chair, looking +straight at him as on the last occasion. + +"Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable." + +"You can sit down." There is not much affability in her tone. + +"I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down +and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I mentioned +when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship." + +"Have you come merely to say so?" + +"Merely to say so, your ladyship." Mr. Guppy besides being depressed, +disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the +splendour and beauty of her appearance. + +She knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a +grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and +coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least +perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also +that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and +further from her. + +She will not speak, it is plain. So he must. + +"In short, your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent +thief, "the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a +sudden end, and—" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the +sentence. + +"And the letters are destroyed with the person?" + +Mr. Guppy would say no if he could—as he is unable to hide. + +"I believe so, your ladyship." + +If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he +could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly +put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it. + +He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure. + +"Is this all you have to say?" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard +him out—or as nearly out as he can stumble. + +Mr. Guppy thinks that's all. + +"You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this +being the last time you will have the opportunity." + +Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, +by any means. + +"That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!" +And she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy +out. + +But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old +man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his +quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the +handle of the door—comes in—and comes face to face with the young +man as he is leaving the room. + +One glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the +blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks +out. Another instant, close again. + +"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. +It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the +room was empty. I beg your pardon!" + +"Stay!" She negligently calls him back. "Remain here, I beg. I am +going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!" + +The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes +that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well. + +"Aye, aye?" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent +brows, though he has no need to look again—not he. "From Kenge and +Carboy's, surely?" + +"Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir." + +"To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!" + +"Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of +the profession." + +"Thank you, Mr. Guppy!" + +Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his +old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her +down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and +rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening. + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +A Turn of the Screw + +"Now, what," says Mr. George, "may this be? Is it blank cartridge or +ball? A flash in the pan or a shot?" + +An open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it +seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, brings +it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left +hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that +side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy +himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and +thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it +every now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won't +do. "Is it," Mr. George still muses, "blank cartridge or ball?" + +Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the +distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time +and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to +the girl he left behind him. + +"Phil!" The trooper beckons as he calls him. + +Phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were +going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a +bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon +his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the +brush. + +"Attention, Phil! Listen to this." + +"Steady, commander, steady." + +"‘Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for +my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' date +drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the +sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become +due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same +on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do you make of that, +Phil?" + +"Mischief, guv'ner." + +"Why?" + +"I think," replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle +in his forehead with the brush-handle, "that mischeevious +consequences is always meant when money's asked for." + +"Lookye, Phil," says the trooper, sitting on the table. "First and +last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in +interest and one thing and another." + +Phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very +unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the +transaction as being made more promising by this incident. + +"And lookye further, Phil," says the trooper, staying his premature +conclusions with a wave of his hand. "There has always been an +understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it +has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?" + +"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last." + +"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself." + +"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?" + +"The same." + +"Guv'ner," says Phil with exceeding gravity, "he's a leech in his +dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his +twistings, and a lobster in his claws." + +Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after +waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of +him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has +in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium +that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George, +having folded the letter, walks in that direction. + +"There IS a way, commander," says Phil, looking cunningly at him, "of +settling this." + +"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could." + +Phil shakes his head. "No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS +a way," says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; "what I'm +a-doing at present." + +"Whitewashing." + +Phil nods. + +"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the +Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my +old scores? YOU'RE a moral character," says the trooper, eyeing him +in his large way with no small indignation; "upon my life you are, +Phil!" + +Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting +earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush +and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, +that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much +as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when +steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice +is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at +his master, hobbles up, saying, "Here's the guv'ner, Mrs. Bagnet! +Here he is!" and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet, +appears. + +The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the +year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very +clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so +interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from +another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an +umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of +the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in +this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a +metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model +of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a +pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious +capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article +long associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of +a flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays—an +appearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a +series of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet +bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her +well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the +instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or +bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of +tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a +sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. +Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest +sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs. +Bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in George's Shooting +Gallery. + +"Well, George, old fellow," says she, "and how do YOU do, this +sunshiny morning?" + +Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long +breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a +faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such +positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench, +unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms, +and looks perfectly comfortable. + +Mr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and +with Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod +and smile. + +"Now, George," said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, "here we are, Lignum and +myself"—she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on +account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old +regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment +to the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy—"just +looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that +security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he'll sign it +like a man." + +"I was coming to you this morning," observes the trooper reluctantly. + +"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out +early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and +came to you instead—as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close now, +and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what's +the matter, George?" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk. +"You don't look yourself." + +"I am not quite myself," returns the trooper; "I have been a little +put out, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. "George!" holding up +her forefinger. "Don't tell me there's anything wrong about that +security of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the +children!" + +The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage. + +"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and +occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. "If you +have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, and +if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of +being sold up—and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as +print—you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly. +I tell you, cruelly, George. There!" + +Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his +large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from +a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet. + +"George," says that old girl, "I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed +of you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have done it! I +always knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but I +never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was +for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a +hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta +and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had +the heart to serve us so. Oh, George!" Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her +cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, "How could you do +it?" + +Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if +the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. George, who +has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and +straw bonnet. + +"Mat," says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still +looking at his wife, "I am sorry you take it so much to heart, +because I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have, +this morning, received this letter"—which he reads aloud—"but I +hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you +say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody's +way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it's +impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family +better than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust you'll look upon me as +forgivingly as you can. Don't think I've kept anything from you. I +haven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour." + +"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, "will you tell +him my opinion?" + +"Oh! Why didn't he marry," Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and +half crying, "Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he wouldn't +have got himself into these troubles." + +"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "puts it correct—why didn't you?" + +"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope," returns the +trooper. "Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe +Pouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me. +It's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off every +morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum +wanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe that I'll leave you +or yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself first. I only wish," says +the trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, "that I +knew of any one who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores." + +"Old girl," murmurs Mr. Bagnet, "give him another bit of my mind." + +"George," says the old girl, "you are not so much to be blamed, on +full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the +means." + +"And that was like me!" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his +head. "Like me, I know." + +"Silence! The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "is correct—in her way of +giving my opinions—hear me out!" + +"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security, +George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things +considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an +honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, +though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what +it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our +heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and +forgive all round!" + +Mrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her +husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and holds +them while he speaks. + +"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge +this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has +gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough +here, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was expected of +it, and it's not—in short, it's not the mint. It was wrong in me to +take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step, +and I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to +overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very +much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself." With these +concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he +holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a +broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession +and were immediately going to be shot with all military honours. + +"George, hear me out!" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. "Old +girl, go on!" + +Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to +observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that +it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr. +Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold +harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, entirely +assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to +the enemy's camp. + +"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George," says Mrs. Bagnet, +patting him on the shoulder. "I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am +sure you'll bring him through it." + +The trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring +Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak, +basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of +her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of +mollifying Mr. Smallweed. + +Whether there are two people in England less likely to come +satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr. +George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned. +Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square +shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits +two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the Smallweedy +affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the +streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing +his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer +to Mrs. Bagnet's late sally. + +"George, you know the old girl—she's as sweet and as mild as milk. +But touch her on the children—or myself—and she's off like +gunpowder." + +"It does her credit, Mat!" + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, "the old +girl—can't do anything—that don't do her credit. More or less. I +never say so. Discipline must be maintained." + +"She's worth her weight in gold," says the trooper. + +"In gold?" says Mr. Bagnet. "I'll tell you what. The old girl's +weight—is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight—in any +metal—for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's metal is +far more precious—than the preciousest metal. And she's ALL metal!" + +"You are right, Mat!" + +"When she took me—and accepted of the ring—she 'listed under me and +the children—heart and head; for life. She's that earnest," says Mr. +Bagnet, "and true to her colours—that, touch us with a finger—and +she turns out—and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires +wide—once in a way—at the call of duty—look over it, George. For +she's loyal!" + +"Why, bless her, Mat," returns the trooper, "I think the higher of +her for it!" + +"You are right!" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though +without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as high of +the old girl—as the rock of Gibraltar—and still you'll be thinking +low—of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline +must be maintained." + +These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather +Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who, +having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but +indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she +consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred +to give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words +on her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus +privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the +drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and Mrs. +Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing. + +"My dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean +affectionate arms of his stretched forth. "How de do? How de do? Who +is our friend, my dear friend?" + +"Why this," returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at +first, "is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, +you know." + +"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!" The old man looks at him under his hand. + +"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air, +sir!" + +No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet and +one for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of +bending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose. + +"Judy," says Mr. Smallweed, "bring the pipe." + +"Why, I don't know," Mr. George interposes, "that the young woman +need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not +inclined to smoke it to-day." + +"Ain't you?" returns the old man. "Judy, bring the pipe." + +"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed," proceeds George, "that I find myself in +rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your +friend in the city has been playing tricks." + +"Oh, dear no!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "He never does that!" + +"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be +HIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter." + +Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of the +letter. + +"What does it mean?" asks Mr. George. + +"Judy," says the old man. "Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did +you say what does it mean, my good friend?" + +"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed," urges the trooper, +constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he +can, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad +knuckles of the other on his thigh, "a good lot of money has passed +between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are +both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am +prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to +keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you +before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning, +because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of +the money—" + +"I DON'T know it, you know," says the old man quietly. + +"Why, con-found you—it, I mean—I tell you so, don't I?" + +"Oh, yes, you tell me so," returns Grandfather Smallweed. "But I +don't know it." + +"Well!" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. "I know it." + +Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, "Ah! That's quite +another thing!" And adds, "But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's +situation is all one, whether or no." + +The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair +comfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his +own terms. + +"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew +Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his +good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas I'm a +harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence +come natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now, +Mr. Smallweed," says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds +in his soldierly mode of doing business, "although you and I are good +friends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I +can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely." + +"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. George." +(There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed +to-day.) + +"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as +your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!" + +"Ha ha ha!" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner +and with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity +is much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man. + +"Come!" says the sanguine George. "I am glad to find we can be +pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend +Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you +please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend +Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll just +mention to him what our understanding is." + +Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, "Oh, good +gracious! Oh!" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found +to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin +has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr. +Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound. + +"But I think you asked me, Mr. George"—old Smallweed, who all this +time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now—"I think you +asked me, what did the letter mean?" + +"Why, yes, I did," returns the trooper in his off-hand way, "but I +don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant." + +Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's +head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces. + +"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble +you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!" + +The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity +has now attained its profoundest point. + +"Go to the devil!" repeats the old man. "I'll have no more of your +pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon, +too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before) +and show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend, +there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these +blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!" + +He vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on +the shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his +amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is +instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr. +George awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect +abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window +like a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving +something in his mind. + +"Come, Mat," says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, "we must +try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?" + +Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour, +replies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, "If my +old girl had been here—I'd have told him!" Having so discharged +himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and +marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder. + +When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn +is engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them, +for when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell +being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings +forth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has +nothing to say to them and they had better not wait. They do wait, +however, with the perseverance of military tactics, and at last the +bell rings again and the client in possession comes out of Mr. +Tulkinghorn's room. + +The client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell, +housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a +fair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is treated +with some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his pew to +show her through the outer office and to let her out. The old lady is +thanking him for his attention when she observes the comrades in +waiting. + +"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?" + +The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George +not turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr. Bagnet +takes upon himself to reply, "Yes, ma'am. Formerly." + +"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the +sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you, +gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once who went +for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold +way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask +your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!" + +"Same to you, ma'am!" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will. + +There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's +voice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But +Mr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the fire-place +(calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he does not look +round until she has gone away and the door is closed upon her. + +"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the +almanac at last. "Don't be cast down! ‘Why, soldiers, why—should we +be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!" + +The clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there +and Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility, +"Let 'em come in then!" they pass into the great room with the +painted ceiling and find him standing before the fire. + +"Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last time I +saw you that I don't desire your company here." + +Sergeant replies—dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual +manner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage—that he has +received this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has +been referred there. + +"I have nothing to say to you," rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. "If you get +into debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. You have +no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?" + +Sergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money. + +"Very well! Then the other man—this man, if this is he—must pay it +for you." + +Sergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the +money either. + +"Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued +for it and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it. +You are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence and +escape scot-free." + +The lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George +hopes he will have the goodness to—"I tell you, sergeant, I have +nothing to say to you. I don't like your associates and don't want +you here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice and is +not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs +to me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in +Clifford's Inn." + +"I must make an apology to you, sir," says Mr. George, "for pressing +myself upon you with so little encouragement—which is almost as +unpleasant to me as it can be to you—but would you let me say a +private word to you?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into +one of the window recesses. "Now! I have no time to waste." In the +midst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp +look at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back to the +light and to have the other with his face towards it. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "this man with me is the other party +implicated in this unfortunate affair—nominally, only nominally—and +my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account. +He is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the +Royal Artillery—" + +"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal +Artillery establishment—officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, +guns, and ammunition." + +"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and +family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through +this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any +other consideration what you wanted of me the other day." + +"Have you got it here?" + +"I have got it here, sir." + +"Sergeant," the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far +more hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, "make +up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have +finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it. +Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you +have brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you +choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you—I +can replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far +besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet +shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded +against to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the +creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you +decided?" + +The trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long +breath, "I must do it, sir." + +So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes +the undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who +has all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand +on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems +exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his +sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded +paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow. +"'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from +him." + +Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression, +and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn +when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and lays it in his +desk with a countenance as unperturbable as death. + +Nor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same +frigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, "You can go. Show +these men out, there!" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's +residence to dine. + +Boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former +repast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal +in the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that +rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a +hint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot +of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow +of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first +Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to +restore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their +existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome +acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to +deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth. + +But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. +During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr. +Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at +dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his +pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay +by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco. + +Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the +invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, "Old +girl!" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter. + +"Why, George!" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. "How +low you are!" + +"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not." + +"He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!" cries little Malta. + +"Because he ain't well, I think, mother," adds Quebec. + +"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!" returns the +trooper, kissing the young damsels. "But it's true," with a sigh, +"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!" + +"George," says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, "if I thought you cross +enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife—who +could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it +almost—said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you +now." + +"My kind soul of a darling," returns the trooper. "Not a morsel of +it." + +"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was +that I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through it. +And you HAVE brought him through it, noble!" + +"Thankee, my dear!" says George. "I am glad of your good opinion." + +In giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly +shake—for she took her seat beside him—the trooper's attention is +attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she +plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in +the corner, and beckons that fifer to him. + +"See there, my boy," says George, very gently smoothing the mother's +hair with his hand, "there's a good loving forehead for you! All +bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the +weather through following your father about and taking care of you, +but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree." + +Mr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, +the highest approbation and acquiescence. + +"The time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of +your mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and +re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take +care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, ‘I never +whitened a hair of her dear head—I never marked a sorrowful line in +her face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you +are a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!" + +Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside +his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him, +that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit. + +CHAPTER XXXV + +Esther's Narrative + +I lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life +became like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time +so much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness +and inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many +days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance +where there was little or no separation between the various stages of +my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I +seemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my +experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy +shore. + +My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to +think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest +of the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went +home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish +shadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before +how short life really was and into how small a space the mind could +put it. + +While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became +confused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a +child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I +was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each +station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile +them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can +quite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this +source. + +For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my +disorder—it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both +nights and days in it—when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever +striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in +a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew +perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was +in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew +her very well; yet I would find myself complaining, "Oh, more of +these never-ending stairs, Charley—more and more—piled up to the +sky', I think!" and labouring on again. + +Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in +great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry +circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my +only prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such +inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing? + +Perhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious +and the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make +others unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering +them. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we +might be the better able to alleviate their intensity. + +The repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful +rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself +and could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, with no +other emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind—this +state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when +I first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and +knew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough +that I should see again. + +I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her +calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her +praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to +leave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak, +"Never, my sweet girl, never!" and I had over and over again reminded +Charley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived +or died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with +her little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast. + +But now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every +day more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my +dear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my +lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could +see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two +rooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from +the open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house +and the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had +always been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of +my heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my +strength. + +By and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so +strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done +for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little, +and so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to +myself, and interested, and attached to life again. + +How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed +with pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with +Charley! The little creature—sent into the world, surely, to +minister to the weak and sick—was so happy, and so busy, and stopped +so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and +fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so +glad, that I was obliged to say, "Charley, if you go on in this way, +I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I +was!" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face +here and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into +the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I +watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and +the pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its +white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and +beautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the +bedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley +that was not new to my thoughts. + +First I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh +and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had +been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was +brighter than before. + +"Yet, Charley," said I, looking round, "I miss something, surely, +that I am accustomed to?" + +Poor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head +as if there were nothing absent. + +"Are the pictures all as they used to be?" I asked her. + +"Every one of them, miss," said Charley. + +"And the furniture, Charley?" + +"Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss." + +"And yet," said I, "I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it +is, Charley! It's the looking-glass." + +Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten +something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there. + +I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could +thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back, +and when she came—at first pretending to smile, but as she drew +nearer to me, looking grieved—I took her in my arms and said, "It +matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face +very well." + +I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great +chair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on +Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too, +but what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that. + +My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was +now no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came +one morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his +embrace and say, "My dear, dear girl!" I had long known—who could +know better?—what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his +heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to +fill such a place in it? "Oh, yes!" I thought. "He has seen me, and +he loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of +me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!" + +He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a +little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed +it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there +never can be, a pleasanter manner. + +"My little woman," said he, "what a sad time this has been. Such an +inflexible little woman, too, through all!" + +"Only for the best, guardian," said I. + +"For the best?" he repeated tenderly. "Of course, for the best. But +here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has +your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has +every one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has +even poor Rick been writing—to ME too—in his anxiety for you!" + +I had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him +so. + +"Why, no, my dear," he replied. "I have thought it better not to +mention it to her." + +"And you speak of his writing to YOU," said I, repeating his +emphasis. "As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as +if he could write to a better friend!" + +"He thinks he could, my love," returned my guardian, "and to many a +better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while +unable to write to you with any hope of an answer—wrote coldly, +haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we +must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and +Jarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes. +I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two +angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their +nature." + +"It has not changed yours, guardian." + +"Oh, yes, it has, my dear," he said laughingly. "It has made the +south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and +suspects me—goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect +me. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his +and what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of the +mountains of Wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so +long bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the extinction +of my own original right (which I can't either, and no human power +ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do +it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature +than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart +and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the +Accountant-General—and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into +a pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendent wickedness." + +"IS it possible, guardian," I asked, amazed, "that Richard can be +suspicious of you?" + +"Ah, my love, my love," he said, "it is in the subtle poison of such +abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects +lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS fault." + +"But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian." + +"It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within +the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By +little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, +and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything +around him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient with +poor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts like +his have I seen in my time turned by the same means!" + +I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that +his benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little. + +"We must not say so, Dame Durden," he cheerfully replied; "Ada is the +happier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these +young creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that +we might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. But +it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of +Rick's cradle." + +"But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach +him what a false and wretched thing it is?" + +"We WILL hope so, my Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, "and that it may not +teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There +are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men +too, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would +not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years—within +two—within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so +unfortunate," here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking +aloud, "cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it +is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his +interests and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates, +disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and +patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers +after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well, +well, well! Enough of this, my dear!" + +He had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness +was so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and +loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in +this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong +and try to set him right. + +"There are better subjects than these," said my guardian, "for such a +joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a +commission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk. +When shall Ada come to see you, my love?" + +I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the +absent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be +changed by no change in my looks. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "as I have shut her out so long—though +indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me—" + +"I know it well, Dame Durden, well." + +He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and +affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my +heart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. "Yes, +yes, you are tired," said he. "Rest a little." + +"As I have kept Ada out so long," I began afresh after a short while, +"I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian. +It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley +and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and +if I had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by +the sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with +me again, I think it would be better for us." + +I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used +to my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so +ardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was +sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew +he would pass it over. + +"Our spoilt little woman," said my guardian, "shall have her own way +even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears +downstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry, +breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before, +that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already +turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth +he'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!" + +And my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary +beginning such as "My dear Jarndyce," but rushing at once into the +words, "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take +possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one +o'clock, P.M.," and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most +emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had +quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing +heartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a letter of +thanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable +one to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I should have +liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold. + +"Now, little housewife," said my guardian, looking at his watch, "I +was strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired +too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one +other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were +ill, made nothing of walking down here—twenty miles, poor soul, in a +pair of dancing shoes—to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at +home, or she would have walked back again." + +The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it! + +"Now, pet," said my guardian, "if it would not be irksome to you to +admit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save +Boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you +would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I—though +my eminent name is Jarndyce—could do in a lifetime." + +I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image +of the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson +on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not +tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always +pitied her, never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little +power to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so +glad before. + +We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and share +my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon +my couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such +blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to +undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired +to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some +one and win some love to myself if I could came back into my mind +with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed and +all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I +were weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the +old childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old +peace had not departed from it. + +My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk +about our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the +window-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage +to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without +her seeing me. + +On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran +into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from +her very heart of hearts, "My dear Fitz Jarndyce!" fell upon my neck +and kissed me twenty times. + +"Dear me!" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, "I have +nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a +pocket handkerchief." + +Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it, +for she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding +tears for the next ten minutes. + +"With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce," she was careful to explain. +"Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at +having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder +of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court +regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs—" + +Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the +place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked +unwilling to pursue the suggestion. + +"Ve-ry right!" said Miss Flite, "Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly +indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am +afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a +little—rambling you know," said Miss Flite, touching her forehead. +"Nothing more." + +"What were you going to tell me?" said I, smiling, for I saw she +wanted to go on. "You have roused my curiosity, and now you must +gratify it." + +Miss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who +said, "If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then," and therein +gratified Miss Flite beyond measure. + +"So sagacious, our young friend," said she to me in her mysterious +way. "Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty +anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow +us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very +ungenteel bonnet—" + +"Jenny, if you please, miss," said Charley. + +"Just so!" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. "Jenny. +Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has +been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz +Jarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little +keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you +know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!" + +"If you please, miss," said Charley, to whom I looked in some +astonishment, "Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a +handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the +baby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was +yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby." + +"Diminutive," whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about +her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. "But exceedingly +sagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any counsel I +ever heard!" + +"Yes, Charley," I returned. "I remember it. Well?" + +"Well, miss," said Charley, "and that's the handkerchief the lady +took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away +with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and +left some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please, +miss!" + +"Why, who can she be?" said I. + +"My love," Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with +her most mysterious look, "in MY opinion—don't mention this to our +diminutive friend—she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married, +you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his +lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the +jeweller!" + +I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an +impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted +by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who, +our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in +arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and +a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought +down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the +entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a +sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant +to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did +honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else. + +When we had finished and had our little dessert before us, +embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the +superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite +was so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her +own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began +by saying "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss +Flite?" + +"Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. +Shortly." + +There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if +I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no +more about it. + +"My father expected a judgment," said Miss Flite. "My brother. My +sister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect." + +"They are all—" + +"Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear," said she. + +As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable +to her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it. + +"Would it not be wiser," said I, "to expect this judgment no more?" + +"Why, my dear," she answered promptly, "of course it would!" + +"And to attend the court no more?" + +"Equally of course," said she. "Very wearing to be always in +expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I +assure you, to the bone!" + +She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed. + +"But, my dear," she went on in her mysterious way, "there's a +dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our +diminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With +good reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T leave +it. And you MUST expect." + +I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently +and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer. + +"Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry +absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To +the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years, +and I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table." + +What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her. + +"Draw," returned Miss Flite. "Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out +of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities +out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. +Cold and glittering devils!" + +She tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly +as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to +fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful +secrets to me. + +"Let me see," said she. "I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever +drew me—before I had ever seen them—what was it I used to do? +Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at +tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business. +We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father +was drawn—slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he +was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind +look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was +drawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was +drawn—swiftly—to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister +was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and +heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of +Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then +I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there." + +Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she +had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon +her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance. + +"You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day. +I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new +faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal +in these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As +my sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of +them say to the new faces, ‘Here's little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new +here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry +good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz +Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do, +when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them +begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love," +speaking low again, "I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in +Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin." + +She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually +softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, +and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely +as she sipped her glass of wine, "Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I +expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, +and confer estates." + +I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad +meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its +way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite +complacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles. + +"But, my dear," she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon +mine. "You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not +once, yet!" + +I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant. + +"My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly +attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite +gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that +will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal." + +"Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now," said I, "that I thought the time +for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite." + +"But, my child," she returned, "is it possible that you don't know +what has happened?" + +"No," said I. + +"Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!" + +"No," said I. "You forget how long I have been here." + +"True! My dear, for the moment—true. I blame myself. But my memory +has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned. +Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a +terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas." + +"Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!" + +"Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all +shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. +Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it +all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything. +Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped +naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to +do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the +poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated +creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when +they got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with +it. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you +shall read it, you shall read it!" + +And I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and +imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the +words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down +the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so +triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and +gallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so +admired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn +people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver. +I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him +in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that +no one—mother, sister, wife—could honour him more than I. I did, +indeed! + +My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as +the evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she +should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full +of the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to +understand in all its details. + +"My dear," said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves, +"my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no +doubt he will. You are of that opinion?" + +That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no. + +"Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?" she asked rather sharply. + +I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men +distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless +occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very +large amount of money. + +"Why, good gracious," said Miss Flite, "how can you say that? Surely +you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in +knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every +sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and +consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't +know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the +land!" + +I am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when +she was very mad indeed. + +And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to +keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that +if he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me +before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done +so, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now +that this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had +had to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as +mine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his +bondage to one whom he had never seen! + +Oh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully +spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all +he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone: +no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please +God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler +way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, +I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than +he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the +journey's end. + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +Chesney Wold + +Charley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into +Lincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of +me until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied us, +and we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and +every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every +passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful +to me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my +illness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of +delight for me. + +My guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our +way down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter, +of which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our +arrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early +summer-time. + +If a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand, +and I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not +have been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for +me and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little +tastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen +times before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that, +however, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight +calmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley +had exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as +tranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to +be able to say to myself after tea, "Esther, my dear, I think you are +quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to +your host." He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own +face, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his +highest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him +in London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were +looking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the +honours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how, +after singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my +little maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage, +but whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and +sent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and +arranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I +should want her no more that night. + +For I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my +own restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be +overcome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh +when I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone, +and therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, "Esther, if you are +to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted, +you must keep your word, my dear." I was quite resolved to keep it, +but I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my +blessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more. + +My hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than +once. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and +went up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little +muslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment +looking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing +else. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the +mirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very +much changed—oh, very, very much. At first my face was so strange to +me that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back +but for the encouragement I have mentioned. Very soon it became more +familiar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better +than I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected, but I +had expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would +have surprised me. + +I had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had +been very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so +good to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and +could stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully. + +One thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I +went to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were +withered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of. +Nobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right +to preserve what he had sent to one so different—whether it was +generous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even +in the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because +I could have loved him—could have been devoted to him. At last I +came to the conclusion that I might keep them if I treasured them +only as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to +be looked back on any more, in any other light. I hope this may not +seem trivial. I was very much in earnest. + +I took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass +when Charley came in on tiptoe. + +"Dear, dear, miss!" cried Charley, starting. "Is that you?" + +"Yes, Charley," said I, quietly putting up my hair. "And I am very +well indeed, and very happy." + +I saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight +off mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I shall not +conceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite conquer, but +they always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed +by me faithfully. + +Wishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits +before Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans with +Charley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out +before breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again +before and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea, +and were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and +explore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to +restoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good +housekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or +drink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the +park but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful +face shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent +nourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby +pony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could +canter—when he would—so easily and quietly that he was a treasure. +In a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called +him, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We arrived at such +a capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and +rather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I patted his neck and +said, "Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter when you know how much +I like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting +stupid and going to sleep," he would give his head a comical shake or +two and set off directly, while Charley would stand still and laugh +with such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. I don't know +who had given Stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as +naturally as his rough coat. Once we put him in a little chaise and +drove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but +all at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take +it ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of +tantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his +ears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped +to think about it. I suppose he came to the decision that it was not +to be borne, for he steadily refused to move until I gave the reins +to Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy +sort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his +ear against my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, "Now, Stubbs, I +feel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride +a little while," for the moment I left him, he stood stock still +again. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in +this order we returned home, to the great delight of the village. + +Charley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I +am sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go +by, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were +faces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown +people before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple +began to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends +was an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and +whitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on +its hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This old lady had a +grandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and +drew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him +up and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was +considered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the +world, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in +which he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way +to America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit +that ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested +with the merit of the whole system. + +Thus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many +children, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so +many cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long +letters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that +little loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of +it at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it. +I felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said, +"Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?" +But when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft +hand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch, +that soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which +suggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle +hearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of +these particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the little +church when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had +to sign the register. + +The bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross +for his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had +known the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl +in the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the +school, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She +came aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and +admiration stood in her bright eyes, "He's a dear good fellow, miss; +but he can't write yet—he's going to learn of me—and I wouldn't +shame him for the world!" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when +there was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter! + +The air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown, +and the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my +old one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so +rosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole +night. + +There was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold +where a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had +been cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the +bright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at +least once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the +Ghost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the +startling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had +heard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and +gave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real +charms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for +violets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild +flowers, she took as much to the spot as I did. + +It would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house +or never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my +arrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious or +uninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this +place wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a +footstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the +lonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock +had impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the +house even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure +were associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they +repelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no +reason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my +story now arrives. + +I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley +was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been +looking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off +and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it +when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The +perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of +the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, +that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and +little it revealed itself to be a woman's—a lady's—Lady Dedlock's. +She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I +observed to my surprise, than was usual with her. + +I was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost +within speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to +continue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so +much by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick +advance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in +her manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a +something in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was +a little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I +had never seen in hers before. + +A dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady +Dedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I +had known her. + +"Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you," she said, now +advancing slowly. "You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very +ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it." + +I could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I could +have stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her hand, and +its deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of +her features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. I cannot +say what was in my whirling thoughts. + +"You are recovering again?" she asked kindly. + +"I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock." + +"Is this your young attendant?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?" + +"Charley," said I, "take your flowers home, and I will follow you +directly." + +Charley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went +her way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside +me. + +I cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw +in her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby. + +I looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I +could not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and +wild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she +caught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me, +and called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and +cried to me, "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy +mother! Oh, try to forgive me!"—when I saw her at my feet on the +bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult +of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was +so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of +likeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her +and remotely think of any near tie between us. + +I raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before +me in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent +words, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her +at MY feet. I told her—or I tried to tell her—that if it were for +me, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive +her, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my +heart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which +nothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for +me, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her +to account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless +her and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that +I only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and +she held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the +summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that +was not at peace. + +"To bless and receive me," groaned my mother, "it is far too late. I +must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. +From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way +before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought +upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it." + +Even in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of +proud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off +again. + +"I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly +for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that +I am!" + +These words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more +terrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her +hands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I +should touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any +endearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, no, +no, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful +everywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only +natural moments of her life. + +My unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly +frantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She could +not have suspected me to be that child before. She had followed me +down here to speak to me but once in all her life. We never could +associate, never could communicate, never probably from that time +forth could interchange another word on earth. She put into my hands +a letter she had written for my reading only and said when I had read +it and destroyed it—but not so much for her sake, since she asked +nothing, as for her husband's and my own—I must evermore consider +her as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in +which I saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for +then I might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she +suffered. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help. +Whether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be +discovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she +had taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection +could come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid. + +"But is the secret safe so far?" I asked. "Is it safe now, dearest +mother?" + +"No," replied my mother. "It has been very near discovery. It was +saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident—to-morrow, +any day." + +"Do you dread a particular person?" + +"Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of +these tears," said my mother, kissing my hands. "I dread one person +very much." + +"An enemy?" + +"Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir +Leicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment, +and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being +master of the mysteries of great houses." + +"Has he any suspicions?" + +"Many." + +"Not of you?" I said alarmed. + +"Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a +standstill, but I can never shake him off." + +"Has he so little pity or compunction?" + +"He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his +calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding +possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent +in it." + +"Could you trust in him?" + +"I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years +will end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the +end be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, +nothing turns me." + +"Dear mother, are you so resolved?" + +"I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with +pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived +many vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie +it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these +woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course +through it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one." + +"Mr. Jarndyce—" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired, +"Does HE suspect?" + +"No," said I. "No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!" And I told +her what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. "But he +is so good and sensible," said I, "that perhaps if he knew—" + +My mother, who until this time had made no change in her position, +raised her hand up to my lips and stopped me. + +"Confide fully in him," she said after a little while. "You have my +free consent—a small gift from such a mother to her injured +child!—but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet." + +I explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now—for my +agitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely +understood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's +voice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood I +had never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep +with, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired +by, made an enduring impression on my memory—I say I explained, or +tried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce, who had been +the best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and +support to her. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one +could help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go +alone. + +"My child, my child!" she said. "For the last time! These kisses for +the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall +meet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have +been so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady +Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched +mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the +reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering +within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And +then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which +it never can!" + +We held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that +she took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with +a last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me +into the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun +and shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which +there had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw +it, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of +my mother's misery. + +Stunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in +my sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of +discovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took +such precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been +crying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation +that there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a +little while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of +grief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might +return. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the +gate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after +Lady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie +down. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from +it—and that was much then—that I had not been abandoned by my +mother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood, +discovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead, +had in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I +should live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my +mother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I +hold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had +never, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed—had been buried—had +never been endowed with life—had never borne a name. When she had +first seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of +what would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on, +but that was all then. + +What more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has +its own times and places in my story. + +My first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume +even its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me +that I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared. +That I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for +many people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of +myself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and +of a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken as to be +possessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that I +should die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that I +should be then alive. + +These are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and +when I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world +with my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened +of myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the +owner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old +words now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, "Your +mother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will +come—and soon enough—when you will understand this better, and will +feel it too, as no one save a woman can." With them, those other +words returned, "Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited +upon your head." I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I +felt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation +had come down. + +The day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still +contended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking +a little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees +and the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me, +was attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not +have gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it +was, I took the path that led close by it. + +I did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the +terrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its +well-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it +was, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights +of shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the +trained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone +pedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the +way went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers +and porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque +monsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening +gloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. Thence the path +wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the +principal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables +where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of +the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall, +or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of +the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering +presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I +turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there +above me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted +window that might be my mother's. + +The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps +from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping +to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing +quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted +window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind +that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk, +that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and +that my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an +augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself +and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never +paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and +black behind me. + +Not before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again +been dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and +thankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the +morrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation +that I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my +guardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden, +if I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most +pitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and +ruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in +and about the house declared it was not the same house and was +becoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me +think how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought +to be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me, +as it ought to have done before, into a better condition. + +For I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I +should never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved +for such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked +together for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were +sometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I +had in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my +birth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should +not be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had +experience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus +soon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on +me. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them, +pouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling +that the darkness of the morning was passing away. It was not upon my +sleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone. + +My dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How to +help myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a +long walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not know; so +Charley and I and Stubbs—Stubbs saddled, for we never drove him +after the one great occasion—made a long expedition along that road +and back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and +garden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and +had the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment. + +There were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could +come, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess I +was nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so +well that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on any +one. I was not in this slight distress because I at all repined—I am +quite certain I did not, that day—but, I thought, would she be +wholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be a little +shocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little worse than she +expected? Might she not look for her old Esther and not find her? +Might she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again? + +I knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and +it was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure +beforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I +considered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings, +which was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself? + +Well, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But to +wait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such +bad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet +her. + +So I said to Charley, "Charley, I will go by myself and walk along +the road until she comes." Charley highly approving of anything that +pleased me, I went and left her at home. + +But before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many +palpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was +not, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back +and go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the +coach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither would, +nor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of the way +to avoid being overtaken. + +Then, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice +thing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it +instead of the best. + +At last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more +yet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in the +garden, "Here she comes, miss! Here she is!" + +I did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid +myself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my +darling calling as she came upstairs, "Esther, my dear, my love, +where are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!" + +She ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my angel +girl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection. +Nothing else in it—no, nothing, nothing! + +Oh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful +girl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely +cheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a +child, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and +pressing me to her faithful heart. + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +Jarndyce and Jarndyce + +If the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to +Ada before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did +not feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless +some great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my +present duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my +dear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though +often when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my +mother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield +to it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be—except, of +course, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I +have no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it. + +The difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening +when Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house, +and when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock +had spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great. +Greater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied +that she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting +her beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her +imperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously, +by telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two +nights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in +the next county and that she had left early on the morning after we +had seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage +about little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and +doings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month. + +We were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been +there a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after +we had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and +just as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very +important air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the +room. + +"Oh! If you please, miss," said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes +at their roundest and largest. "You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms." + +"Why, Charley," said I, "who can possibly want me at the +public-house?" + +"I don't know, miss," returned Charley, putting her head forward and +folding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she +always did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential, +"but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please +to come without saying anything about it." + +"Whose compliments, Charley?" + +"His'n, miss," returned Charley, whose grammatical education was +advancing, but not very rapidly. + +"And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?" + +"I am not the messenger, if you please, miss," returned my little +maid. "It was W. Grubble, miss." + +"And who is W. Grubble, Charley?" + +"Mister Grubble, miss," returned Charley. "Don't you know, miss? The +Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble," which Charley delivered as if she were +slowly spelling out the sign. + +"Aye? The landlord, Charley?" + +"Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but +she broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's the +sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink +himself to death entirely on beer," said Charley. + +Not knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive +now, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade Charley +be quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them +on, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as much at +home as in Mr. Boythorn's garden. + +Mr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very +clean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat with both +hands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an +iron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded +passage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in +it than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen Caroline, +several shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in +glass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but I +don't know which, and I doubt if many people did) hanging from his +ceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, from his often +standing at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man +who never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own +fire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat +except at church. + +He snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it +looked, backed out of the room—unexpectedly to me, for I was going +to ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite parlour +being then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears I +thought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room in +which I was, and who should stand before me but Richard! + +"My dear Esther!" he said. "My best friend!" And he really was so +warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of +his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that +Ada was well. + +"Answering my very thoughts—always the same dear girl!" said +Richard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me. + +I put my veil up, but not quite. + +"Always the same dear girl!" said Richard just as heartily as before. + +I put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve +and looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his kind +welcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of +the determination I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to +him. + +"My love," said Richard, "there is no one with whom I have a greater +wish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me." + +"And I want you, Richard," said I, shaking my head, "to understand +some one else." + +"Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce," said Richard, "—I +suppose you mean him?" + +"Of course I do." + +"Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that +subject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind—you, my +dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody." + +I was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it. + +"Well, well, my dear," said Richard, "we won't go into that now. I +want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my +arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty +to John Jarndyce will allow that?" + +"My dear Richard," I returned, "you know you would be heartily +welcome at his house—your home, if you will but consider it so; and +you are as heartily welcome here!" + +"Spoken like the best of little women!" cried Richard gaily. + +I asked him how he liked his profession. + +"Oh, I like it well enough!" said Richard. "It's all right. It does +as well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care +about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then +and—however, never mind all that botheration at present." + +So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite +of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that +passed over him, so dreadfully like her! + +"I am in town on leave just now," said Richard. + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes. I have run over to look after my—my Chancery interests before +the long vacation," said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. "We are +beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you." + +No wonder that I shook my head! + +"As you say, it's not a pleasant subject." Richard spoke with the +same shade crossing his face as before. "Let it go to the four winds +for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?" + +"Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?" + +"That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a +fascinating child it is!" + +I asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He +answered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old +infant—so he called Mr. Skimpole—and the dear old infant had told +him where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on +coming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come +too; and so he had brought him. "And he is worth—not to say his +sordid expenses—but thrice his weight in gold," said Richard. "He is +such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and +green-hearted!" + +I certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in +his having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about +that. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was charmed +to see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and +sympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so +happy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture +of good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health +the more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be +in the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in +looking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better +satisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard," said Mr. +Skimpole, "full of the brightest visions of the future, which he +evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's +inspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods and +solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping +and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our +pastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune +and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment +from the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned +growling fellow may say to me, ‘What's the use of these legal and +equitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I reply, ‘My growling +friend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There +is a shepherd—youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into +something highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for +this that they exist—for I am a child among you worldly grumblers, +and not called upon to account to you or myself for anything—but it +may be so.'" + +I began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a +worse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he +most required some right principle and purpose he should have this +captivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy +dispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I +could understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in +the world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and +contentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr. +Skimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour; +but I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or +that it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any +other part, and with less trouble. + +They both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the +gate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, "Ada, my love, I have +brought a gentleman to visit you." It was not difficult to read the +blushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I +knew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins +only. + +I almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions, +but I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her +very much—any one must have done that—and I dare say would have +renewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but +that he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still +I had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even +here, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this +as in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind. +Ah me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never +shall know now! + +He told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make +any secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too +implicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he +had come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for +the present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear +old infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make an +appointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through +the means of an unreserved conversation with me. I proposed to walk +with him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. Mr. +Skimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. He +particularly requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley) and +told her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father +all the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers +would make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he +should still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way. + +"For I am constantly being taken in these nets," said Mr. Skimpole, +looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am +constantly being bailed out—like a boat. Or paid off—like a ship's +company. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for +I never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody's +means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me +who somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to +somebody. God bless him!" + +Richard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for +him long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy +and the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the +sparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see; +the richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since +yesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so +massively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details of +every wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory +of that day. + +"This is a lovely place," said Richard, looking round. "None of the +jar and discord of law-suits here!" + +But there was other trouble. + +"I tell you what, my dear girl," said Richard, "when I get affairs in +general settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest." + +"Would it not be better to rest now?" I asked. + +"Oh, as to resting NOW," said Richard, "or as to doing anything very +definite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I can't do +it at least." + +"Why not?" said I. + +"You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house, +liable to have the roof put on or taken off—to be from top to bottom +pulled down or built up—to-morrow, next day, next week, next month, +next year—you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now? +There's no now for us suitors." + +I could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor +little wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the darkened +look of last night. Terrible to think it had in it also a shade of +that unfortunate man who had died. + +"My dear Richard," said I, "this is a bad beginning of our +conversation." + +"I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden." + +"And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once +never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse." + +"There you come back to John Jarndyce!" said Richard impatiently. +"Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of +what I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, how can +you be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and +that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the +suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well +for me?" + +"Oh, Richard," I remonstrated, "is it possible that you can ever have +seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof +and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place +where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?" + +He reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of +reproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a +subdued voice, "Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean +fellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being +poor qualities in one of my years." + +"I know it very well," said I. "I am not more sure of anything." + +"That's a dear girl," retorted Richard, "and like you, because it +gives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all +this business, for it's a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion +to tell you." + +"I know perfectly," said I. "I know as well, Richard—what shall I +say? as well as you do—that such misconstructions are foreign to +your nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it." + +"Come, sister, come," said Richard a little more gaily, "you will be +fair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that +influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a +little twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an honourable man, +out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it +taints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him +say so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?" + +"Because," said I, "his is an uncommon character, and he has +resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard." + +"Oh, because and because!" replied Richard in his vivacious way. "I +am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to +preserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties +interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die +off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things +may smoothly happen that are convenient enough." + +I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him +any more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian's gentleness +towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he +had spoken of them. + +"Esther," Richard resumed, "you are not to suppose that I have come +here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only +come to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we +got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same +suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look +into it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce +discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don't amend +that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I +don't mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold +John Jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he +has no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I +must maintain my rights and Ada's. I have been thinking about it a +good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to." + +Poor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal. +His face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly. + +"So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him +about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at +issue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his +protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our +roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should +take much more than he. I don't mean to say that it is the one to be +established, but there it is, and it has its chance." + +"I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard," said I, "of your +letter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word." + +"Indeed?" replied Richard, softening. "I am glad I said he was an +honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say +that and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these +views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you +tell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the +case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I +did when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew what an accumulation of +charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions, +they involve, you would think me moderate in comparison." + +"Perhaps so," said I. "But do you think that, among those many +papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?" + +"There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther—" + +"Or was once, long ago," said I. + +"Is—is—must be somewhere," pursued Richard impetuously, "and must +be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is +not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John +Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who +has any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I +resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end." + +"All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no +others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier +because of so many failures?" + +"It can't last for ever," returned Richard with a fierceness kindling +in him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. "I am +young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders +many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I +devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life." + +"Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!" + +"No, no, no, don't you be afraid for me," he returned affectionately. +"You're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your +prepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good +Esther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so +convenient, we were not on natural terms." + +"Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?" + +"No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on +unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See +another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over that I +have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am +free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well. +Then I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation." + +Everything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in +confusion and indecision until then! + +"Now, my best of confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to +understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John +Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish +to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great +esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften +the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and—and in +short," said Richard, who had been hesitating through these words, +"I—I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious, +doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada." + +I told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than +in anything he had said yet. + +"Why," acknowledged Richard, "that may be true enough, my love. I +rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play +by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be afraid." + +I asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada. + +"Not quite," said Richard. "I am bound not to withhold from her that +John Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me +as ‘My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling +me that they should make no difference in him. (All very well of +course, but not altering the case.) I also want Ada to know that if I +see her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as +my own—we two being in the same boat exactly—and that I hope she +will not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at +all light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking +forward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that +direction. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I +consider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but +Ada being still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our +engagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself +once more and we shall both be in very different worldly +circumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this with the advantage +of your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind +service, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on +the head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak +House." + +"Richard," said I, "you place great confidence in me, but I fear you +will not take advice from me?" + +"It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any +other, readily." + +As if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and +character were not being dyed one colour! + +"But I may ask you a question, Richard?" + +"I think so," said he, laughing. "I don't know who may not, if you +may not." + +"You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life." + +"How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!" + +"Are you in debt again?" + +"Why, of course I am," said Richard, astonished at my simplicity. + +"Is it of course?" + +"My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so +completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know, +that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only a +question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within +the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl," said Richard, +quite amused with me, "I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my +dear!" + +I felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I +tried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent +means that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some +of his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and +gentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least +effect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his +preoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I determined +to try Ada's influence yet. + +So when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went +home to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to give +her and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that Richard was +losing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made +her very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater +reliance on his correcting his errors than I could have—which was so +natural and loving in my dear!—and she presently wrote him this +little letter: + + My dearest cousin, + + Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I + write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that + she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that + you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern + of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, + deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so + much wrong. + + I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, + but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have + some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for + my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for + yourself—and if for yourself, for me. In case this should + be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me + in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg + you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will + make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon + the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry + with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my + sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for + that source of trouble which had its share in making us + both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it + go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that + there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing + to be got from it but sorrow. + + My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you + are quite free and that it is very likely you may find + some one whom you will love much better than your first + fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that + the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow + your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and + see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen + way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very + rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost + of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of + your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my + saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or + experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own + heart. + + Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate + + Ada + +This note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change +in him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who +was wrong—he would show us—we should see! He was animated and +glowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only +hope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect +upon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then. + +As they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to +return by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of speaking +to Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and +I delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging +Richard. + +"Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?" he repeated, catching at +the word with the pleasantest smile. "I am the last man in the world +for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life—I can't be." + +"I am afraid everybody is obliged to be," said I timidly enough, he +being so much older and more clever than I. + +"No, really?" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most +agreeable jocularity of surprise. "But every man's not obliged to be +solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson," he took +a handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, "there's so +much money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of +counting. Call it four and ninepence—call it four pound nine. They +tell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as +much as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why +should I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that's +responsibility, I am responsible." + +The perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and +looked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been +mentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me +feel as if he really had nothing to do with it. + +"Now, when you mention responsibility," he resumed, "I am disposed to +say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should +consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me +to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my +dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole +little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined +to say to myself—in fact I do say to myself very often—THAT'S +responsibility!" + +It was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I +persisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not +confirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then. + +"Most willingly," he retorted, "if I could. But, my dear Miss +Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and +leads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after +fortune, I must go. If he says, ‘Skimpole, join the dance!' I must +join it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common sense." + +It was very unfortunate for Richard, I said. + +"Do you think so!" returned Mr. Skimpole. "Don't say that, don't say +that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense—an +excellent man—a good deal wrinkled—dreadfully practical—change for +a ten-pound note in every pocket—ruled account-book in his +hand—say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear +Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with +poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, +‘I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very +beautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape +to come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down +with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that +he sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud, +horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a painful +change—sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but +disagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account-book, I +have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not +at all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it +is!" + +It was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and +Richard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in +despair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning and +whimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were +such portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone, +he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their +hands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and +put their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the +chiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir +Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, +flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full +action between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how +little a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented +as having evidently been, in life, what he called "stuffed people"—a +large collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on +their various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from +animation, and always in glass cases. + +I was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I +felt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise, +hurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly +towards us. + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "Vholes!" + +We asked if that were a friend of Richard's. + +"Friend and legal adviser," said Mr. Skimpole. "Now, my dear Miss +Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and +respectability, all united—if you want an exemplary man—Vholes is +THE man." + +We had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman +of that name. + +"When he emerged from legal infancy," returned Mr. Skimpole, "he +parted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe, +with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to +Vholes." + +"Had you known him long?" asked Ada. + +"Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with +him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had +done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner—taken +proceedings, I think, is the expression—which ended in the +proceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and +pay the money—something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the +pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it +struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody +fourpence—and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me +for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it," he +looked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the +discovery, "Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and +called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think +it MUST have been a five-pound note!" + +His further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's +coming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr. +Vholes—a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were +cold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin, +about fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in +black, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so +remarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had +of looking at Richard. + +"I hope I don't disturb you, ladies," said Mr. Vholes, and now I +observed that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of +speaking. "I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know +when his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by +one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather +unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach +early this morning and came down to confer with him." + +"Yes," said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me, +"we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now! +Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in, +and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!" + +"Anything you please, sir," returned Mr. Vholes. "I am quite at your +service." + +"Let me see," said Richard, looking at his watch. "If I run down to +the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or +a chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before +starting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take +care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?" + +He was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the +dusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house. + +"Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?" said I. "Can +it do any good?" + +"No, miss," Mr. Vholes replied. "I am not aware that it can." + +Both Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to +be disappointed. + +"Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own +interests," said Mr. Vholes, "and when a client lays down his own +principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it +out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with +three daughters—Emma, Jane, and Caroline—and my desire is so to +discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This +appears to be a pleasant spot, miss." + +The remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we +walked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions. + +"Indeed?" said Mr. Vholes. "I have the privilege of supporting an +aged father in the Vale of Taunton—his native place—and I admire +that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so +attractive here." + +To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to +live altogether in the country. + +"There, miss," said he, "you touch me on a tender string. My health +is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only +myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially +as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into +contact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society, +which I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters, +Emma, Jane, and Caroline—and my aged father—I cannot afford to be +selfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother +who died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render +it indispensable that the mill should be always going." + +It required some attention to hear him on account of his inward +speaking and his lifeless manner. + +"You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters," he said. "They +are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little +independence, as well as a good name." + +We now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all +prepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried +shortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered +something in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud—or as nearly aloud I +suppose as he had ever replied to anything—"You will drive me, will +you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am +quite at your service." + +We understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left +until the morning to occupy the two places which had been already +paid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard +and very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we +politely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms +and retire when the night-travellers were gone. + +Richard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went +out together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had +ordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern +standing at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed +to it. + +I never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's +light, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his +hand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking +at him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have +before me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer +lightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high +trees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving +away at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +My dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter +prosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this +difference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging +heart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him; +how he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think +of him at all times—never of herself if she could devote herself to +him, never of her own delights if she could minister to his. + +And she kept her word? + +I look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens +and the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the +dead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore, +I think I see my darling. + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +A Struggle + +When our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were +punctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. I +was perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my +housekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if +I had been a new year, with a merry little peal. "Once more, duty, +duty, Esther," said I; "and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more +than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you +ought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my dear!" + +The first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business, +devoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to +and fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so +many rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new +beginning altogether, that I had not a moment's leisure. But when +these arrangements were completed and everything was in order, I paid +a visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had +destroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own +mind. + +I made Caddy Jellyby—her maiden name was so natural to me that I +always called her by it—the pretext for this visit and wrote her a +note previously asking the favour of her company on a little business +expedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London +by stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman Street with the +day before me. + +Caddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so +affectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her +husband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad—I mean as good; +and in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any +possibility of doing anything meritorious. + +The elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was +milling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an +apprentice—it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the +trade of dancing—was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law +was extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived +most happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she +meant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good +lodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were +poked into two corner rooms over the Mews.) + +"And how is your mama, Caddy?" said I. + +"Why, I hear of her, Esther," replied Caddy, "through Pa, but I see +very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma +thinks there is something absurd in my having married a +dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her." + +It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural +duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope +in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions +against becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this +to myself. + +"And your papa, Caddy?" + +"He comes here every evening," returned Caddy, "and is so fond of +sitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him." + +Looking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby's +head against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found +such a resting-place for it. + +"And you, Caddy," said I, "you are always busy, I'll be bound?" + +"Well, my dear," returned Caddy, "I am indeed, for to tell you a +grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's health +is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with +schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the apprentices, +he really has too much to do, poor fellow!" + +The notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked +Caddy if there were many of them. + +"Four," said Caddy. "One in-door, and three out. They are +very good children; only when they get together they WILL +play—children-like—instead of attending to their work. So the +little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, +and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can." + +"That is only for their steps, of course?" said I. + +"Only for their steps," said Caddy. "In that way they practise, so +many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They +dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five +every morning." + +"Why, what a laborious life!" I exclaimed. + +"I assure you, my dear," returned Caddy, smiling, "when the out-door +apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, +not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and +see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under +their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps." + +All this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure. +Caddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully +recounted the particulars of her own studies. + +"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the +piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently +I have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of +our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had +some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn't any; +and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must +allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery—I have +to thank Ma for that, at all events—and where there's a will there's +a way, you know, Esther, the world over." Saying these words, Caddy +laughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really +rattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly +and blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself, +said, "Don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!" + +I would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and +praised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed, +dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in +her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, +wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite +as good as a mission. + +"My dear," said Caddy, delighted, "you can't think how you cheer me. +I shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even +in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so +unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching +people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!" + +Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, +preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy +informed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet, +I was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away +then. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I +made one in the dance. + +The apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the +melancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone +in the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little +limp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such +a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her +sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean +little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, +and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and +feet—and heels particularly. + +I asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for +them. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for +teachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble +circumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer +shop. + +We danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing +wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be +some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy, +while she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon +him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which, +united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She +already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young +people, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the +figure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The +affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, +was a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock. + +When the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready +to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go +out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating +the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put +on their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's hair, as I judged from +the nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned +and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold +bread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The +little gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and +put on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy +bonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked +dancing by replying, "Not with boys," tied it across her chin, and +went home contemptuous. + +"Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry," said Caddy, "that he has not +finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you +before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther." + +I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it +necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention. + +"It takes him a long time to dress," said Caddy, "because he is very +much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to +support. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an +evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested." + +There was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his +deportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if +he brought her papa out much. + +"No," said Caddy, "I don't know that he does that, but he talks to +Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course +I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get +on together delightfully. You can't think what good companions they +make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one +pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to +his nose and taking it away again all the evening." + +That old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of +life, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha +appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities. + +"As to Peepy," said Caddy with a little hesitation, "whom I was most +afraid of—next to having any family of my own, Esther—as an +inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to +that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets +him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of +his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he +tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short," said Caddy +cheerily, "and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to +be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?" + +"To the Old Street Road," said I, "where I have a few words to say to +the solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on +the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I +think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house." + +"Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you," +returned Caddy. + +To the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's +residence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and +having indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut +in the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for, +immediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was an +old lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an +unsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was +prepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it +which, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it +insisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to +let him off. + +Not only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too. +He was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table +reading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, rising, "this is indeed an oasis. +Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and +get out of the gangway." + +Mrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish +appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner, +holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation, +with both hands. + +I presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was +more than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit. + +"I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir," said I. + +Mr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his +breast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket +with a bow. Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her +head as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow. + +"Could I speak to you alone for a moment?" said I. + +Anything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I think +I never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head, +and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to +Caddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so +unspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty +she could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door into her +bedroom adjoining. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "you will excuse the waywardness of +a parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. My mother, though highly +exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates." + +I could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have +turned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up +my veil. + +"I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here," said I, +"in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what +you said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I feared +I might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy." + +I caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never saw +such faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension. + +"Miss Summerson," stammered Mr. Guppy, "I—I—beg your pardon, but in +our profession—we—we—find it necessary to be explicit. You have +referred to an occasion, miss, when I—when I did myself the honour +of making a declaration which—" + +Something seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly +swallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to +swallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the +room, and fluttered his papers. + +"A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss," he explained, +"which rather knocks me over. I—er—a little subject to this sort of +thing—er—by George!" + +I gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his +hand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his +chair into the corner behind him. + +"My intention was to remark, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "dear +me—something bronchial, I think—hem!—to remark that you was so +good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. +You—you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses +are present, it might be a satisfaction to—to your mind—if you was +to put in that admission." + +"There can be no doubt," said I, "that I declined your proposal +without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy." + +"Thank you, miss," he returned, measuring the table with his troubled +hands. "So far that's satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er—this +is certainly bronchial!—must be in the tubes—er—you wouldn't +perhaps be offended if I was to mention—not that it's necessary, for +your own good sense or any person's sense must show 'em that—if I +was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there +terminated?" + +"I quite understand that," said I. + +"Perhaps—er—it may not be worth the form, but it might be a +satisfaction to your mind—perhaps you wouldn't object to admit that, +miss?" said Mr. Guppy. + +"I admit it most fully and freely," said I. + +"Thank you," returned Mr. Guppy. "Very honourable, I am sure. I +regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over +which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall +back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever, +but it will ever be a retrospect entwined—er—with friendship's +bowers." Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his +measurement of the table. + +"I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?" I began. + +"I shall be honoured, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "I am so persuaded +that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will—will keep you +as square as possible—that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am +sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer." + +"You were so good as to imply, on that occasion—" + +"Excuse me, miss," said Mr. Guppy, "but we had better not travel out +of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied +anything." + +"You said on that occasion," I recommenced, "that you might possibly +have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by +making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that +you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an +orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr. +Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg +of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish +all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I +have thought of it most lately—since I have been ill. At length I +have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and +act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are +altogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me +that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I +am acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to +assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You +may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse +my giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the +assurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to +do this, for my peace." + +"I am bound to confess," said Mr. Guppy, "that you express yourself, +miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you +credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and +if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to +tender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as +hereby offering that apology—limiting it, as your own good sense and +right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present +proceedings." + +I must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon +him improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do +something I asked, and he looked ashamed. + +"If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I +may have no occasion to resume," I went on, seeing him about to +speak, "you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as +possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a +confidence which I have really wished to respect—and which I always +have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There +really is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very +well that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to +you is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now +preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me +to accede to it." + +I must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked +more and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very +earnest when he now replied with a burning face, "Upon my word and +honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living +man, I'll act according to your wish! I'll never go another step in +opposition to it. I'll take my oath to it if it will be any +satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching +the matters now in question," continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, as if he +were repeating a familiar form of words, "I speak the truth, the +whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so—" + +"I am quite satisfied," said I, rising at this point, "and I thank +you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!" + +Mr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient +of her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr. +Guppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either +imperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there, +staring. + +But in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and +with his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently, +"Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!" + +"I do," said I, "quite confidently." + +"I beg your pardon, miss," said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and +staying with the other, "but this lady being present—your own +witness—it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish +to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions." + +"Well, Caddy," said I, turning to her, "perhaps you will not be +surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any +engagement—" + +"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," suggested Mr. Guppy. + +"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever," said I, "between +this gentleman—" + +"William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of +Middlesex," he murmured. + +"Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, +Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself." + +"Thank you, miss," said Mr. Guppy. "Very full—er—excuse me—lady's +name, Christian and surname both?" + +I gave them. + +"Married woman, I believe?" said Mr. Guppy. "Married woman. Thank +you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within +the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford +Street. Much obliged." + +He ran home and came running back again. + +"Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry +that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which +I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly +terminated some time back," said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly and +despondently, "but it couldn't be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put +it to you." + +I replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a +doubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's again—and back again. + +"It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure," said Mr. Guppy. "If +an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship—but, upon my +soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the +tender passion only!" + +The struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it +occasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently +conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted +cutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but +when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same +troubled state of mind. + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +Attorney and Client + +The name of Mr. Vholes, preceded by the legend Ground-Floor, is +inscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane—a little, +pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of two +compartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man +in his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which +took kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and +dismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness. +Quartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond are the +legal bearings of Mr. Vholes. + +Mr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation +retired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three +feet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's +jet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest +midsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage +staircase against which belated civilians generally strike their +brows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk +can open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who +elbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire. +A smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and +dust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of +mutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and +skins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close. +The place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man, +and the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of +soot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames +have but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to +be always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the +phenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of +firewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather. + +Mr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business, +but he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater +attorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most +respectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, which is a +mark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, which is another +mark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another +mark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly +respectable. And he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for +his three daughters. And his father is dependent on him in the Vale +of Taunton. + +The one great principle of the English law is to make business for +itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and +consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by +this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze +the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive +that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their +expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. + +But not perceiving this quite plainly—only seeing it by halves in a +confused way—the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, with a +bad grace, and DO grumble very much. Then this respectability of Mr. +Vholes is brought into powerful play against them. "Repeal this +statute, my good sir?" says Mr. Kenge to a smarting client. "Repeal +it, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. Alter this law, sir, and +what will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a class of +practitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to you, by +the opposite attorney in the case, Mr. Vholes? Sir, that class of +practitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. Now you +cannot afford—I will say, the social system cannot afford—to lose +an order of men like Mr. Vholes. Diligent, persevering, steady, acute +in business. My dear sir, I understand your present feelings against +the existing state of things, which I grant to be a little hard in +your case; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a +class of men like Mr. Vholes." The respectability of Mr. Vholes has +even been cited with crushing effect before Parliamentary committees, +as in the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's +evidence. "Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight +hundred and sixty-nine): If I understand you, these forms of practice +indisputably occasion delay? Answer: Yes, some delay. Question: And +great expense? Answer: Most assuredly they cannot be gone through for +nothing. Question: And unspeakable vexation? Answer: I am not +prepared to say that. They have never given ME any vexation; quite +the contrary. Question: But you think that their abolition would +damage a class of practitioners? Answer: I have no doubt of it. +Question: Can you instance any type of that class? Answer: Yes. I +would unhesitatingly mention Mr. Vholes. He would be ruined. +Question: Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable +man? Answer:"—which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years—"Mr. +Vholes is considered, in the profession, a MOST respectable man." + +So in familiar conversation, private authorities no less +disinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is +coming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is +something else gone, that these changes are death to people like +Vholes—a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the Vale +of Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps more in +this direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's father? +Is he to perish? And of Vholes's daughters? Are they to be +shirt-makers, or governesses? As though, Mr. Vholes and his relations +being minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to abolish +cannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: Make +man-eating unlawful, and you starve the Vholeses! + +In a word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the +Vale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber, +to shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a +nuisance. And with a great many people in a great many instances, the +question is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite +an extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or +advantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes. + +The Chancellor is, within these ten minutes, "up" for the long +vacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags +hastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort of +serpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the +official den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much +respectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if he +were skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were +scalping himself, and sits down at his desk. The client throws his +hat and gloves upon the ground—tosses them anywhere, without looking +after them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half +sighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and +looks the portrait of young despair. + +"Again nothing done!" says Richard. "Nothing, nothing done!" + +"Don't say nothing done, sir," returns the placid Vholes. "That is +scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!" + +"Why, what IS done?" says Richard, turning gloomily upon him. + +"That may not be the whole question," returns Vholes, "The question +may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?" + +"And what is doing?" asks the moody client. + +Vholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the tips +of his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers, +and quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at +his client, replies, "A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our +shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round." + +"Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five +accursed months?" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and +walking about the room. + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, following him close with his eyes wherever +he goes, "your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your +account. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be +so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more +patience. You should sustain yourself better." + +"I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?" says Richard, sitting +down again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo +with his boot on the patternless carpet. + +"Sir," returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were +making a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his +professional appetite. "Sir," returns Vholes with his inward manner +of speech and his bloodless quietude, "I should not have had the +presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any +man's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that +is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so +pointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a +little of my—come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility, +and I am sure I have no objection—say insensibility—a little of my +insensibility." + +"Mr. Vholes," explains the client, somewhat abashed, "I had no +intention to accuse you of insensibility." + +"I think you had, sir, without knowing it," returns the equable +Vholes. "Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests +with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited +feelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My +daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But +they have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye +of affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I +complain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the +contrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible +checks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry. +But your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr. +Carstone; and I cannot be otherwise—no, sir, not even to please +you." + +Mr. Vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently +watching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young +client and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if +there were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor +speak out, "What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the +vacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means +of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked +me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you +more readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found +here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr. +C., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish +to consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all +times alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don't. Not that +I blame them for going; I merely say I don't go. This desk is your +rock, sir!" + +Mr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not +to Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him. +Perhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is. + +"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes," says Richard, more familiarly and +good-humouredly, "that you are the most reliable fellow in the world +and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of +business who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case, +dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into +difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually +disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in +myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you +will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do." + +"You know," says Mr. Vholes, "that I never give hopes, sir. I told +you from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in +a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of +the estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave +hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say +there is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact, +deny that." + +"Aye?" returns Richard, brightening. "But how do you make it out?" + +"Mr. Carstone, you are represented by—" + +"You said just now—a rock." + +"Yes, sir," says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the +hollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust +on dust, "a rock. That's something. You are separately represented, +and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT'S +something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk +it about. THAT'S something. It's not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as +in name. THAT'S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. +And THAT'S something, surely." + +Richard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his +clenched hand. + +"Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John +Jarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he +seemed—that he was what he has gradually turned out to be—I could +have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not +have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world! +Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment +of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John +Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; +that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new +injury from John Jarndyce's hand." + +"No, no," says Vholes. "Don't say so. We ought to have patience, all +of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage." + +"Mr. Vholes," returns the angry client. "You know as well as I that +he would have strangled the suit if he could." + +"He was not active in it," Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of +reluctance. "He certainly was not active in it. But however, but +however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the +heart, Mr. C.!" + +"You can," returns Richard. + +"I, Mr. C.?" + +"Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our +interests conflicting? Tell—me—that!" says Richard, accompanying +his last three words with three raps on his rock of trust. + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his +hungry eyes, "I should be wanting in my duty as your professional +adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if +I represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr. +Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both +have and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not +shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in +families. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as +to your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical +with those of Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Of course they are not!" cries Richard. "You found that out long +ago." + +"Mr. C.," returns Vholes, "I wish to say no more of any third party +than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together +with any little property of which I may become possessed through +industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline. +I also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When +Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir—I will not say the very high +honour, for I never stoop to flattery—of bringing us together in +this room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice +as to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another +member of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to +speak of Kenge and Carboy's office, which stands high. You, sir, +thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless +and to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and +I accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount +in this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me +mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I +shall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you +want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. +During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying +your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for +moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after +Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir," says +Mr. Vholes with the severity of a determined man, "when I ultimately +congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to +fortune—which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something +further about—you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance +may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client +not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend +to no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active +discharge—not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much +credit I stipulate for—of my professional duty. My duty prosperously +ended, all between us is ended." + +Vholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his +principles, that as Mr. Carstone is about to rejoin his regiment, +perhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty +pounds on account. + +"For there have been many little consultations and attendances of +late, sir," observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary, +"and these things mount up, and I don't profess to be a man of +capital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to +you openly—it is a principle of mine that there never can be too +much openness between solicitor and client—that I was not a man of +capital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your +papers in Kenge's office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the +advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This," Vholes gives +the desk one hollow blow again, "is your rock; it pretends to be +nothing more." + +The client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague +hopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without +perplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear, +implying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, Vholes, +buttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. All the +while, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole. + +Lastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for heaven's +sake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to "pull him through" the +Court of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm +upon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, "Always here, +sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, +with my shoulder to the wheel." Thus they part, and Vholes, left +alone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his +diary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three +daughters. So might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of +chickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to +disparage by that word the three raw-visaged, lank, and buttoned-up +maidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in an earthy cottage +situated in a damp garden at Kennington. + +Richard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the +sunshine of Chancery Lane—for there happens to be sunshine there +to-day—walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and +passes under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such +loungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on +the like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering +step, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and +consumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but +that may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is +very rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from +ten thousand? + +Yet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he +saunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months +together, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case +as if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with +corroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for +some sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit +there, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind. +But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being +defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat; +from the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, the time +for that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to +the palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this +ruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes the truth. Is he +in a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays his injuries equally +at that door; he was thwarted, in that quarter, of a set purpose, and +that purpose could only originate in the one subject that is +resolving his existence into itself; besides, it is a justification +to him in his own eyes to have an embodied antagonist and oppressor. + +Is Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich in +such precedents too if they could be got for citation from the +Recording Angel? + +Two pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as, +biting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed +up by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Weevle +are the possessors of those eyes, and they have been leaning in +conversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. He passes +close by them, seeing nothing but the ground. + +"William," says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, "there's +combustion going on there! It's not a case of spontaneous, but it's +smouldering combustion it is." + +"Ah!" says Mr. Guppy. "He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I +suppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He +was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good +riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was +mentioning is what they're up to." + +Mr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the parapet, +as resuming a conversation of interest. + +"They are still up to it, sir," says Mr. Guppy, "still taking stock, +still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of +rubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years." + +"And Small is helping?" + +"Small left us at a week's notice. Told Kenge his grandfather's +business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better +himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself +and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I +began it, and as he had me there—for we did—I put our acquaintance +on the old footing. That's how I come to know what they're up to." + +"You haven't looked in at all?" + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, "to be unreserved with +you, I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and +therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little +appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by +the clock! Tony"—Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly +eloquent—"it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once +more that circumstances over which I have no control have made a +melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that +unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That +image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in +connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the +court with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in +oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I +put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that +capricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the—spontaneous +element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts +he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that +they were not destroyed that night?" + +Mr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly thinks +not. + +"Tony," says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, "once again +understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further +explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose +to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I +owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the +circumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to +me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late +lodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in +question, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own +responsibility." + +Mr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by +having delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic and +in part romantic—this gentleman having a passion for conducting +anything in the form of an examination, or delivering anything in the +form of a summing up or a speech—accompanies his friend with dignity +to the court. + +Never since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus' purse +of gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop. +Regularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed brought +down to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs. Smallweed, +Judy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all remain there +until nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not abundant in +quantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and searching, digging, +delving, and diving among the treasures of the late lamented. What +those treasures are they keep so secret that the court is maddened. +In its delirium it imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots, +crown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs and mattresses +stuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses itself of the +sixpenny history (with highly coloured folding frontispiece) of Mr. +Daniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr. Elwes, of Suffolk, and +transfers all the facts from those authentic narratives to Mr. Krook. +Twice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old +paper, ashes, and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries +into the baskets as they come forth. Many times the two gentlemen who +write with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper are seen +prowling in the neighbourhood—shy of each other, their late +partnership being dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the +prevailing interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in +what are professionally known as "patter" allusions to the subject, +is received with loud applause; and the same vocalist "gags" in the +regular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in +the revived Caledonian melody of "We're a-Nodding," points the +sentiment that "the dogs love broo" (whatever the nature of that +refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head +towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr. +Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double +encore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as Mrs. Piper +and Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose appearance +is the signal for a general rally, it is in one continual ferment to +discover everything, and more. + +Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon +them, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a +high state of popularity. But being contrary to the court's +expectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are +considered to mean no good. + +The shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the +ground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced into +the back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from the +sunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but +they gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his chair +upon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the virtuous Judy +groping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs. Smallweed on the level +ground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print, +and manuscript which would appear to be the accumulated compliments +that have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole +party, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a +fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room. +There is more litter and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier +if possible; likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead +inhabitant and even with his chalked writing on the wall. + +On the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously +fold their arms and stop in their researches. + +"Aha!" croaks the old gentleman. "How de do, gentlemen, how de do! +Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well, that's well. +Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your +warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at +home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you!" + +Mr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy's eye follows +Mr. Weevle's eye. Mr. Weevle's eye comes back without any new +intelligence in it. Mr. Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr. +Smallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like +some wound-up instrument running down, "How de do, sir—how +de—how—" And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence, +as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the +darkness opposite with his hands behind him. + +"Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor," says Grandfather +Smallweed. "I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, +but he is so good!" + +Mr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes a +shuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy nod. +Mr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do and +were rather amused by the novelty. + +"A good deal of property here, sir, I should say," Mr. Guppy observes +to Mr. Smallweed. + +"Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me +and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an +inventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come to +much as yet; we—haven't—come—to—hah!" + +Mr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle's eye, attended by +Mr. Guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Weevle. "We won't intrude any longer if you'll +allow us to go upstairs." + +"Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You're at home. Make yourself so, +pray!" + +As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and +looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull +and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that +memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a great +disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from +it first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, packing the +few movables with all possible speed and never speaking above a +whisper. + +"Look here," says Tony, recoiling. "Here's that horrible cat coming +in!" + +Mr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. "Small told me of her. She went +leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and +got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, +and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see +such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don't she? Almost +looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!" + +Lady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and +her club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but Mr. +Tulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and +swearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. Possibly to roam +the house-tops again and return by the chimney. + +"Mr. Guppy," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "could I have a word with you?" + +Mr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British +Beauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old +ignoble band-box. "Sir," he returns, reddening, "I wish to act with +courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am +sure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself—I will truly +add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, +I must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is +spoken in the presence of my friend." + +"Oh, indeed?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they +are amply sufficient for myself." + +"No doubt, no doubt." Mr. Tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the +hearthstone to which he has quietly walked. "The matter is not of +that consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any +conditions, Mr. Guppy." He pauses here to smile, and his smile is as +dull and rusty as his pantaloons. "You are to be congratulated, Mr. +Guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir." + +"Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don't complain." + +"Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access +to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who +would give their ears to be you." + +Mr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still +reddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of +himself, replies, "Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is +right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no +consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not +excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any +obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, +sir, and without offence—I repeat, without offence—" + +"Oh, certainly!" + +"—I don't intend to do it." + +"Quite so," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. "Very good; I see +by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable +great, sir?" + +He addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits the soft +impeachment. + +"A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient," observes Mr. +Tulkinghorn. He has been standing on the hearthstone with his back to +the smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses to his +eyes. "Who is this? ‘Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good likeness in its +way, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen; +good day!" + +When he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves +himself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy +Gallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock. + +"Tony," he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, "let us be +quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this +place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between +myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now +hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and +association. The time might have been when I might have revealed it +to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have +taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over +which I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion. +I charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in +the fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I +may have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word +of inquiry!" + +This charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic +lunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of hair +and even in his cultivated whiskers. + +CHAPTER XL + +National and Domestic + +England has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle +would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being +nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there +has been no government. It is a mercy that the hostile meeting +between those two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did +not come off, because if both pistols had taken effect, and Coodle +and Doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that England +must have waited to be governed until young Coodle and young Doodle, +now in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. This stupendous +national calamity, however, was averted by Lord Coodle's making the +timely discovery that if in the heat of debate he had said that he +scorned and despised the whole ignoble career of Sir Thomas Doodle, +he had merely meant to say that party differences should never induce +him to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while +it as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas +Doodle had in his own bosom expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down +to posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. Still England has +been some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well +observed by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the +marvellous part of the matter is that England has not appeared to +care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and +marrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days +before the flood. But Coodle knew the danger, and Doodle knew the +danger, and all their followers and hangers-on had the clearest +possible perception of the danger. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not +only condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in +with him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his +brothers-in-law. So there is hope for the old ship yet. + +Doodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly +in the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed state he is +available in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself +upon a considerable portion of the country at one time. Britannia +being much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the form of sovereigns, +and swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself +black in the face that she does neither—plainly to the advancement +of her glory and morality—the London season comes to a sudden end, +through all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist +Britannia in those religious exercises. + +Hence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, though +no instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be +expected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and +others who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And +hence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up +and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and +through the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that +everything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread, +curtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen +cleared for action—all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock +dignity. + +This present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations +are complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many +appliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured +forms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock in +possession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this +gallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I think, of +the gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so +find it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it could be without +them; so pass from my world, as I pass from theirs, now closing the +reverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die. + +Through some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, at +this sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of +gold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish, +overflowing like the summer plenty in the land. Then do the frozen +Dedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the +shadows of leaves play there. A dense justice in a corner is beguiled +into a wink. A staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a dimple in +his chin. Down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess there steals a +fleck of light and warmth that would have done it good a hundred +years ago. One ancestress of Volumnia, in high-heeled shoes, very +like her—casting the shadow of that virgin event before her full two +centuries—shoots out into a halo and becomes a saint. A maid of +honour of the court of Charles the Second, with large round eyes (and +other charms to correspond), seems to bathe in glowing water, and it +ripples as it glows. + +But the fire of the sun is dying. Even now the floor is dusky, and +shadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age +and death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great +chimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it +pale, and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or +hood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker +rises shadow on the wall—now a red gloom on the ceiling—now the +fire is out. + +All that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved +solemnly away and changed—not the first nor the last of beautiful +things that look so near and will so change—into a distant phantom. +Light mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet scents in the +garden are heavy in the air. Now the woods settle into great masses +as if they were each one profound tree. And now the moon rises to +separate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines +behind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among +high cathedral arches fantastically broken. + +Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more +than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, +stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in +the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time +for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a +pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon +the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy +staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour +has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy +movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads +inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the +long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the +last to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into +threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every +breath that stirs. + +"She is not well, ma'am," says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's +audience-chamber. + +"My Lady not well! What's the matter?" + +"Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here—I +don't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a bird of +passage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept +her room a good deal." + +"Chesney Wold, Thomas," rejoins the housekeeper with proud +complacency, "will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no +healthier soil in the world!" + +Thomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably +hints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape of +his neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further and +retires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and ale. + +This groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening, +down come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest retinue, and +down come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass. +Thenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men +with no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the +country on which Doodle is at present throwing himself in an +auriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless +disposition and never do anything anywhere. + +On these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A +better man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at +dinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the +other cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here and +there, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be hard +to find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent; +and there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her +French conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time +almost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner, +or even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national +occasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is +constantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and +unpensioning country. + +My Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and +being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all +the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other +melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir +Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be +wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be +received under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he +moves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator. + +Daily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf, +away to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and +hunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for +the boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester +holds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no +occupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. Daily +Volumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state +of the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that +Volumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her. + +"How are we getting on?" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. "ARE +we safe?" + +The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will +throw himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester has +just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright +particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins. + +"Volumnia," replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, "we +are doing tolerably." + +"Only tolerably!" + +Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own +particular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat near +it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who +should say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it must +not be understood as a common expression, "Volumnia, we are doing +tolerably." + +"At least there is no opposition to YOU," Volumnia asserts with +confidence. + +"No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many +respects, I grieve to say, but—" + +"It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!" + +Volumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir +Leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to +himself, "A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally +precipitate." + +In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's +observation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions always +delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale +order to be promptly executed. Two other little seats that belong to +him he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending +down the men and signifying to the tradespeople, "You will have the +goodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and +to send them home when done." + +"I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown +a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of +a most determined and most implacable description." + +"W-r-retches!" says Volumnia. + +"Even," proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins +on sofas and ottomans, "even in many—in fact, in most—of those +places in which the government has carried it against a faction—" + +(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the +Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position +towards the Coodleites.) + +"—Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be +constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without +being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds," says Sir Leicester, +eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation, +"hundreds of thousands of pounds!" + +If Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too +innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well +with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and +pearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, "What for?" + +"Volumnia," remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity. +"Volumnia!" + +"No, no, I don't mean what for," cries Volumnia with her favourite +little scream. "How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!" + +"I am glad," returns Sir Leicester, "that you do mean what a pity." + +Volumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people +ought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party. + +"I am glad, Volumnia," repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these +mollifying sentiments, "that you do mean what a pity. It is +disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and +without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me ‘what for?' +let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good +sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere." + +Sir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect +towards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary +expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be +unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some +graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the +Church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High +Court of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of +the congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight +gentlemen in a very unhealthy state. + +"I suppose," observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to recover +her spirits after her late castigation, "I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn +has been worked to death." + +"I don't know," says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, "why Mr. +Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don't know what Mr. +Tulkinghorn's engagements may be. He is not a candidate." + +Volumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester could +desire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed again, +suggests, by somebody—to advise and make arrangements. Sir Leicester +is not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been in need of +his assistance. + +Lady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its +cushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on the +park, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned. + +A languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now +observes from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that Tulkinghorn +had gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout +something, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be highly +jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that Coodle man +was floored. + +Mercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon, +that Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady turns +her head inward for the moment, then looks out again as before. + +Volumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so +original, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing +all sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded +that he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge, +and wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with +candlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock +delivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse. + +"He has not been here once," she adds, "since I came. I really had +some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had +almost made up my mind that he was dead." + +It may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker +gloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she +thought, "I would he were!" + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn," says Sir Leicester, "is always welcome here and +always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and +deservedly respected." + +The debilitated cousin supposes he is "'normously rich fler." + +"He has a stake in the country," says Sir Leicester, "I have no +doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on +a footing of equality with the highest society." + +Everybody starts. For a gun is fired close by. + +"Good gracious, what's that?" cries Volumnia with her little withered +scream. + +"A rat," says my Lady. "And they have shot him." + +Enter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and candles. + +"No, no," says Sir Leicester, "I think not. My Lady, do you object to +the twilight?" + +On the contrary, my Lady prefers it. + +"Volumnia?" + +Oh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the +dark. + +"Then take them away," says Sir Leicester. "Tulkinghorn, I beg your +pardon. How do you do?" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his +passing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and subsides +into the chair proper to him when he has anything to communicate, on +the opposite side of the Baronet's little newspaper-table. Sir +Leicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not being very well, will +take cold at that open window. My Lady is obliged to him, but would +rather sit there for the air. Sir Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf +about her, and returns to his seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile +takes a pinch of snuff. + +"Now," says Sir Leicester. "How has that contest gone?" + +"Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in +both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one." + +It is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no +political opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says "you" are +beaten, and not "we." + +Sir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such a +thing. ‘The debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing that's +sure tapn slongs votes—giv'n—Mob. + +"It's the place, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the +fast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, "where they +wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son." + +"A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had +the becoming taste and perception," observes Sir Leicester, "to +decline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments +expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in +this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I +am glad to acknowledge." + +"Ha!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It did not prevent him from being very +active in this election, though." + +Sir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. "Did I +understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active +in this election?" + +"Uncommonly active." + +"Against—" + +"Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and +emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the +business part of the proceedings he carried all before him." + +It is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that +Sir Leicester is staring majestically. + +"And he was much assisted," says Mr. Tulkinghorn as a wind-up, "by +his son." + +"By his son, sir?" repeats Sir Leicester with awful politeness. + +"By his son." + +"The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?" + +"That son. He has but one." + +"Then upon my honour," says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause +during which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, "then +upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, +the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters +have—a—obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion +by which things are held together!" + +General burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is +really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in +and do something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks—country's +going—Dayvle—steeple-chase pace. + +"I beg," says Sir Leicester in a breathless condition, "that we may +not comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My +Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman—" + +"I have no intention," observes my Lady from her window in a low but +decided tone, "of parting with her." + +"That was not my meaning," returns Sir Leicester. "I am glad to hear +you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your +patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these +dangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in +such association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve +her for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably +would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would +not be—" Sir Leicester adds, after a moment's consideration, +"dragged from the altars of her forefathers." + +These remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference +when he addresses himself to his wife. She merely moves her head in +reply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little +stream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen. + +"It is worthy of remark," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "however, that these +people are, in their way, very proud." + +"Proud?" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing. + +"I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the +girl—yes, lover and all—instead of her abandoning them, supposing +she remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances." + +"Well!" says Sir Leicester tremulously. "Well! You should know, Mr. +Tulkinghorn. You have been among them." + +"Really, Sir Leicester," returns the lawyer, "I state the fact. Why, +I could tell you a story—with Lady Dedlock's permission." + +Her head concedes it, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, he is +going to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes? + +"No. Real flesh and blood." Mr. Tulkinghorn stops for an instant and +repeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual monotony, +"Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars +have only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They +exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady +Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?" + +By the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking +towards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can be +seen, perfectly still. + +"A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel +circumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter +who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great +lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your +condition, Sir Leicester." + +Sir Leicester condescendingly says, "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn," implying +that then she must have appeared of very considerable moral +dimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master. + +"The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, +and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. +Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she +had preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been +engaged to marry a young rake—he was a captain in the army—nothing +connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but +she gave birth to a child of which he was the father." + +By the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the +moonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile, +perfectly still. + +"The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a +train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to +discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on +her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how +difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be +always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you +may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's +grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell's +townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be +patronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden +underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly +took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of +the honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not +the least. He resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been +the commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock +will excuse its painful nature." + +There are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting +with Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there ever +was any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold. The +majority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in +few words—"no business—Rouncewell's fernal townsman." Sir Leicester +generally refers back in his mind to Wat Tyler and arranges a +sequence of events on a plan of his own. + +There is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept +at Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and +this is the first night in many on which the family have been alone. +It is past ten when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for +candles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and +then Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes +forward to a table for a glass of water. Winking cousins, bat-like in +the candle glare, crowd round to give it; Volumnia (always ready for +something better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of +which contents her; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked +after by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective +by the side of that nymph, not at all improving her as a question of +contrast. + +CHAPTER XLI + +In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room + +Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the +journey up, though leisurely performed. There is an expression on his +face as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and were, +in his close way, satisfied. To say of a man so severely and strictly +self-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as great an +injustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment or any +romantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied. Perhaps there is a +rather increased sense of power upon him as he loosely grasps one of +his veinous wrists with his other hand and holding it behind his back +walks noiselessly up and down. + +There is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty +large accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his +reading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to +it, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or +so upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he +happens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents +awaiting his notice—with his head bent low over the table, the old +man's sight for print or writing being defective at night—he opens +the French window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks +slowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool +may have any need to subside, from the story he has related +downstairs. + +The time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk +on turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read +their fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though +their brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be +seeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the +leads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented +below. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other +characters nearer to his hand. + +As he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his +thoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in +passing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his +room is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite +the window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, too, but the +night being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. These +eyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the +corridor outside. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into +his face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he +recognizes Lady Dedlock. + +He steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors +behind her. There is a wild disturbance—is it fear or anger?—in her +eyes. In her carriage and all else she looks as she looked downstairs +two hours ago. + +Is it fear or is it anger now? He cannot be sure. Both might be as +pale, both as intent. + +"Lady Dedlock?" + +She does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped +into the easy-chair by the table. They look at each other, like two +pictures. + +"Why have you told my story to so many persons?" + +"Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it." + +"How long have you known it?" + +"I have suspected it a long while—fully known it a little while." + +"Months?" + +"Days." + +He stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in +his old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood +before her at any time since her marriage. The same formal +politeness, the same composed deference that might as well be +defiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same +distance, which nothing has ever diminished. + +"Is this true concerning the poor girl?" + +He slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite understanding +the question. + +"You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story +also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried +in the streets?" + +So! Anger, and fear, and shame. All three contending. What power this +woman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's +thoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his ragged grey +eyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual under her gaze. + +"No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir +Leicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. +But it would be a real case if they knew—what we know." + +"Then they do not know it yet?" + +"No." + +"Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?" + +"Really, Lady Dedlock," Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, "I cannot give a +satisfactory opinion on that point." + +And he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he +watches the struggle in her breast, "The power and force of this +woman are astonishing!" + +"Sir," she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the +energy she has, that she may speak distinctly, "I will make it +plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, +and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. +Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power +of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by +having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my +great and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or +I should rather say—no longer belonging to this place—I had, and if +you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as +to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug +of self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more. + +"You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. +Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I +can release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in +obtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your +discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will +dictate. I am ready to do it." + +And she would do it, thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand +with which she takes the pen! + +"I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." + +"I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare +myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have +done. Do what remains now." + +"Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say +a few words when you have finished." + +Their need for watching one another should be over now, but they do +it all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened +window. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and +the wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. The narrow one! Where +are the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add +the last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn +existence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious +questions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under +the watching stars upon a summer night. + +"Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine," Lady Dedlock +presently proceeds, "I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would +be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears." + +He makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with +her disdainful hand. + +"Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels +are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. +So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had +with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own +dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be +henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with +you." + +"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. "I am +not sure that I understand you. You want—" + +"To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this +hour." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises, but he, without moving +hand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, +shakes his head. + +"What? Not go as I have said?" + +"No, Lady Dedlock," he very calmly replies. + +"Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you +forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and +who it is?" + +"No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means." + +Without deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in +her hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot +or raising his voice, "Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and +hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the +alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before +every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it." + +He has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand +confusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else, but when +so practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment +in such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value. + +He promptly says again, "Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock," +and motions to the chair from which she has risen. She hesitates, but +he motions again, and she sits down. + +"The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady +Dedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for +them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well +known to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have +appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery." + +"Sir," she returns without looking up from the ground on which her +eyes are now fixed, "I had better have gone. It would have been far +better not to have detained me. I have no more to say." + +"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear." + +"I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am." + +His jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's +misgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and +dashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the +terrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she stands +in the window without any support, looking out at the stars—not +up—gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens, +reassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a little +behind her. + +"Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision +satisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what +to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to +keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I +keep it too." + +He pauses, but she makes no reply. + +"Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are +honouring me with your attention?" + +"I am." + +"Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your +strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I +have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on. +The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester." + +"Then why," she asks in a low voice and without removing her gloomy +look from those distant stars, "do you detain me in his house?" + +"Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to +tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance +upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would +not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his +wife." + +She breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as +ever he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company. + +"I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this +case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of +my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to +shake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester's trust and +confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that +he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing +can prepare him for the blow." + +"Not my flight?" she returned. "Think of it again." + +"Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a +hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible +to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of." + +There is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no +remonstrance. + +"When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and +the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir +Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his +patrimony"—Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here—"are, I need not say to +you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable." + +"Go on!" + +"Therefore," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog-trot +style, "I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can +be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid +upon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow +morning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What +could have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the +wall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you +are to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at +all consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your +husband." + +He gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or +animated. + +"There is another point of view," he continues, "in which the case +presents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to +infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even +knowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be +so. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common +sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into +account, and it combines to render a decision very difficult." + +She stands looking out at the same stars without a word. They are +beginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her. + +"My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this +time got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business +consideration of the matter like a machine. "My experience teaches +me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better +to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of +their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I +always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided +by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own +counsel, and I will keep mine." + +"I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, +day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky. + +"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock." + +"It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?" + +"I am sure that what I recommend is necessary." + +"I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable +deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when +you give the signal?" she said slowly. + +"Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without +forewarning you." + +She asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory +or calling them over in her sleep. + +"We are to meet as usual?" + +"Precisely as usual, if you please." + +"And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?" + +"As you have done so many years. I should not have made that +reference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your +secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no +better than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never +wholly trusted each other." + +She stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time +before asking, "Is there anything more to be said to-night?" + +"Why," Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his +hands, "I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my +arrangements, Lady Dedlock." + +"You may be assured of it." + +"Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business +precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any +communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I +have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's +feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been +happy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if +the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not." + +"I can attest your fidelity, sir." + +Both before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length +moves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence, +towards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he +would have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years ago, +and makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not an +ordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into +the darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very +slight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he reflects when +he is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint +upon herself. + +He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own +rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands +clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would +think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down +for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the +faithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled +air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And +truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the +turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger +and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging. + +The same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant +country in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins +entering on various public employments, principally receipt of +salary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty +thousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false +teeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of Bath +and the terror of every other community. Also into rooms high in the +roof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where +humbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in holy +matrimony with Will or Sally. Up comes the bright sun, drawing +everything up with it—the Wills and Sallys, the latent vapour in the +earth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts and +creeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold +emerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great +kitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome +air. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious +head cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are +in their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place in +Lincolnshire. + +CHAPTER XLII + +In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers + +From the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock +property, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and +dust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places +is one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it +were next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he +had never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither changes his +dress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of +his turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he +melts into his own square. + +Like a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant +fields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into +wigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded, +dwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without +experience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest +in holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its +broader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by +the hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than +usual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a +century old. + +The lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr. +Tulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble +mysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the +door-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on +the top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man. + +"Is that Snagsby?" + +"Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir, +and going home." + +"Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?" + +"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his +head in his deference towards his best customer, "I was wishful to +say a word to you, sir." + +"Can you say it here?" + +"Perfectly, sir." + +"Say it then." The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing +at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the +court-yard. + +"It is relating," says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "it is +relating—not to put too fine a point upon it—to the foreigner, +sir!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. "What foreigner?" + +"The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? I am not +acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her +manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly +foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the +honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night." + +"Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense." + +"Indeed, sir?" Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his +hat. "I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in +general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that." Mr. Snagsby appears +to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating +the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself. + +"And what can you have to say, Snagsby," demands Mr. Tulkinghorn, +"about her?" + +"Well, sir," returns the stationer, shading his communication with +his hat, "it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is +very great—at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure—but +my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a +point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a +foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and +hovering—I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if +I could avoid it, but hovering, sir—in the court—you know it +is—now ain't it? I only put it to yourself, sir." + +Mr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a +cough of general application to fill up all the blanks. + +"Why, what do you mean?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +"Just so, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby; "I was sure you would feel it +yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when +coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the +foreign female—which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a +native sound I am sure—caught up the word Snagsby that night, being +uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at +dinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and +she, taking fright at the foreigner's looks—which are fierce—and at +a grinding manner that she has of speaking—which is calculated to +alarm a weak mind—gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it, +and tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such +fits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in +any house but ours. Consequently there was by good fortune ample +occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When +she DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his +employer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of +viewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually +calling at my place until she was let in here. Since then she has +been, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir"—Mr. Snagsby +repeats the word with pathetic emphasis—"in the court. The effects +of which movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn't wonder +if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even +in the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was +possible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows," says Mr. +Snagsby, shaking his head, "I never had an idea of a foreign female, +except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby, +or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. I never had, I +do assure you, sir!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires +when the stationer has finished, "And that's all, is it, Snagsby?" + +"Why yes, sir, that's all," says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough +that plainly adds, "and it's enough too—for me." + +"I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she +is mad," says the lawyer. + +"Even if she was, you know, sir," Mr. Snagsby pleads, "it wouldn't be +a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign +dagger planted in the family." + +"No," says the other. "Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry +you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here." + +Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes +his leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying +to himself, "These women were created to give trouble the whole earth +over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid +now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!" + +So saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms, +lights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to see much +of the Allegory overhead there, but that importunate Roman, who is +for ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is at his old work +pretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much attention, Mr. +Tulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, unlocks a drawer in +which there is another key, which unlocks a chest in which there is +another, and so comes to the cellar-key, with which he prepares to +descend to the regions of old wine. He is going towards the door with +a candle in his hand when a knock comes. + +"Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a +good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?" + +He stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and +taps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of +welcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her +lips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly +closes the door before replying. + +"I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir." + +"HAVE you!" + +"I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he +is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for +you." + +"Quite right, and quite true." + +"Not true. Lies!" + +At times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle Hortense +so like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such subject +involuntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's case at +present, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with her eyes almost shut up +(but still looking out sideways), is only smiling contemptuously and +shaking her head. + +"Now, mistress," says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the +chimney-piece. "If you have anything to say, say it, say it." + +"Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby." + +"Mean and shabby, eh?" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with the +key. + +"Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have +attrapped me—catched me—to give you information; you have asked me +to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you +have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?" +Mademoiselle Hortense makes another spring. + +"You are a vixen, a vixen!" Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as he +looks distrustfully at her, then he replies, "Well, wench, well. I +paid you." + +"You paid me!" she repeats with fierce disdain. "Two sovereign! I +have not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them +from me!" Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom as +she speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor that +they jerk up again into the light before they roll away into corners +and slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently. + +"Now!" says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again. +"You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!" + +Mr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains +herself with a sarcastic laugh. + +"You must be rich, my fair friend," he composedly observes, "to throw +money about in that way!" + +"I AM rich," she returns. "I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of +all my heart. You know that." + +"Know it? How should I know it?" + +"Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you +that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was +en-r-r-r-raged!" It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll the +letter "r" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she +assists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and +setting all her teeth. + +"Oh! I knew that, did I?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards +of the key. + +"Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because +you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her." Mademoiselle Hortense folds her +arms and throws this last remark at him over one of her shoulders. + +"Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?" + +"I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you +cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to +chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well, +and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?" + +"You appear to know a good deal," Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts. + +"Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that +I come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a +little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!" In this reply, down to the +word "wager" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically polite and +tender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and most defiant +scorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment very nearly +shut and staringly wide open. + +"Now, let us see," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the +key and looking imperturbably at her, "how this matter stands." + +"Ah! Let us see," mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight +nods of her head. + +"You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have +just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again." + +"And again," says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. "And +yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!" + +"And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby's too, perhaps? +That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?" + +"And again," repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination. +"And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for +ever!" + +"Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take +the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it +behind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder." + +She merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground +with folded arms. + +"You will not, eh?" + +"No, I will not!" + +"So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this +is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of +prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction +(where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very +strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of +your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one +of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you +think?" + +"I think," mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear, +obliging voice, "that you are a miserable wretch." + +"Probably," returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. "But I +don't ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the +prison." + +"Nothing. What does it matter to me?" + +"Why, it matters this much, mistress," says the lawyer, deliberately +putting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; "the law is so +despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English +citizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits against his +desire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold +of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard +discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress." Illustrating with the +cellar-key. + +"Truly?" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. "That is +droll! But—my faith!—still what does it matter to me?" + +"My fair friend," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "make another visit here, or +at Mr. Snagsby's, and you shall learn." + +"In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?" + +"Perhaps." + +It would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of +agreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish +expansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make +her do it. + +"In a word, mistress," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "I am sorry to be +unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here—or +there—again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is +great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an +ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench." + +"I will prove you," whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand, +"I will try if you dare to do it!" + +"And if," pursues the lawyer without minding her, "I place you in +that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time +before you find yourself at liberty again." + +"I will prove you," repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper. + +"And now," proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, "you had +better go. Think twice before you come here again." + +"Think you," she answers, "twice two hundred times!" + +"You were dismissed by your lady, you know," Mr. Tulkinghorn +observes, following her out upon the staircase, "as the most +implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and +take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I +threaten, I will do, mistress." + +She goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is +gone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle, +devotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, now and +then, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the +pertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling. + +CHAPTER XLIII + +Esther's Narrative + +It matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who had +told me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to +approach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of +the peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my +fears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a living +creature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not always +conquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew +the secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I +did not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere, when I +was present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, I +tried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated something that I +knew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now that I often did +these things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken +of, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing anything that might +lead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me. + +It matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's +voice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to +do, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so +new to me. It matters little that I watched for every public mention +of my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of her house +in town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once sat in the +theatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide +asunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or +confidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over. My lot has +been so blest that I can relate little of myself which is not a story +of goodness and generosity in others. I may well pass that little and +go on. + +When we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations +with my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My dear girl was +deeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but +she was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him +even for that. My guardian was assured of it, and never coupled his +name with a word of reproof. "Rick is mistaken, my dear," he would +say to her. "Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over +again. We must trust to you and time to set him right." + +We knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to +time until he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had +written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and +persuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor devoted Richard +was deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make amends +when the Chancery suit was over. If he were groping in the dark, +he could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those +clouds in which so much was confused and obscured. Suspicion and +misunderstanding were the fault of the suit? Then let him work the +suit out and come through it to his right mind. This was his +unvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such possession +of his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration +before him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a +new argument in favour of his doing what he did. "So that it is even +more mischievous," said my guardian once to me, "to remonstrate with +the poor dear fellow than to leave him alone." + +I took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr. +Skimpole as a good adviser for Richard. + +"Adviser!" returned my guardian, laughing, "My dear, who would advise +with Skimpole?" + +"Encourager would perhaps have been a better word," said I. + +"Encourager!" returned my guardian again. "Who could be encouraged by +Skimpole?" + +"Not Richard?" I asked. + +"No," he replied. "Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer +creature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or +encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or +anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as +Skimpole." + +"Pray, cousin John," said Ada, who had just joined us and now looked +over my shoulder, "what made him such a child?" + +"What made him such a child?" inquired my guardian, rubbing his head, +a little at a loss. + +"Yes, cousin John." + +"Why," he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, "he is +all sentiment, and—and susceptibility, and—and sensibility, +and—and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, +somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth +attached too much importance to them and too little to any training +that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he +is. Hey?" said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us +hopefully. "What do you think, you two?" + +Ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an +expense to Richard. + +"So it is, so it is," returned my guardian hurriedly. "That must not +be. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do." + +And I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever +introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds. + +"Did he?" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his +face. "But there you have the man. There you have the man! There is +nothing mercenary in that with him. He has no idea of the value of +money. He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr. +Vholes and borrows five pounds of him. He means nothing by it and +thinks nothing of it. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my dear?" + +"Oh, yes!" said I. + +"Exactly!" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. "There you have the +man! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in +it, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere +simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll +understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and +caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an +infant!" + +In pursuance of this plan, we went into London on an early day and +presented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door. + +He lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there +were at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about in +cloaks, smoking little paper cigars. Whether he was a better tenant +than one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend Somebody +always paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude for +business rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, I don't +know; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was in a +state of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or three of +the area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, the knocker +was loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long time to judge +from the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps +were the only signs of its being inhabited. + +A slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the +rents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe berry +answered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping +up the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and +I both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of +her wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. The +lock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied +herself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action +either, and said would we go upstairs? + +We went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture +than the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further ceremony +entered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy enough and not at +all clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a +large footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, and +plenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music, +newspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. A broken pane of glass +in one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there +was a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was +another of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a +bottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in +a dressing-gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china +cup—it was then about mid-day—and looking at a collection of +wallflowers in the balcony. + +He was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and +received us in his usual airy manner. + +"Here I am, you see!" he said when we were seated, not without some +little difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. "Here +I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and +mutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, +and my claret; I am content. I don't want them for themselves, but +they remind me of the sun. There's nothing solar about legs of beef +and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction!" + +"This is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever +prescribed), his sanctum, his studio," said my guardian to us. + +"Yes," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, "this is the +bird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his +feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!" + +He handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, "He sings! Not +an ambitious note, but still he sings." + +"These are very fine," said my guardian. "A present?" + +"No," he answered. "No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man +wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should +wait for the money. ‘Really, my friend,' I said, ‘I think not—if +your time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for he went +away." + +My guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, "Is it +possible to be worldly with this baby?" + +"This is a day," said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in a +tumbler, "that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint +Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a +blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment +daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all. +They'll be enchanted." + +He was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked him +to pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. "My dear +Jarndyce," he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, "as many +moments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what +o'clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life, +you'll tell me? Certainly. But we DON'T get on in life. We don't +pretend to do it." + +My guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, "You hear him?" + +"Now, Harold," he began, "the word I have to say relates to Rick." + +"The dearest friend I have!" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. "I +suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms +with you. But he is, I can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry, +and I love him. If you don't like it, I can't help it. I love him." + +The engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really had +a disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, for +the moment, Ada too. + +"You are welcome to love him as much as you like," returned Mr. +Jarndyce, "but we must save his pocket, Harold." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Skimpole. "His pocket? Now you are coming to what I +don't understand." Taking a little more claret and dipping one of the +cakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at Ada and me with an +ingenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand. + +"If you go with him here or there," said my guardian plainly, "you +must not let him pay for both." + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, his genial face irradiated +by the comicality of this idea, "what am I to do? If he takes me +anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I +had any money, I don't know anything about it. Suppose I say to a +man, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know +nothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue +the subject with any consideration for the man. I don't go about +asking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish—which I +don't understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and +sixpence is in Money—which I don't understand?" + +"Well," said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless +reply, "if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must +borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that +circumstance), and leave the calculation to him." + +"My dear Jarndyce," returned Mr. Skimpole, "I will do anything to +give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form—a superstition. +Besides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I +thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to +make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a +bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower +of money." + +"Indeed it is not so, sir," said Ada. "He is poor." + +"No, really?" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. "You +surprise me." + +"And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed," said my +guardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr. +Skimpole's dressing-gown, "be you very careful not to encourage him +in that reliance, Harold." + +"My dear good friend," returned Mr. Skimpole, "and my dear Miss +Simmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It's business, +and I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges +from great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before +me as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire +them—as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell +him so." + +The helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before us, +the light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his innocence, the +fantastic way in which he took himself under his own protection and +argued about that curious person, combined with the delightful ease +of everything he said exactly to make out my guardian's case. The +more I saw of him, the more unlikely it seemed to me, when he was +present, that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and +yet the less likely that appeared when he was not present, and the +less agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with any +one for whom I cared. + +Hearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, Mr. +Skimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters +(his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite +delighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish +character. He soon came back, bringing with him the three young +ladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a +delicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of +disorders. + +"This," said Mr. Skimpole, "is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa—plays +and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment +daughter, Laura—plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy +daughter, Kitty—sings a little but don't play. We all draw a little +and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money." + +Mrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to +strike out this item in the family attainments. I also thought that +she rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she took +every opportunity of throwing in another. + +"It is pleasant," said Mr. Skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes from +one to the other of us, "and it is whimsically interesting to trace +peculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I +am the youngest." + +The daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by +this droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter. + +"My dears, it is true," said Mr. Skimpole, "is it not? So it is, and +so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, ‘it is our nature +to.' Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity +and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very +strange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we know nothing +about chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook +anything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We +admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we +don't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live +and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and +let us live upon you!" + +He laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what +he said. + +"We have sympathy, my roses," said Mr. Skimpole, "sympathy for +everything. Have we not?" + +"Oh, yes, papa!" cried the three daughters. + +"In fact, that is our family department," said Mr. Skimpole, "in this +hurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being +interested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can +we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I +dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all +wrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We +had our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social +ideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their +young fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or +other Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have +THEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don't know how, but +somehow." + +She looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and I +could not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that the +three daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as little +haphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's +playthings in his idlest hours. His pictorial tastes were consulted, +I observed, in their respective styles of wearing their hair, the +Beauty daughter being in the classic manner, the Sentiment daughter +luxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter in the arch style, +with a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls +dotted about the corners of her eyes. They were dressed to +correspond, though in a most untidy and negligent way. + +Ada and I conversed with these young ladies and found them +wonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who had +been rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in +the wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could not +help hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had previously +volunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for +the purpose. + +"My roses," he said when he came back, "take care of mama. She is +poorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I +shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been +tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home." + +"That bad man!" said the Comedy daughter. + +"At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers, +looking at the blue sky," Laura complained. + +"And when the smell of hay was in the air!" said Arethusa. + +"It showed a want of poetry in the man," Mr. Skimpole assented, but +with perfect good humour. "It was coarse. There was an absence of the +finer touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great +offence," he explained to us, "at an honest man—" + +"Not honest, papa. Impossible!" they all three protested. + +"At a rough kind of fellow—a sort of human hedgehog rolled up," said +Mr. Skimpole, "who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we +borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs, +and we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man +who HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them, +and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back. +He had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He +objected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out +his mistake. I said, ‘Can you, at your time of life, be so +headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to +put upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to +survey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don't you +KNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' He was +unreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being +as patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him. +I said, ‘Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary, +we are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming +summer morning here you see me' (I was on the sofa) ‘with flowers +before me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air +full of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common +brotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, +the absurd figure of an angry baker!' But he did," said Mr. Skimpole, +raising his laughing eyes in playful astonishment; "he did interpose +that ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore +I am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend +Jarndyce." + +It seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the +daughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old +a story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. He took +leave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful as any +other aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with us in +perfect harmony of mind. We had an opportunity of seeing through some +open doors, as we went downstairs, that his own apartment was a +palace to the rest of the house. + +I could have no anticipation, and I had none, that something very +startling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what +ensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. Our guest was +in such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but listen to +him and wonder at him; nor was I alone in this, for Ada yielded to +the same fascination. As to my guardian, the wind, which had +threatened to become fixed in the east when we left Somers Town, +veered completely round before we were a couple of miles from it. + +Whether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, Mr. +Skimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. In no +way wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the drawing-room +before any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I was yet +looking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and +drinking songs, Italian and German, by the score. + +We were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the +piano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of music, +and talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the ruined +old Verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two ago and +had got tired of, when a card was brought in and my guardian read +aloud in a surprised voice, "Sir Leicester Dedlock!" + +The visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me +and before I had the power to stir. If I had had it, I should have +hurried away. I had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness, +to retire to Ada in the window, or to see the window, or to know +where it was. I heard my name and found that my guardian was +presenting me before I could move to a chair. + +"Pray be seated, Sir Leicester." + +"Mr. Jarndyce," said Sir Leicester in reply as he bowed and seated +himself, "I do myself the honour of calling here—" + +"You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester." + +"Thank you—of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express +my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may +have against a gentleman who—who is known to you and has been your +host, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should +have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge, +from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and +refined taste at my house, Chesney Wold." + +"You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those +ladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much." + +"It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the +reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion—it +is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the +honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to +believe that you would not have been received by my local +establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, +which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen +who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, +that the fact is the reverse." + +My guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any +verbal answer. + +"It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce," Sir Leicester weightily +proceeded. "I assure you, sir, it has given—me—pain—to learn from +the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your +company in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a +cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some +such cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that +attention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them +and which some of them might possibly have repaid." Here he produced +a card and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his +eye-glass, "Mr. Hirrold—Herald—Harold—Skampling—Skumpling—I beg +your pardon—Skimpole." + +"This is Mr. Harold Skimpole," said my guardian, evidently surprised. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Sir Leicester, "I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and +to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, +sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you +will be under no similar sense of restraint." + +"You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall +certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to +your beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold," +said Mr. Skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, "are public +benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful +objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to +reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be +ungrateful to our benefactors." + +Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. "An artist, +sir?" + +"No," returned Mr. Skimpole. "A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur." + +Sir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he might +have the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole next +came down into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself much +flattered and honoured. + +"Mr. Skimpole mentioned," pursued Sir Leicester, addressing himself +again to my guardian, "mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may +have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family—" + +("That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the +occasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare," +Mr. Skimpole airily explained to us.) + +"—That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was +Mr. Jarndyce." Sir Leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. "And +hence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed +my regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr. +Jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock, +and indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as +I learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I +assure you, give—me—pain." + +"Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester," returned my guardian. "I +am very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration. +Indeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it." + +I had not once looked up. I had not seen the visitor and had not even +appeared to myself to hear the conversation. It surprises me to find +that I can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression on me as it +passed. I heard them speaking, but my mind was so confused and my +instinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his presence so +distressing to me that I thought I understood nothing, through the +rushing in my head and the beating of my heart. + +"I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock," said Sir Leicester, +rising, "and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of +exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the +occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the +vicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to +these ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole. +Circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me +any gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house +with his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that +gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him." + +"You know my old opinion of him," said Mr. Skimpole, lightly +appealing to us. "An amiable bull who is determined to make every +colour scarlet!" + +Sir Leicester Dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear +another word in reference to such an individual and took his leave +with great ceremony and politeness. I got to my own room with all +possible speed and remained there until I had recovered my +self-command. It had been very much disturbed, but I was thankful to +find when I went downstairs again that they only rallied me for +having been shy and mute before the great Lincolnshire baronet. + +By that time I had made up my mind that the period was come when I +must tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being +brought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house, +even of Mr. Skimpole's, however distantly associated with me, +receiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so painful +that I felt I could no longer guide myself without his assistance. + +When we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual +talk in our pretty room, I went out at my door again and sought my +guardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and as +I drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from his +reading-lamp. + +"May I come in, guardian?" + +"Surely, little woman. What's the matter?" + +"Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet +time of saying a word to you about myself." + +He put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his +kind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it +wore that curious expression I had observed in it once before—on +that night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could +readily understand. + +"What concerns you, my dear Esther," said he, "concerns us all. You +cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear." + +"I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and +support. Oh! You don't know how much need I have to-night." + +He looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little +alarmed. + +"Or how anxious I have been to speak to you," said I, "ever since the +visitor was here to-day." + +"The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?" + +"Yes." + +He folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the +profoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did not +know how to prepare him. + +"Why, Esther," said he, breaking into a smile, "our visitor and you +are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting +together!" + +"Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago." + +The smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. He +crossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to that) +and resumed his seat before me. + +"Guardian," said I, "do you remember, when we were overtaken by the +thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?" + +"Of course. Of course I do." + +"And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone +their several ways?" + +"Of course." + +"Why did they separate, guardian?" + +His face quite altered as he looked at me. "My child, what questions +are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I +believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and +proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen +her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty +as she." + +"Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!" + +"Seen her?" + +He paused a little, biting his lip. "Then, Esther, when you spoke to +me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but +married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and +that that time had had its influence on his later life—did you know +it all, and know who the lady was?" + +"No, guardian," I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke +upon me. "Nor do I know yet." + +"Lady Dedlock's sister." + +"And why," I could scarcely ask him, "why, guardian, pray tell me why +were THEY parted?" + +"It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He +afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some +injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel +with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him +that from the date of that letter she died to him—as in literal +truth she did—and that the resolution was exacted from her by her +knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which +were both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in +him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the +sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did +both, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from +that hour. Nor did any one." + +"Oh, guardian, what have I done!" I cried, giving way to my grief; +"what sorrow have I innocently caused!" + +"You caused, Esther?" + +"Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is +my first remembrance." + +"No, no!" he cried, starting. + +"Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!" + +I would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear +it then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly +before me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better +state of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with fervent gratitude +towards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him +so dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that +night. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door, +and when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever +be busy enough, how could I ever be good enough, how in my little way +could I ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to +him, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and +honoured him. + +CHAPTER XLIV + +The Letter and the Answer + +My guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him +what had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to +be done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such +encounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling and entirely +shared it. He charged himself even with restraining Mr. Skimpole from +improving his opportunity. One person whom he need not name to me, it +was not now possible for him to advise or help. He wished it were, +but no such thing could be. If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she +had mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he +dreaded discovery. He knew something of him, both by sight and by +reputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever +happened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and +kindness, I was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence. + +"Nor do I understand," said he, "that any doubts tend towards you, my +dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion." + +"With the lawyer," I returned. "But two other persons have come into +my mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr. +Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little +understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview +I expressed perfect confidence." + +"Well," said my guardian. "Then we may dismiss him for the present. +Who is the other?" + +I called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of +herself she had made to me. + +"Ha!" he returned thoughtfully. "That is a more alarming person than +the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new +service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was +natural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed +herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more." + +"Her manner was strange," said I. + +"Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and +showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her +death-bed," said my guardian. "It would be useless self-distress and +torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very +few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous +meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing +better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were +before you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody's sake. I, +sharing the secret with you—" + +"And lightening it, guardian, so much," said I. + +"—will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can +observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can +stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is +better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear +daughter's sake." + +I thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank +him! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment. +Quickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again; +and all at once, I don't know how, it flashed upon me as a new and +far-off possibility that I understood it. + +"My dear Esther," said my guardian, "I have long had something in my +thoughts that I have wished to say to you." + +"Indeed?" + +"I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I +should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately +considered. Would you object to my writing it?" + +"Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to +read?" + +"Then see, my love," said he with his cheery smile, "am I at this +moment quite as plain and easy—do I seem as open, as honest and +old-fashioned—as I am at any time?" + +I answered in all earnestness, "Quite." With the strictest truth, for +his momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and +his fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored. + +"Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I +said, had any reservation at all, no matter what?" said he with his +bright clear eyes on mine. + +I answered, most assuredly he did not. + +"Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, +Esther?" + +"Most thoroughly," said I with my whole heart. + +"My dear girl," returned my guardian, "give me your hand." + +He took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down +into my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of +manner—the old protecting manner which had made that house my home +in a moment—said, "You have wrought changes in me, little woman, +since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done +me a world of good since that time." + +"Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!" + +"But," said he, "that is not to be remembered now." + +"It never can be forgotten." + +"Yes, Esther," said he with a gentle seriousness, "it is to be +forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember +now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite +assured of that, my dear?" + +"I can, and I do," I said. + +"That's much," he answered. "That's everything. But I must not take +that at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until +you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as +you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never +write it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send +Charley to me this night week—‘for the letter.' But if you are not +quite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing +as in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point, +never send!" + +"Guardian," said I, "I am already certain, I can no more be changed +in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send +Charley for the letter." + +He shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in reference +to this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week. +When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was +alone, "Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you +have come from me—‘for the letter.'" Charley went up the stairs, and +down the stairs, and along the passages—the zig-zag way about the +old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that +night—and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and +up the stairs, and brought the letter. "Lay it on the table, +Charley," said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed, +and I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many +things. + +I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those +timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute +face so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael +than if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. I +passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in +all around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw +my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was +the grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of +welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant +faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived +my happy life there over again, I went through my illness and +recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so +unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central +figure, represented before me by the letter on the table. + +I opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and +in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed +for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read +much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it +down. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It +asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House. + +It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was +written just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his +face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind +protecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places +were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the +feelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he +past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I +was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing +all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature +deliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage +and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance +the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he +was certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew +since our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only +served to show me through one poor instance that the whole world +would readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood. +I was the last to know what happiness I could bestow upon him, but of +that he said no more, for I was always to remember that I owed him +nothing and that he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often +thought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and +fearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age) +would leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up, +had become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it. +If I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to +be my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become +the dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter +chances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind +myself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even +then I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in +the opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his +old manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his +bright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the +same, he knew. + +This was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a +justice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian +impartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his +integrity he stated the full case. + +But he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he had +had this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it. +That when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he +could love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery +of my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my +disfigurement and my inheritance of shame. That the more I stood in +need of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in him to the +last. + +But I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of +the benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but +one thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him +poorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means +of thanking him? + +Still I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after +reading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect—for +it was strange though I had expected the contents—but as if +something for which there was no name or distinct idea were +indefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very +hopeful; but I cried very much. + +By and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, and I +said, "Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!" I am afraid the face in +the glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I held up my +finger at it, and it stopped. + +"That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear, +when you showed me such a change!" said I, beginning to let down my +hair. "When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as +cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us +begin for once and for all." + +I went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little +still, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was +crying then. + +"And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best +friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great +deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men." + +I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how +should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been +a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form +that I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before I laid +them down in their basket again. + +Then I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how +often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my +illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I +should be busy, busy, busy—useful, amiable, serviceable, in all +honest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit +down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at +first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that I +was one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it seem +strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not. +"Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, looking at the +glass, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about +your marrying—" + +Perhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains of +the flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had only +been preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it +would be better not to keep them now. + +They were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room—our +sitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle and +went softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in my hand, +I saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and +I stole in to kiss her. + +It was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying; but +I dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. Weaker +than that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment +to her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, though, indeed, +the flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I took them into my own +room and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant. + +On entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian just +as usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not the +least constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think there was +none) in mine. I was with him several times in the course of the +morning, in and out, when there was no one there, and I thought it +not unlikely that he might speak to me about the letter, but he did +not say a word. + +So, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over +which time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every day, +that my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never +did. + +I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I +tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not +write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought +each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days, +and he never said a word. + +At last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon +going out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going down, +came upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at the +drawing-room window looking out. + +He turned on my coming in and said, smiling, "Aye, it's you, little +woman, is it?" and looked out again. + +I had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come down +on purpose. "Guardian," I said, rather hesitating and trembling, +"when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came +for?" + +"When it's ready, my dear," he replied. + +"I think it is ready," said I. + +"Is Charley to bring it?" he asked pleasantly. + +"No. I have brought it myself, guardian," I returned. + +I put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this +the mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no +difference presently, and we all went out together, and I said +nothing to my precious pet about it. + +CHAPTER XLV + +In Trust + +One morning when I had done jingling about with my baskets of keys, +as my beauty and I were walking round and round the garden I happened +to turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in +which looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling me only that +morning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his ardour in the +Chancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to +damp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's +shadow. + +Presently came Charley, lightly winding among the bushes and tripping +along the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of Flora's attendants +instead of my maid, saying, "Oh, if you please, miss, would you step +and speak to Mr. Jarndyce!" + +It was one of Charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged +with a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she beheld, +at any distance, the person for whom it was intended. Therefore I saw +Charley asking me in her usual form of words to "step and speak" to +Mr. Jarndyce long before I heard her. And when I did hear her, she +had said it so often that she was out of breath. + +I told Ada I would make haste back and inquired of Charley as we went +in whether there was not a gentleman with Mr. Jarndyce. To which +Charley, whose grammar, I confess to my shame, never did any credit +to my educational powers, replied, "Yes, miss. Him as come down in +the country with Mr. Richard." + +A more complete contrast than my guardian and Mr. Vholes I suppose +there could not be. I found them looking at one another across a +table, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and +upright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out what +he had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other keeping it +in in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner that I thought I +never had seen two people so unmatched. + +"You know Mr. Vholes, my dear," said my guardian. Not with the +greatest urbanity, I must say. + +Mr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself +again, just as he had seated himself beside Richard in the gig. Not +having Richard to look at, he looked straight before him. + +"Mr. Vholes," said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were +a bird of ill omen, "has brought an ugly report of our most +unfortunate Rick." Laying a marked emphasis on "most unfortunate" as +if the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr. +Vholes. + +I sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that +he secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with +his black glove. + +"And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to +know," said my guardian, "what you think, my dear. Would you be so +good as to—as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?" + +Doing anything but that, Mr. Vholes observed, "I have been saying +that I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.'s professional +adviser, that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at the present moment in an +embarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the +peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and +the means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved +off many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving +off, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket +to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to +being repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have +a father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to +realize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My +apprehension is, Mr. C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should +end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all +events is desirable to be made known to his connexions." + +Mr. Vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into +the silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was +his tone, and looked before him again. + +"Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource," said my +guardian to me. "Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would +never accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be +to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did." + +Mr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again. + +"What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the +difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say +that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here +under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything +may be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that +everything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything +should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. +If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be +here. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his +objections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he +charged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of +society and a father—AND a son," said Mr. Vholes, who had nearly +forgotten that point. + +It appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than the +truth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such +as it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I could only suggest that +I should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see +him, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. Without +consulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to +propose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed +his funeral gloves. + +The fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my +guardian's part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too +happy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr. +Vholes. + +"Well, sir," said Mr. Jarndyce, "Miss Summerson will communicate with +Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet +retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, +sir." + +"I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce," said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long +black sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, "not any. I thank you, +no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor +knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this +period of the day, I don't know what the consequences might be. +Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your +permission take my leave." + +"And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take +our leave, Mr. Vholes," returned my guardian bitterly, "of a cause +you know of." + +Mr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had +quite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume, +made a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and +slowly shook it. + +"We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of +respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the +wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think +well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an +obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?" + +I said I would be careful not to do it. + +"Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir." Mr. +Vholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in +it, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his +long thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of the coach, +passing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling +the seed in the ground as it glided along. + +Of course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I +was going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was +too true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of +excuse, and in a more loving spirit still—my dear devoted girl!—she +wrote him a long letter, of which I took charge. + +Charley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted +none and would willingly have left her at home. We all went to London +that afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. At +our usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the +Kentish letters. + +It was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to +ourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed with me +as I suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. At +one while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. Now I +thought I should do some good, and now I wondered how I could ever +have supposed so. Now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in +the world that I should have come, and now one of the most +unreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say +to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with +these two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune +(to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and +over again all night. + +At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they +were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little +irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and +great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and +blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and +weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea +was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but +a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their +bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they +were spinning themselves into cordage. + +But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down, +comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too +late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our +little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very +much. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships +that we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many +sail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. Some of these +vessels were of grand size—one was a large Indiaman just come home; +and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in +the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, +and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to +them and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in +themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful. + +The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into +the downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how +glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was +curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the +serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much +faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told +her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast +on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of +one man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew +at home of such a case. + +I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it +seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived +in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we +went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard, +we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I +asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He +sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and +knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us. + +"Now then!" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the +little passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, "Can I come +in, Richard? It's only Dame Durden." + +He was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin +cases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the +floor. He was only half dressed—in plain clothes, I observed, not in +uniform—and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his +room. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me and I was +seated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me +in his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me. +Down to—ah, poor poor fellow!—to the end, he never received me but +with something of his old merry boyish manner. + +"Good heaven, my dear little woman," said he, "how do you come here? +Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is +well?" + +"Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!" + +"Ah!" he said, leaning back in his chair. "My poor cousin! I was +writing to you, Esther." + +So worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his +handsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely +written sheet of paper in his hand! + +"Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to +read it after all?" I asked. + +"Oh, my dear," he returned with a hopeless gesture. "You may read it +in the whole room. It is all over here." + +I mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had +heard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult +with him what could best be done. + +"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!" said he with a +melancholy smile. "I am away on leave this day—should have been gone +in another hour—and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. +Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I +only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all +the professions." + +"Richard," I urged, "it is not so hopeless as that?" + +"Esther," he returned, "it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as +that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes) +would far rather be without me than with me. And they are right. +Apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even +for this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but +for one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn't broken now," he said, +tearing the letter he had written into fragments and moodily casting +them away, by driblets, "how could I have gone abroad? I must have +been ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my +experience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his +back!" + +I suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught +the hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to +prevent me from going on. + +"No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid—must forbid. The first is +John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell +you I can't help it now, and can't be sane. But it is no such thing; +it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was +prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be +wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I +have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very +agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will." + +He was in that mood in which I thought it best not to increase his +determination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. I took +out Ada's letter and put it in his hand. + +"Am I to read it now?" he asked. + +As I told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head upon +his hand, began. He had not read far when he rested his head upon his +two hands—to hide his face from me. In a little while he rose as if +the light were bad and went to the window. He finished reading it +there, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had +folded it up, stood there for some minutes with the letter in his +hand. When he came back to his chair, I saw tears in his eyes. + +"Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?" He spoke in a +softened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me. + +"Yes, Richard." + +"Offers me," he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, "the little +inheritance she is certain of so soon—just as little and as much as +I have wasted—and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right +with it, and remain in the service." + +"I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart," said I. +"And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart." + +"I am sure it is. I—I wish I was dead!" + +He went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his +head down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, but I +hoped he might become more yielding, and I remained silent. My +experience was very limited; I was not at all prepared for his +rousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury. + +"And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not +otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from +me," said he indignantly. "And the dear girl makes me this generous +offer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with the same +John Jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new +means of buying me off." + +"Richard!" I cried out, rising hastily. "I will not hear you say such +shameful words!" I was very angry with him indeed, for the first time +in my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his worn young +face looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on his shoulder +and said, "If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a +tone to me. Consider!" + +He blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous manner +that he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a thousand +times. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for I was rather +fluttered after being so fiery. + +"To accept this offer, my dear Esther," said he, sitting down beside +me and resuming our conversation, "—once more, pray, pray forgive +me; I am deeply grieved—to accept my dearest cousin's offer is, I +need not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I +could show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have +done with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in +the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing +Ada's interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the +wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me, +thank God!" + +His sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his +features, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been +before. + +"No, no!" cried Richard exultingly. "If every farthing of Ada's +little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining +me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary +of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should +be used where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for me! I shall +now have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I +shall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to +compound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their +bond now—Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour +anyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter +to Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of +me and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear." + +I will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, and +nobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It only +came from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but I saw +that on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless +to make any representation to him. I saw too, and had experienced in +this very interview, the sense of my guardian's remark that it was +even more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as +he was. + +Therefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind +convincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, and +that it was not his mere impression. He showed me without hesitation +a correspondence making it quite plain that his retirement was +arranged. I found, from what he told me, that Mr. Vholes had copies +of these papers and had been in consultation with him throughout. +Beyond ascertaining this, and having been the bearer of Ada's letter, +and being (as I was going to be) Richard's companion back to London, +I had done no good by coming down. Admitting this to myself with a +reluctant heart, I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he +joined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to +the gate, and Charley and I went back along the beach. + +There was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval +officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with +unusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great +Indiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look. + +The gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking +good-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing +about them as if they were glad to be in England again. "Charley, +Charley," said I, "come away!" And I hurried on so swiftly that my +little maid was surprised. + +It was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time +to take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In +one of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I +had been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he +should see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my +courage had quite failed me. + +But I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, "My dear, +there is no reason—there is and there can be no reason at all—why +it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were +last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This +is not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up!" I was in a +great tremble—with running—and at first was quite unable to calm +myself; but I got better, and I was very glad to know it. + +The party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the staircase. +I was sure it was the same gentlemen because I knew their voices +again—I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still have been a +great relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but +I was determined not to do so. "No, my dear, no. No, no, no!" + +I untied my bonnet and put my veil half up—I think I mean half down, +but it matters very little—and wrote on one of my cards that I +happened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to +Mr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be +by chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw +that he was very sorry for me. + +"You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. +Woodcourt," said I, "but we can hardly call that a misfortune which +enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the +truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old +patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe +illness." + +"Ah! Little Miss Flite!" he said. "She lives the same life yet?" + +"Just the same." + +I was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to +be able to put it aside. + +"Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most +affectionate creature, as I have reason to say." + +"You—you have found her so?" he returned. "I—I am glad of that." He +was so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak. + +"I assure you," said I, "that I was deeply touched by her sympathy +and pleasure at the time I have referred to." + +"I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill." + +"I was very ill." + +"But you have quite recovered?" + +"I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness," said I. "You +know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I +have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to +desire." + +I felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than I had ever had +for myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to +find that it was I who was under the necessity of reassuring him. I +spoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future plans, and +of his probable return to India. He said that was very doubtful. He +had not found himself more favoured by fortune there than here. He +had gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home nothing better. +While we were talking, and when I was glad to believe that I had +alleviated (if I may use such a term) the shock he had had in seeing +me, Richard came in. He had heard downstairs who was with me, and +they met with cordial pleasure. + +I saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke +of Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt had a perception that all was not +going well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as if there +were something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked +towards me as though he sought to ascertain whether I knew what the +truth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good +spirits and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. Woodcourt again, whom +he had always liked. + +Richard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr. +Woodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not +join us. He dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became so +much more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace to +think I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet his mind was not +relieved of Richard. When the coach was almost ready and Richard ran +down to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him. + +I was not sure that I had a right to lay his whole story open, but I +referred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and to +his being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. Woodcourt +listened with interest and expressed his regret. + +"I saw you observe him rather closely," said I, "Do you think him so +changed?" + +"He is changed," he returned, shaking his head. + +I felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was +only an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was +gone. + +"It is not," said Mr. Woodcourt, "his being so much younger or older, +or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his +face such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in +a young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all +weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair." + +"You do not think he is ill?" said I. + +No. He looked robust in body. + +"That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to +know," I proceeded. "Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?" + +"To-morrow or the next day." + +"There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked +you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with +your companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it +might be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I—how +we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!" + +"Miss Summerson," he said, more moved than he had been from the +first, "before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept +him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!" + +"God bless you!" said I, with my eyes filling fast; but I thought +they might, when it was not for myself. "Ada loves him—we all love +him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say. +Thank you, and God bless you, in her name!" + +Richard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and +gave me his arm to take me to the coach. + +"Woodcourt," he said, unconscious with what application, "pray let us +meet in London!" + +"Meet?" returned the other. "I have scarcely a friend there now but +you. Where shall I find you?" + +"Why, I must get a lodging of some sort," said Richard, pondering. +"Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn." + +"Good! Without loss of time." + +They shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard +was yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand +on Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved +mine in thanks. + +And in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry +for me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may +feel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly +remembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten. + +CHAPTER XLVI + +Stop Him! + +Darkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since the +sun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills +every void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights +burning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, heavily, +heavily, in the nauseous air, and winking—as that lamp, too, winks +in Tom-all-Alone's—at many horrible things. But they are blotted +out. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some +puny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and +blasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The +blackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's, +and Tom is fast asleep. + +Much mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of +Parliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom +shall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by +constables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of +figures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by +low church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting +trusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or +whether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of +which dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit, +that Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according +to somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the hopeful +meantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined +spirit. + +But he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they +serve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's +corrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It +shall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists +on analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and +his Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance. +There is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any +pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation +about him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his +committing, but shall work its retribution through every order of +society up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the +high. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has +his revenge. + +It is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by +night, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more +shocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination +is at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it. +The day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the +national glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the +British dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder +as Tom. + +A brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep +to be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless +pillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted by +curiosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the +miserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark +eye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there, +he seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it +before. + +On the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street +of Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut +up and silent. No waking creature save himself appears except in one +direction, where he sees the solitary figure of a woman sitting on a +door-step. He walks that way. Approaching, he observes that she has +journeyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. She +sits on the door-step in the manner of one who is waiting, with her +elbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas +bag, or bundle, she has carried. She is dozing probably, for she +gives no heed to his steps as he comes toward her. + +The broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to +where the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her. +Looking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops. + +"What is the matter?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?" + +"I'm waiting till they get up at another house—a lodging-house—not +here," the woman patiently returns. "I'm waiting here because there +will be sun here presently to warm me." + +"I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the +street." + +"Thank you, sir. It don't matter." + +A habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or +condescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many +people deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little +spelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily. + +"Let me look at your forehead," he says, bending down. "I am a +doctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world." + +He knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand he +can soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection, +saying, "It's nothing"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the +wounded place when she lifts it up to the light. + +"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very +sore." + +"It do ache a little, sir," returns the woman with a started tear +upon her cheek. + +"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't hurt +you." + +"Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!" + +He cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully +examined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes a +small case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While he is +thus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a surgery +in the street, "And so your husband is a brickmaker?" + +"How do you know that, sir?" asks the woman, astonished. + +"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on +your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in +different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to +their wives too." + +The woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her +injury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her +forehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops +them again. + +"Where is he now?" asks the surgeon. + +"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the +lodging-house." + +"He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and +heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as +he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it. +You have no young child?" + +The woman shakes her head. "One as I calls mine, sir, but it's +Liz's." + +"Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!" + +By this time he has finished and is putting up his case. "I suppose +you have some settled home. Is it far from here?" he asks, +good-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and +curtsys. + +"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint +Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like, +as if you did." + +"Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in +return. Have you money for your lodging?" + +"Yes, sir," she says, "really and truly." And she shows it. He tells +her, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she is very +welcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all-Alone's is still +asleep, and nothing is astir. + +Yes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which he +descried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a +ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the +soiled walls—which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid—and +furtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth +whose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so +intent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger +in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He shades his face +with his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and +goes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and +his shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what +purpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They +look, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of +swampy growth that rotted long ago. + +Allan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a +shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how +or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form. +He imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge, +still, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his +remembrance. + +He is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light, +thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking +round, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by +the woman. + +"Stop him, stop him!" cries the woman, almost breathless. "Stop him, +sir!" + +He darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker +than he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up +half-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the woman +follows, crying, "Stop him, sir, pray stop him!" Allan, not knowing +but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and +runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time +he repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. To +strike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable +him, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly +ridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed, +takes to a narrow passage and a court which has no thoroughfare. +Here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay and +tumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at +him until the woman comes up. + +"Oh, you, Jo!" cries the woman. "What? I have found you at last!" + +"Jo," repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, "Jo! Stay. To be +sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the +coroner." + +"Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich," whimpers Jo. "What of +that? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I +unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be? +I've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by +another on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich +warn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he +wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my +crossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I +only wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't go and make a hole +in the water, I'm sure I don't." + +He says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so +real, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a +growth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in +neglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him. +He says to the woman, "Miserable creature, what has he done?" + +To which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure +more amazedly than angrily, "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at +last!" + +"What has he done?" says Allan. "Has he robbed you?" + +"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by +me, and that's the wonder of it." + +Allan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting +for one of them to unravel the riddle. + +"But he was along with me, sir," says the woman. "Oh, you Jo! He was +along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord +bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn't, +and took him home—" + +Allan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror. + +"Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a +thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or +heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady +that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful +looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it +wasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet +voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this +is all along of you and of her goodness to you?" demands the woman, +beginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into +passionate tears. + +The boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing +his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, +and to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against +which he leans rattles. + +Allan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but +effectually. + +"Richard told me—" He falters. "I mean, I have heard of this—don't +mind me for a moment, I will speak presently." + +He turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered +passage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except +that he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very +remarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention. + +"You hear what she says. But get up, get up!" + +Jo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner +of his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting +one of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right +hand over his left and his left foot over his right. + +"You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here +ever since?" + +"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning," +replies Jo hoarsely. + +"Why have you come here now?" + +Jo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no +higher than the knees, and finally answers, "I don't know how to do +nothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and I +thought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay +down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go +and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me +somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on +me—like everybody everywheres." + +"Where have you come from?" + +Jo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees +again, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a +sort of resignation. + +"Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?" + +"Tramp then," says Jo. + +"Now tell me," proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his +repugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an +expression of confidence, "tell me how it came about that you left +that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to +pity you and take you home." + +Jo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares, +addressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that +he never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he +would sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have had his +unfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos +wery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself throughout as if in his +poor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very +miserable sobs. + +Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains himself +to touch him. "Come, Jo. Tell me." + +"No. I dustn't," says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. "I +dustn't, or I would." + +"But I must know," returns the other, "all the same. Come, Jo." + +After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again, +looks round the court again, and says in a low voice, "Well, I'll +tell you something. I was took away. There!" + +"Took away? In the night?" + +"Ah!" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and +even glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through +the cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking +over or hidden on the other side. + +"Who took you away?" + +"I dustn't name him," says Jo. "I dustn't do it, sir. + +"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. No +one else shall hear." + +"Ah, but I don't know," replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as +he DON'T hear." + +"Why, he is not in this place." + +"Oh, ain't he though?" says Jo. "He's in all manner of places, all at +wanst." + +Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and +good faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently +awaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than +by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. + +"Aye!" says Allan. "Why, what had you been doing?" + +"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, +'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. I'm +a-moving on to the berryin ground—that's the move as I'm up to." + +"No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?" + +"Put me in a horsepittle," replied Jo, whispering, "till I was +discharged, then giv me a little money—four half-bulls, wot you may +call half-crowns—and ses ‘Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he ses. +‘You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. ‘You move on,' he ses. +‘Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or +you'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he'll see +me if I'm above ground," concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his +former precautions and investigations. + +Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but +keeping an encouraging eye on Jo, "He is not so ungrateful as you +supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an +insufficient one." + +"Thankee, sir, thankee!" exclaims Jo. "There now! See how hard you +wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and +it's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it." + +"Now, Jo," says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, "come with me and I +will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I +take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you +will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise." + +"I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir." + +"Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this +time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come +along. Good day again, my good woman." + +"Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again." + +She has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and +takes it up. Jo, repeating, "Ony you tell the young lady as I never +went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!" nods and shambles and +shivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a +farewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan +Woodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In +this order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's into the broad +rays of the sunlight and the purer air. + +CHAPTER XLVII + +Jo's Will + +As Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high +church spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning +light that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in +his mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. "It surely is a +strange fact," he considers, "that in the heart of a civilized world +this creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of +than an unowned dog." But it is none the less a fact because of its +strangeness, and the difficulty remains. + +At first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still +really following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close +to the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick +to brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along, +glancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing +in his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering +with a less divided attention what he shall do. + +A breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be +done. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and +comes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his +right hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading +dirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo +is then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw +the bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions +as he eats and drinks, like a scared animal. + +But he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him. +"I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir," says Jo, soon putting down +his food, "but I don't know nothink—not even that. I don't care for +eating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em." And Jo stands shivering +and looking at the breakfast wonderingly. + +Allan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. "Draw +breath, Jo!" "It draws," says Jo, "as heavy as a cart." He might add, +"And rattles like it," but he only mutters, "I'm a-moving on, sir." + +Allan looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand, +but a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of +wine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to +revive almost as soon as it passes his lips. "We may repeat that +dose, Jo," observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face. +"So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again." + +Leaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his +back against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in +the early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without +appearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that +he is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his +face brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice +of bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of +improvement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no +small wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its +consequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has +finished his story and his bread, they go on again. + +Intending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of +refuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite, +Allan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered. +But all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer +lodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much +obscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other +than the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These +sufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her +birds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to +that neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who rises early that she +may be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend +the Chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and +with open arms. + +"My dear physician!" cries Miss Flite. "My meritorious, +distinguished, honourable officer!" She uses some odd expressions, +but is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be—more so +than it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has +no more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a +doorway, and tells her how he comes there. + +"Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a +fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me." + +Miss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider; +but it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is +entirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley's room. +"Gridley!" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth +repetition of this remark. "Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear +physician! General George will help us out." + +It is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and +would be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put on +her pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with +her reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician in her +disjointed manner on coming down in full array that General George, +whom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a +great interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think +that they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his +encouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and +they repair to the general's. Fortunately it is not far. + +From the exterior of George's Shooting Gallery, and the long entry, +and the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He +also descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding +towards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no +stock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and +dumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light +shirt-sleeves. + +"Your servant, sir," says Mr. George with a military salute. +Good-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp +hair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and +at some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He +winds it up with another "Your servant, sir!" and another salute. + +"Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?" says Mr. George. + +"I am proud to find I have the air of one," returns Allan; "but I am +only a sea-going doctor." + +"Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket +myself." + +Allan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on +that account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe, +which, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing. +"You are very good, sir," returns the trooper. "As I know by +experience that it's not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it's +equally agreeable to yourself—" and finishes the sentence by putting +it between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows +about Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face. + +"And that's the lad, sir, is it?" he inquires, looking along the +entry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the +whitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes. + +"That's he," says Allan. "And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty +about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could +procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not +stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same +objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be +evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to +get him into one, which is a system that I don't take kindly to." + +"No man does, sir," returns Mr. George. + +"I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he +is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered +him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person +to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything." + +"I ask your pardon, sir," says Mr. George. "But you have not +mentioned that party's name. Is it a secret, sir?" + +"The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket." + +"Bucket the detective, sir?" + +"The same man." + +"The man is known to me, sir," returns the trooper after blowing out +a cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, "and the boy is so far +correct that he undoubtedly is a—rum customer." Mr. George smokes +with a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in silence. + +"Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that +this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it +in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. +Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor +lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent +people and Jo, Mr. George," says Allan, following the direction of +the trooper's eyes along the entry, "have not been much acquainted, +as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in +this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for +him beforehand?" + +As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man +standing at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted +figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more +puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, +and the little man winks up at the trooper. + +"Well, sir," says Mr. George, "I can assure you that I would +willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all +agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege +to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in +the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the +place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the +same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We +are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are +liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment's notice. However, +sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at +your service." + +With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole +building at his visitor's disposal. + +"I take it for granted, sir," he adds, "you being one of the medical +staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate +subject?" + +Allan is quite sure of it. + +"Because, sir," says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, "we +have had enough of that." + +His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. +"Still I am bound to tell you," observes Allan after repeating his +former assurance, "that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and +that he may be—I do not say that he is—too far gone to recover." + +"Do you consider him in present danger, sir?" inquires the trooper. + +"Yes, I fear so." + +"Then, sir," returns the trooper in a decisive manner, "it appears to +me—being naturally in the vagabond way myself—that the sooner he +comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!" + +Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command; +and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought +in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not +one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with +Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he +is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made +article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a +common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely +filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in +him, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English +soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts +that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the +sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing +interesting about thee. + +He shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled +together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know +that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he +is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He +is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in +creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor +of humanity. + +"Look here, Jo!" says Allan. "This is Mr. George." + +Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a +moment, and then down again. + +"He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room +here." + +Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After +a little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot +on which he rests, he mutters that he is "wery thankful." + +"You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be +obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, +whatever you do, Jo." + +"Wishermaydie if I don't, sir," says Jo, reverting to his favourite +declaration. "I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get +myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir, +'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation." + +"I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak +to you." + +"My intention merely was, sir," observes Mr. George, amazingly broad +and upright, "to point out to him where he can lie down and get a +thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here." As the trooper speaks, +he conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the +little cabins. "There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here +you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon, +sir"—he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him—"Mr. +Woodcourt pleases. Don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be +aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there's another thing I would +recommend, sir," says the trooper, turning to his visitor. "Phil, +come here!" + +Phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. "Here is a +man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it +is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor +creature. You do, don't you, Phil?" + +"Certainly and surely I do, guv'ner," is Phil's reply. + +"Now I was thinking, sir," says Mr. George in a martial sort of +confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a +drum-head, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay +out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles—" + +"Mr. George, my considerate friend," returns Allan, taking out his +purse, "it is the very favour I would have asked." + +Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of +improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the +best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her +friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the +judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing +"which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years, +would be too absurdly unfortunate!" Allan takes the opportunity of +going out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them +near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down +the gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him. + +"I take it, sir," says Mr. George, "that you know Miss Summerson +pretty well?" + +Yes, it appears. + +"Not related to her, sir?" + +No, it appears. + +"Excuse the apparent curiosity," says Mr. George. "It seemed to me +probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor +creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest +in him. 'Tis MY case, sir, I assure you." + +"And mine, Mr. George." + +The trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark +eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of +him. + +"Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I +unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket +took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted +with the name, I can help you to it. It's Tulkinghorn. That's what it +is." + +Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name. + +"Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to +have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased +person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow." + +Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is. + +"What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?" + +"I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, +what kind of man?" + +"Why, then I'll tell you, sir," returns the trooper, stopping short +and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face +fires and flushes all over; "he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He +is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood +than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man—by George!—that +has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more +dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That's +the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!" + +"I am sorry," says Allan, "to have touched so sore a place." + +"Sore?" The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his +broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. "It's no +fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me. +He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of +this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won't +hold off, and he won't come on. If I have a payment to make him, or +time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don't see me, +don't hear me—passes me on to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn, +Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn passes me back again to him—he +keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same +stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well, +loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. +Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He +chafes and goads me till—Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. +Woodcourt," the trooper resumes his march, "all I say is, he is an +old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs +to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that +chance, in one of the humours he drives me into—he'd go down, sir!" + +Mr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his +forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity +away with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head +and heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an +occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar, +as if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a +choking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about +the going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to. + +Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his +mattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of +medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and +instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He +repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without +seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery. + +With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that +there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and +showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in +substance what he said in the morning, without any material +variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a +hollower sound. + +"Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more," falters Jo, "and +be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep, +as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving +on right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful. I'd be +more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an +unfortnet to be it." + +He makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the +course of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr. +Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court, the +rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down. + +To Cook's Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his +counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of +several skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense +desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place +of a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the +traveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells +and greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for +business. + +"You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?" + +The stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old +apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to +answer, "No, sir, I can't say I do. I should have considered—not to +put too fine a point upon it—that I never saw you before, sir." + +"Twice before," says Allan Woodcourt. "Once at a poor bedside, and +once—" + +"It's come at last!" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection +breaks upon him. "It's got to a head now and is going to burst!" But +he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the +little counting-house and to shut the door. + +"Are you a married man, sir?" + +"No, I am not." + +"Would you make the attempt, though single," says Mr. Snagsby in a +melancholy whisper, "to speak as low as you can? For my little woman +is a-listening somewheres, or I'll forfeit the business and five +hundred pound!" + +In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back +against his desk, protesting, "I never had a secret of my own, sir. I +can't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my +little woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn't +have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn't +have done it, I dursn't have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I +find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a +burden to me." + +His visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he +remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't +he! + +"You couldn't name an individual human being—except myself—that my +little woman is more set and determined against than Jo," says Mr. +Snagsby. + +Allan asks why. + +"Why?" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump +of hair at the back of his bald head. "How should I know why? But you +are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married +person such a question!" + +With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal +resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to +communicate. + +"There again!" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his +feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the +face. "At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me, +in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little +woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, +and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that +other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private +asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam, +sir!" says Mr. Snagsby. + +But it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of +the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen. +And being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo's +condition, he readily engages to "look round" as early in the evening +as he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly when the +evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a +manager as he. + +Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left +alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so +far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched +by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a +crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds. + +"And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?" inquires the stationer +with his cough of sympathy. + +"I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am," returns Jo, "and don't want for +nothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm wery +sorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir." + +The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what +it is that he is sorry for having done. + +"Mr. Sangsby," says Jo, "I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos +and yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says +nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good +and my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me +yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah, Jo!' she ses. ‘We thought we'd lost you, +Jo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a +word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I +turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him +a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to +giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and +night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I +see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby." + +The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table. +Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve +his feelings. + +"Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you wos +able to write wery large, p'raps?" + +"Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer. + +"Uncommon precious large, p'raps?" says Jo with eagerness. + +"Yes, my poor boy." + +Jo laughs with pleasure. "Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, +wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn't +be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write +out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos +wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to +do it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. +Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I +hoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could +be made to say it wery large, he might." + +"It shall say it, Jo. Very large." + +Jo laughs again. "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir, +and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore." + +The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips +down his fourth half-crown—he has never been so close to a case +requiring so many—and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this +little earth, shall meet no more. No more. + +For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over +stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, +shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it +still upon its weary road. + +Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse +and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking +round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging +elevation of his one eyebrow, "Hold up, my boy! Hold up!" There, too, +is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both +thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast +in the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a +frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and, +from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down +temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in +answer to his cheerful words. + +Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly +arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a +while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards +him—just as he sat in the law-writer's room—and touches his chest +and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little +more. + +The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped +in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr. +Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and +attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper, +signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next +used, there will be a speck of rust upon it. + +"Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened." + +"I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I +thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but +you, Mr. Woodcot?" + +"Nobody." + +"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?" + +"No." Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I'm wery thankful." + +After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very +near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, "Jo! Did you +ever know a prayer?" + +"Never knowd nothink, sir." + +"Not so much as one short prayer?" + +"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. +Sangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin' to +hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out +nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down +Tom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other +'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to +theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to +us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about." + +It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and +attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a +short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong +effort to get out of bed. + +"Stay, Jo! What now?" + +"It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir," he +returns with a wild look. + +"Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?" + +"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, +he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, +sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be +berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' +he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have +come there to be laid along with him." + +"By and by, Jo. By and by." + +"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you +promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" + +"I will, indeed." + +"Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate +afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step +there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark, +sir. Is there any light a-comin?" + +"It is coming fast, Jo." + +Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very +near its end. + +"Jo, my poor fellow!" + +"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin—a-gropin—let me +catch hold of your hand." + +"Jo, can you say what I say?" + +"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good." + +"Our Father." + +"Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir." + +"Which art in heaven." + +"Art in heaven—is the light a-comin, sir?" + +"It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!" + +"Hallowed be—thy—" + +The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead! + +Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right +reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, +born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around +us every day. + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +Closing In + +The place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house +in town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in +their picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long +drawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town the +Dedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through +the darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or +hair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility, +loll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The +fashionable world—tremendous orb, nearly five miles round—is in +full swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed +distances. + +Where the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where +all the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and +refinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled +and taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed +in herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under +her mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance +that what she is to those around her she will remain another day, +it is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to +yield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown +more handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of +her that she's beauty nough—tsetup shopofwomen—but rather +larming kind—remindingmanfact—inconvenient woman—who WILL +getoutofbedandbawthstahlishment—Shakespeare. + +Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he +is to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat +loosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from +the peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who +might be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women +she is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him. + +One thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his +turret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to +throw it off. + +It is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little +sun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing +in the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like +overblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of +seed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has +fallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a +Parliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave +audience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and +has been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon +embroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over +it, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time to-day. + +"Rosa." + +The pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious +my Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised. + +"See to the door. Is it shut?" + +Yes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised. + +"I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust +your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I +will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say +nothing to any one of what passes between us." + +The timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be +trustworthy. + +"Do you know," Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her +chair nearer, "do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from +what I am to any one?" + +"Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you +really are." + +"You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child!" + +She says it with a kind of scorn—though not of Rosa—and sits +brooding, looking dreamily at her. + +"Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you +suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to +me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?" + +"I don't know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my +heart, I wish it was so." + +"It is so, little one." + +The pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark +expression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an +explanation. + +"And if I were to say to-day, ‘Go! Leave me!' I should say what would +give me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very +solitary." + +"My Lady! Have I offended you?" + +"In nothing. Come here." + +Rosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady, with +that motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand +upon her dark hair and gently keeps it there. + +"I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would +make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot. +There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, +rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You +must not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have +written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All +this I have done for your sake." + +The weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she +do, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses +her on the cheek and makes no other answer. + +"Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and +happy!" + +"Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought—forgive my being so +free—that YOU are not happy." + +"I!" + +"Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think +again. Let me stay a little while!" + +"I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my +own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now—not +what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my +confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!" + +She detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the +room. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the +staircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As indifferent +as if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the +earlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its +other departed monsters. + +Mercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her +appearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to +the library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him +first. + +"Sir Leicester, I am desirous—but you are engaged." + +Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn. + +Always at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him +for a moment. + +"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?" + +With a look that plainly says, "You know you have the power to remain +if you will," she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a +chair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his +clumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her +and the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls +upon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her +life. + +It is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long +rows of houses stare at each other with that severity that +half-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared +into stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a +street of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to +liveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their +own in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry +and massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone +chargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines +itself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these +petrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the +upstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which +bold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use), +retains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of +departed oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals +in a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an +oyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high +and dry master in the House of Lords. + +Therefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair, +could wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands. +And yet—and yet—she sends a look in that direction as if it were +her heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way. + +Sir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say? + +"Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) +and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am +tired to death of the matter." + +"What can I do—to—assist?" demands Sir Leicester in some +considerable doubt. + +"Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to +send him up?" + +"Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request," says +Sir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the business +term, "request the iron gentleman to walk this way." + +Mercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces +him. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously. + +"I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr. +Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell," Sir Leicester +skilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, "was desirous +to speak with you. Hem!" + +"I shall be very happy," returns the iron gentleman, "to give my best +attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say." + +As he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon +him is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant +supercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is +nothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness. + +"Pray, sir," says Lady Dedlock listlessly, "may I be allowed to +inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son +respecting your son's fancy?" + +It is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look +upon him as she asks this question. + +"If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the +pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son +to conquer that—fancy." The ironmaster repeats her expression with a +little emphasis. + +"And did you?" + +"Oh! Of course I did." + +Sir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very proper. +The iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do +it. No difference in this respect between the base metals and the +precious. Highly proper. + +"And pray has he done so?" + +"Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear +not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple +an intention with our—our fancies which renders them not altogether +easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest." + +Sir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat Tylerish +meaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. Rouncewell is +perfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently +adapts his tone to his reception. + +"Because," proceeds my Lady, "I have been thinking of the subject, +which is tiresome to me." + +"I am very sorry, I am sure." + +"And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite +concur"—Sir Leicester flattered—"and if you cannot give us the +assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion +that the girl had better leave me." + +"I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind." + +"Then she had better go." + +"Excuse me, my Lady," Sir Leicester considerately interposes, "but +perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has +not merited. Here is a young woman," says Sir Leicester, +magnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a +service of plate, "whose good fortune it is to have attracted the +notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the +protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages +which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very +great—I believe unquestionably very great, sir—for a young woman in +that station of life. The question then arises, should that young +woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune +simply because she has"—Sir Leicester, with an apologetic but +dignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up +his sentence—"has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now, +has she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this +our previous understanding?" + +"I beg your pardon," interposes Mr. Rouncewell's son's father. "Sir +Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray +dismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so +unimportant—which is not to be expected—you would recollect that my +first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining +here." + +Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester +is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him +through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their +report of the iron gentleman's observations. + +"It is not necessary," observes my Lady in her coldest manner before +he can do anything but breathe amazedly, "to enter into these matters +on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever +to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many +advantages and her good fortune that she is in love—or supposes she +is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them." + +Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might +have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in +support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman +had better go. + +"As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when +we were fatigued by this business," Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds, +"we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under +present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had +better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back +to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would +you prefer?" + +"Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly—" + +"By all means." + +"—I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of +the incumbrance and remove her from her present position." + +"And to speak as plainly," she returns with the same studied +carelessness, "so should I. Do I understand that you will take her +with you?" + +The iron gentleman makes an iron bow. + +"Sir Leicester, will you ring?" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from +his window and pulls the bell. "I had forgotten you. Thank you." He +makes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury, +swift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce, +skims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs. + +Rosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the +ironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with +her near the door ready to depart. + +"You are taken charge of, you see," says my Lady in her weary manner, +"and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a +very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for." + +"She seems after all," observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little +forward with his hands behind him, "as if she were crying at going +away." + +"Why, she is not well-bred, you see," returns Mr. Rouncewell with +some quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer +to retort upon, "and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows +no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no +doubt." + +"No doubt," is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply. + +Rosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she +was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that +she thanks my Lady over and over again. "Out, you silly little puss!" +says the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily. +"Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!" My Lady merely waves her off +with indifference, saying, "There, there, child! You are a good girl. +Go away!" Sir Leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the +subject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr. +Tulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted +with lamps, looms in my Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before. + +"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock," says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause +of a few moments, "I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having +again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome +subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so +small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of +my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly +exert my influence to take my young friend here away without +troubling you at all. But it appeared to me—I dare say magnifying +the importance of the thing—that it was respectful to explain to you +how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and +convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the +polite world." + +Sir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these +remarks. "Mr. Rouncewell," he returns, "do not mention it. +Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side." + +"I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last +word, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with +the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out +this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate +and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done +something to awaken such feelings—though of course Lady Dedlock, by +her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much +more." + +If he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He points +it, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of +speech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim +room where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his parting +salutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes another +flight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house. + +Then lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still +standing in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still +sitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night +as well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, observing +it as she rises to retire, thinks, "Well she may be! The power of +this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole +time." But he can act a part too—his one unchanging character—and +as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each +fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, should find no flaw in +him. + +Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is +whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of +the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner, +still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated +cousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn +is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone YET? No. What +is he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library. +Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that. + +But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is +reported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to receive +him for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will receive him now. +He comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission, +while she is at table. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to +dispense with such mockeries. + +"What do you want, sir?" + +"Why, Lady Dedlock," says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little +distance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up +and down, up and down, "I am rather surprised by the course you have +taken." + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure +from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position, +Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I +don't approve of it." + +He stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his +knees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an +indefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not +escape this woman's observation. + +"I do not quite understand you." + +"Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock, +we must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl." + +"Well, sir?" + +"And you know—and I know—that you have not sent her away for the +reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as +much as possible from—excuse my mentioning it as a matter of +business—any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself." + +"Well, sir?" + +"Well, Lady Dedlock," returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and +nursing the uppermost knee. "I object to that. I consider that a +dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to +awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don't know what, in the house. +Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly +what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it +is to me, that you have been this evening very different from what +you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!" + +"If, sir," she begins, "in my knowledge of my secret—" But he +interrupts her. + +"Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of +business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your +secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in +trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady +Dedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation." + +"That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can +to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference +to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney +Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I +have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could +shake it or could move me." This she says with great deliberation and +distinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. As for +him, he methodically discusses his matter of business as if she were +any insensible instrument used in business. + +"Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock," he returns, "you are not to be +trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and +according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not +to be trusted." + +"Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same +point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?" + +"Yes," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the +hearth. "Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred +to the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both +the letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any +action on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt +about that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is +she? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One +might have supposed that the course was straight on—over everything, +neither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all +considerations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under +foot." + +She has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks at +him. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her lower +lip is compressed under her teeth. "This woman understands me," Mr. +Tulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. "SHE cannot be +spared. Why should she spare others?" + +For a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no dinner, +but has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand and drunk +it. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and reclines in it, +shading her face. There is nothing in her manner to express weakness +or excite compassion. It is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. "This +woman," thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, standing on the hearth, again a dark +object closing up her view, "is a study." + +He studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too +studies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak, +appearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until +midnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence. + +"Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview +remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your +sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring +it void and taking my own course." + +"I am quite prepared." + +Mr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. "That is all I have to trouble you +with, Lady Dedlock." + +She stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, "This is the +notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you." + +"Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because +the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed. +But virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely +in a lawyer's mind." + +"You intend to give me no other notice?" + +"You are right. No." + +"Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?" + +"A home question!" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and +cautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. "No, not to-night." + +"To-morrow?" + +"All things considered, I had better decline answering that question, +Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don't know when, exactly, you would +not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow. +I would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no +expectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you +good evening." + +She removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks +silently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to open +it. + +"Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were +writing in the library. Are you going to return there?" + +"Only for my hat. I am going home." + +She bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight and +curious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his watch +but is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. There is a +splendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid clocks not +often are, for its accuracy. "And what do YOU say," Mr. Tulkinghorn +inquires, referring to it. "What do you say?" + +If it said now, "Don't go home!" What a famous clock, hereafter, if +it said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to this +old man of all the young and old men who have ever stood before it, +"Don't go home!" With its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters +after seven and ticks on again. "Why, you are worse than I thought +you," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his watch. "Two +minutes wrong? At this rate you won't last my time." What a watch to +return good for evil if it ticked in answer, "Don't go home!" + +He passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind +him, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries, +difficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are treasured +up within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the confidence of +the very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks telegraph family +secrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to +whisper, "Don't go home!" + +Through the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar +and jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing +shop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the +crowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and +nothing meets him murmuring, "Don't go home!" Arrived at last in his +dull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the +Roman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the +Roman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to +give him the late warning, "Don't come here!" + +It is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only +now rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining +as they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as +he has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them. +Her soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless. +The large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their +restraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden. + +Too capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much +surprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman, +loosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury attends with +the key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers the key into his +Lady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. She will walk +there some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may +be more. She needs no further escort. The gate shuts upon its spring +with a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of +some trees. + +A fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr. +Tulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting +those resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like yard. He +looks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large +moon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too. + +A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude +and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded +places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads +and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in +repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees +against the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is +it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the +water-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among +pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only +does the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick, +where many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping +make it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements +through marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed +ashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds, +rich in cornfield wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with +the ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and +on the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread +wings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only +him; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some +rest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more +ethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness in the pale +effulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are +softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly +away. In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the +shepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their +sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them +exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a +distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating. + +What's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it? + +The few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some +windows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a +loud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, or so +a man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in the +neighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper across the +road. While the dogs are yet barking and howling—there is one dog +howling like a demon—the church-clocks, as if they were startled +too, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to +swell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last clock begins +to strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, the fine night, +the bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace +again. + +Has Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet, +and his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring +him out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of +him. What power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man +out of his immovable composure? + +For many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no +particular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he has +any new meaning in him to-night. Once pointing, always pointing—like +any Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. There he is, no doubt, +in his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long. +Moonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. There he is still, eagerly +pointing, and no one minds him. + +But a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the +rooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not +expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up +at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that +person shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one +looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street. + +What does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber, +and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily, +carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. There is whispering +and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing +of steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of +furniture. All eyes look up at the Roman, and all voices murmur, "If +he could only tell what he saw!" + +He is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a +glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after +being lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon +the ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. These +objects lie directly within his range. An excited imagination might +suppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the +rest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but +the clouds and flowers and pillars too—in short, the very body and +soul of Allegory, and all the brains it has—stark mad. It happens +surely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at +these things looks up at the Roman and that he is invested in all +eyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness. + +So it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly +stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be +covered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from the +ceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him, +with far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. Tulkinghorn's +time, and with a deadly meaning. For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over +for evermore, and the Roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted +against his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to +morning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart. + +CHAPTER XLIX + +Dutiful Friendship + +A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr. +Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present +bassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration +of a birthday in the family. + +It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that +epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with +an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after +dinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is +thinking about it—a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so +by his mother having departed this life twenty years. Some men rarely +revert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their +remembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection +into their mother's name. Mr. Bagnet is one of these. Perhaps his +exalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually +to make the noun-substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender. + +It is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions +are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the +bounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young Woolwich's last +birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and +general advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on +the changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism, +accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two, +"What is your name?" and "Who gave you that name?" but there failing +in the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number +three the question "And how do you like that name?" which he +propounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and +improving as to give it quite an orthodox air. This, however, was a +speciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity. + +It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and +reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is +always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed +by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced +that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest +pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in +the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in +by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest +inhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of +toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief +(essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. +Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs. +Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. +Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment +amidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the +old girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown +and be served by himself and the young people. As he is not +illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of +state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her +state with all imaginable cheerfulness. + +On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual +preliminaries. He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if +there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, +to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by +their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting +of the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers +itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of +ceremony, an honoured guest. + +Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving, +as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. To these +young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake +of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes. + +"At half after one." Says Mr. Bagnet. "To the minute. They'll be +done." + +Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before +the fire and beginning to burn. + +"You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Fit for a +queen." + +Mrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception +of her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is impelled +by the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, what is the +matter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more oblivious of the +fowls than before, and not affording the least hope of a return to +consciousness. Fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of +the agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and with an admonitory poke +recalls him. The stopped fowls going round again, Mrs. Bagnet closes +her eyes in the intensity of her relief. + +"George will look us up," says Mr. Bagnet. "At half after four. To +the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This +afternoon?" + +"Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I +begin to think. Just about that, and no less," returns Mrs. Bagnet, +laughing and shaking her head. + +"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "never mind. You'd be as young as ever +you was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody knows." + +Quebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy is +sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it +will be. + +"Do you know, Lignum," says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the +table-cloth, and winking "salt!" at Malta with her right eye, and +shaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, "I begin to think +George is in the roving way again." + +"George," returns Mr. Bagnet, "will never desert. And leave his old +comrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it." + +"No, Lignum. No. I don't say he will. I don't think he will. But if +he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be +off." + +Mr. Bagnet asks why. + +"Well," returns his wife, considering, "George seems to me to be +getting not a little impatient and restless. I don't say but what +he's as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be +George, but he smarts and seems put out." + +"He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. "By a lawyer. Who would put +the devil out." + +"There's something in that," his wife assents; "but so it is, +Lignum." + +Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity +under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of +his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry +humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made +gravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion. +With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the +process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction, +as if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too, +are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. Overcoming +these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last +dishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest's +place at his right hand. + +It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, +for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. Every kind of +finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess +is developed in these specimens in the singular form of +guitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck roots into their +breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their +legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted +the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian +exercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of +these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most +severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old +girl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least +of all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her +digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks +without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to +understand. + +The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the +repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, +and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. The +great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply +themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of +their mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens, +inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the +present. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering +of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an +expenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the +young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs. +Bagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. At last +the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec +and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, +and something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl +enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this +delightful entertainment. + +When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very +near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet +announces, "George! Military time." + +It is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl +(whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for +Mr. Bagnet. "Happy returns to all!" says Mr. George. + +"But, George, old man!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously. +"What's come to you?" + +"Come to me?" + +"Ah! You are so white, George—for you—and look so shocked. Now +don't he, Lignum?" + +"George," says Mr. Bagnet, "tell the old girl. What's the matter." + +"I didn't know I looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand +over his brow, "and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I +do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died +yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." + +"Poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. "Is he gone? +Dear, dear!" + +"I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk, +but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should +have roused up in a minute," says the trooper, making himself speak +more gaily, "but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet." + +"You're right. The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. "Is as quick. As +powder." + +"And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to +her," cries Mr. George. "See here, I have brought a little brooch +along with me. It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake. +That's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring +leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of +reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. "Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. +"Tell him my opinion of it." + +"Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. "It's the +beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" + +"Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. "My opinion." + +"It's so pretty, George," cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all sides +and holding it out at arm's length, "that it seems too choice for +me." + +"Bad!" says Mr. Bagnet. "Not my opinion." + +"But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says +Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched +out to him; "and though I have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to +you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in +reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for +good luck, if you will, George." + +The children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over young +Woolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely wooden, +yet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help laughing in her +airy way and saying, "Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap +you are!" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand +shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe +this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so +out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!" + +Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a +pipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the +trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to be +got into action. "If that don't bring you round, George," says she, +"just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and +the two together MUST do it." + +"You ought to do it of yourself," George answers; "I know that very +well, Mrs. Bagnet. I'll tell you how, one way and another, the blues +have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. 'Twas dull +work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him." + +"What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your +roof." + +"I helped him so far, but that's little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there +he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know +his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped +out of that." + +"Ah, poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet. + +"Then," says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his +heavy hand over his hair, "that brought up Gridley in a man's mind. +His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up +in a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And +to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end +in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly—it +made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you." + +"My advice to you," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "is to light your pipe and +tingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the +health altogether." + +"You're right," says the trooper, "and I'll do it." + +So he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses +the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony +of drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by himself on these +occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies +having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling "the +mixtur," and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers +it his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the +assembled company in the following terms. + +"George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day's +march. And you won't find such another. Here's towards her!" + +The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns +thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model +composition is limited to the three words "And wishing yours!" which +the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession and a +well-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows up, on the +present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, "Here's a +man!" + +Here IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company, +looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man—a quick keen +man—and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once, +individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a +remarkable man. + +"George," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" + +"Why, it's Bucket!" cries Mr. George. + +"Yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. "I was going +down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the +musical instruments in the shop-window—a friend of mine is in want +of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone—and I saw a party +enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I +thought I couldn't be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George, +at the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma'am? And with +you, governor? And Lord," says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, "here's +children too! You may do anything with me if you only show me +children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR +father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!" + +Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George +and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. "You pretty dears," says Mr. +Bucket, "give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy in. +Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of +these two, ma'am? I should put 'em down at the figures of about eight +and ten." + +"You're very near, sir," says Mrs. Bagnet. + +"I generally am near," returns Mr. Bucket, "being so fond of +children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by one +mother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much +so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do +you call these, my darling?" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching Malta's +cheeks. "These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do +you think about father? Do you think father could recommend a +second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket's friend, my +dear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?" + +These blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet +forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for Mr. +Bucket and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad to receive +so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him +that as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to see him this +evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits. + +"Not in his usual spirits?" exclaims Mr. Bucket. "Why, I never heard +of such a thing! What's the matter, George? You don't intend to tell +me you've been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for? +You haven't got anything on your mind, you know." + +"Nothing particular," returns the trooper. + +"I should think not," rejoins Mr. Bucket. "What could you have on +your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds, +eh? Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the young +fellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low-spirited. I +ain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma'am." + +Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own. + +"There, ma'am!" says Mr. Bucket. "Would you believe it? No, I +haven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as +fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. So it +is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. +What a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that yard, now?" + +There is no way out of that yard. + +"Ain't there really?" says Mr. Bucket. "I should have thought there +might have been. Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard that +took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, +I see there's no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it +is!" + +Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his +chair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately +on the shoulder. + +"How are your spirits now, George?" + +"All right now," returns the trooper. + +"That's your sort!" says Mr. Bucket. "Why should you ever have been +otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to +be out of spirits. That ain't a chest to be out of spirits, is it, +ma'am? And you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, George; +what could you have on your mind!" + +Somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety +of his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it +to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is particularly +his own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers from this brief +eclipse and shines again. + +"And this is brother, is it, my dears?" says Mr. Bucket, referring to +Quebec and Malta for information on the subject of young Woolwich. +"And a nice brother he is—half-brother I mean to say. For he's too +old to be your boy, ma'am." + +"I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's," returns +Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. + +"Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying. +Lord, he's wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the +brow, you know, THERE his father comes out!" Mr. Bucket compares the +faces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid +satisfaction. + +This is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy is +George's godson. + +"George's godson, is he?" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme cordiality. +"I must shake hands over again with George's godson. Godfather and +godson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of +him, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?" + +Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife. Beautiful." + +"Would you believe it, governor," says Mr. Bucket, struck by the +coincidence, "that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in +a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you! +‘British Grenadiers'—there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD +you give us ‘British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" + +Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this call +upon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and performs +the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much +enlivened, beats time and never fails to come in sharp with the +burden, "British Gra-a-anadeers!" In short, he shows so much musical +taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to +express his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives the +harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did once +chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own bosom, +and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, that he is +asked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of the evening, +he complies and gives them "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young +Charms." This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he considers to have +been his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a +maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar—Mr. Bucket's own +words are "to come up to the scratch." + +This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the +evening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of pleasure +on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of +him. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to +get on with, that it is something to have made him known there. Mr. +Bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible of the value of his +acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his company on the old +girl's next birthday. If anything can more closely cement and +consolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has formed for the family, it +is the discovery of the nature of the occasion. He drinks to Mrs. +Bagnet with a warmth approaching to rapture, engages himself for that +day twelvemonth more than thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day +in a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope +that Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, +sisters. As he says himself, what is public life without private +ties? He is in his humble way a public man, but it is not in that +sphere that he finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the +confines of domestic bliss. + +It is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn, +should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising an +acquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. Whatever the +subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye upon him. He waits +to walk home with him. He is interested in his very boots and +observes even them attentively as Mr. George sits smoking +cross-legged in the chimney-corner. + +At length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. Bucket, +with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He dotes upon the +children to the last and remembers the commission he has undertaken +for an absent friend. + +"Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor—could you +recommend me such a thing?" + +"Scores," says Mr. Bagnet. + +"I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. +"You're a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a +regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the +rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn't," says +Mr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, "you needn't commit +yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay too large +a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage +and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man +must live, and ought to it." + +Mr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they +have found a jewel of price. + +"Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten +to-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few +wiolincellers of a good tone?" says Mr. Bucket. + +Nothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the requisite +information ready and even hint to each other at the practicability +of having a small stock collected there for approval. + +"Thank you," says Mr. Bucket, "thank you. Good night, ma'am. Good +night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for +one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life." + +They, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he +has given them in his company; and so they part with many expressions +of goodwill on both sides. "Now George, old boy," says Mr. Bucket, +taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" As they go down the +little street and the Bagnets pause for a minute looking after them, +Mrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that Mr. Bucket "almost +clings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him." + +The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little +inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George +therefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot +make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, "Wait half +a minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first." Immediately +afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into a parlour, +where he confronts him and claps his own back against the door. + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is +friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have +endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you +whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody, +George." + +"Custody? What for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case +upon him with his fat forefinger, "duty, as you know very well, is +one thing, and conversation is another. It's my duty to inform you +that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against +you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don't happen to +have heard of a murder?" + +"Murder!" + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an +impressive state of action, "bear in mind what I've said to you. I +ask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I say, +you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" + +"No. Where has there been a murder?" + +"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself. +I'm a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder +in Lincoln's Inn Fields—gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was +shot last night. I want you for that." + +The trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out +upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face. + +"Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and +that you suspect ME?" + +"George," returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, "it is +certainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last +night at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten +o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." + +"Last night! Last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then it +flashes upon him. "Why, great heaven, I was there last night!" + +"So I have understood, George," returns Mr. Bucket with great +deliberation. "So I have understood. Likewise you've been very often +there. You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been +heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible—I +don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible—that he may +have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous +fellow." + +The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak. + +"Now, George," continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table +with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise, +"my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. +I tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a hundred guineas, +offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always +been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if +that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as +any other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear +to you that I must have you, and that I'm damned if I don't have you. +Am I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?" + +Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier. +"Come," he says; "I am ready." + +"George," continues Mr. Bucket, "wait a bit!" With his upholsterer +manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes +from his pocket a pair of handcuffs. "This is a serious charge, +George, and such is my duty." + +The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his +two hands, clasped together, and says, "There! Put them on!" + +Mr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. "How do you find them? Are they +comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as +is consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair in my pocket." +This remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to +execute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his +customer. "They'll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see, +George"—he takes a cloak from a corner and begins adjusting it about +the trooper's neck—"I was mindful of your feelings when I come out, +and brought this on purpose. There! Who's the wiser?" + +"Only I," returns the trooper, "but as I know it, do me one more good +turn and pull my hat over my eyes." + +"Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain't it a pity? It looks so." + +"I can't look chance men in the face with these things on," Mr. +George hurriedly replies. "Do, for God's sake, pull my hat forward." + +So strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and +conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as +steadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket +steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings. + +CHAPTER L + +Esther's Narrative + +It happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from Caddy +Jellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her +health, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and +that she would be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to +see her. It was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on +which she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in +which he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now +the mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby—such a +tiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely +anything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand, +always clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all +day, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to +imagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved +it cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole +desire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had +curious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks +under its eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and +altogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous +little sight. + +But it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects +with which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education, +and little Esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the +grandmother of little Esther's little Esthers, was so prettily +expressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be +tempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that I +am getting on irregularly as it is. + +To return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had +been strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when +she had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost—I think I +must say quite—believed that I did her good whenever I was near her. +Now although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl's that I +am almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of +a fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my +guardian's consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so much of me +that there never was anything like it. + +Next day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It +was a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in +the morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters +before leaving home. + +But when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my +return at night, "Now, little woman, little woman, this will never +do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching +will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and +take possession of our old lodgings." + +"Not for me, dear guardian," said I, "for I never feel tired," which +was strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request. + +"For me then," returned my guardian, "or for Ada, or for both of us. +It is somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think." + +"Truly I think it is," said I, kissing my darling, who would be +twenty-one to-morrow. + +"Well," observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously, +"that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary +business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make +London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will +go. That being settled, there is another thing—how have you left +Caddy?" + +"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she +regains her health and strength." + +"What do you call some time, now?" asked my guardian thoughtfully. + +"Some weeks, I am afraid." + +"Ah!" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets, +showing that he had been thinking as much. "Now, what do you say +about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?" + +I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but +that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his +opinion to be confirmed by some one. + +"Well, you know," returned my guardian quickly, "there's Woodcourt." + +I had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment +all that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed +to come back and confuse me. + +"You don't object to him, little woman?" + +"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!" + +"And you don't think the patient would object to him?" + +So far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a +great reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was +no stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind +attendance on Miss Flite. + +"Very good," said my guardian. "He has been here to-day, my dear, and +I will see him about it to-morrow." + +I felt in this short conversation—though I did not know how, for she +was quiet, and we interchanged no look—that my dear girl well +remembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no +other hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token. +This caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that +I was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided +that disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes +of its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited +listening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be +the first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to +take her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before +myself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life +that was in store for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at +one time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest +of me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted +by the sense of having done right in casting this last idle +reservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before. +I had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that +it was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better. + +Next day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in +half an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone +away. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday, +and we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us +that Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that +day I was for some weeks—eight or nine as I remember—very much with +Caddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than +any other since we had first come together, except the time of my own +illness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to +amuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential +manner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's +rest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her. + +With her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their +home to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self-denying, +so uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid +of giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her +husband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the +best of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face +and helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing +was the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began +early every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy +waltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon. + +At Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment, +trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more +airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every +day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small +namesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It +was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about +Bleak House. + +We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in +his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit +softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very +little child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed +to declare to Prince that she was all but well—which I, heaven +forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such +good spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and +play a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do +in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all. + +Then there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her +usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her +grandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan +on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as +untidy, she would say, "Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do +to-day?" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of +the reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number +of letters she had lately received and answered or of the +coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do +with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be +disguised. + +Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and +from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the +baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him +uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was +surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy +required any little comfort that the house contained, she first +carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In +return for this consideration he would come into the room once a day, +all but blessing it—showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a +grace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered +presence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known +better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life. + +"My Caroline," he would say, making the nearest approach that he +could to bending over her. "Tell me that you are better to-day." + +"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop," Caddy would reply. + +"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite +prostrated by fatigue?" Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss +his fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be +particular in his attentions since I had been so altered. + +"Not at all," I would assure him. + +"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We +must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My +dear Caroline"—he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite +generosity and protection—"want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish +and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains, +everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not," he +would sometimes add in a burst of deportment, "even allow my simple +requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere +with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine." + +He had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment +(his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew +both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these +affectionate self-sacrifices. + +"Nay, my dears," he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin +arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though +not by the same process. "Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave +ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other +return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park." + +He would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his +hotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never +saw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except +that he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the +child out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending +him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a +halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended +with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was +sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of +deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and +her husband, from top to toe. + +Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to +come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was, +and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt +to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling +about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as +if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got +any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the +wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite +divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another. + +I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was +now Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his +care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he +took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal +of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be +supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped +home at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met, +notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still +felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry +for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional +engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects +for the future. + +It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in +my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me, +because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing +in themselves and only became something when they were pieced +together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was +not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for +me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that; +but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to +me, and in which I traced some hidden regret. + +Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the +happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me +thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this +something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my +head that she was a little grieved—for me—by what I had told her +about Bleak House. + +How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had no +idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not +grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still, +that Ada might be thinking—for me, though I had abandoned all such +thoughts—of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy +to believe that I believed it. + +What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show +her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and +busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as +Caddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home +duties—though I had always been there in the morning to make my +guardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said +there must be two little women, for his little woman was never +missing—I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about +the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working +in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and +night. + +And still there was the same shade between me and my darling. + +"So, Dame Trot," observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night +when we were all three together, "so Woodcourt has restored Caddy +Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?" + +"Yes," I said; "and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be +made rich, guardian." + +"I wish it was," he returned, "with all my heart." + +So did I too, for that matter. I said so. + +"Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we +not, little woman?" + +I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for +it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be +many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and +many others. + +"True," said my guardian. "I had forgotten that. But we would agree +to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with +tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and +his own household gods—and household goddess, too, perhaps?" + +That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that. + +"To be sure," said my guardian. "All of us. I have a great regard for +Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him +delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an +independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And +yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems +half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such +a man away." + +"It might open a new world to him," said I. + +"So it might, little woman," my guardian assented. "I doubt if he +expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he +sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune +encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?" + +I shook my head. + +"Humph," said my guardian. "I am mistaken, I dare say." As there was +a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's +satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked +which was a favourite with my guardian. + +"And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?" I asked +him when I had hummed it quietly all through. + +"I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was +likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country." + +"I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him +wherever he goes," said I; "and though they are not riches, he will +never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least." + +"Never, little woman," he replied. + +I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's +chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was +now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she +looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears +were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and +merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at +rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself. + +So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder—how little thinking +what was heavy on her mind!—and I said she was not quite well, and +put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own +room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so +unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I +never thought she stood in need of it. + +"Oh, my dear good Esther," said Ada, "if I could only make up my mind +to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!" + +"Why, my love!" I remonstrated. "Ada, why should you not speak to +us!" + +Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart. + +"You surely don't forget, my beauty," said I, smiling, "what quiet, +old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the +discreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully my +life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you +don't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be." + +"No, never, Esther." + +"Why then, my dear," said I, "there can be nothing amiss—and why +should you not speak to us?" + +"Nothing amiss, Esther?" returned Ada. "Oh, when I think of all these +years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old +relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!" + +I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to +answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many +little recollections of our life together and prevented her from +saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned +to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat +near her for a little while. + +She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a +little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not +decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was +changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked +different to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard arose +sorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, "She has been anxious +about him," and I wondered how that love would end. + +When I had come home from Caddy's while she was ill, I had often +found Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had +never known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her, +which was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still +rather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing +for herself. + +And I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under +her pillow so that it was hidden. + +How much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much +less amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own +cheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me +to put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace! + +But I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next +day to find that there was still the same shade between me and my +darling. + +CHAPTER LI + +Enlightened + +When Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, to +Mr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the moment when +I entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or forgot his +promise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred +trust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit. + +He found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his +agreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his +address. + +"Just so, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred +miles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from +here. Would you take a seat, sir?" + +Mr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him +beyond what he had mentioned. + +"Just so, sir. I believe, sir," said Mr. Vholes, still quietly +insisting on the seat by not giving the address, "that you have +influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have." + +"I was not aware of it myself," returned Mr. Woodcourt; "but I +suppose you know best." + +"Sir," rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all, +"it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of +my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who +confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be +wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be +wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir." + +Mr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address. + +"Give me leave, sir," said Mr. Vholes. "Bear with me for a moment. +Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play +without—need I say what?" + +"Money, I presume?" + +"Sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to be honest with you (honesty being my +golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I +generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. +C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly +impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; +it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes, +bringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner, +"nothing." + +"You seem to forget," returned Mr. Woodcourt, "that I ask you to say +nothing and have no interest in anything you say." + +"Pardon me, sir!" retorted Mr. Vholes. "You do yourself an injustice. +No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not—shall not in my office, if I know +it—do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in +everything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much +better, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your +appearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend." + +"Well," replied Mr. Woodcourt, "that may be. I am particularly +interested in his address." + +"The number, sir," said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, "I believe I have +already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this +considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are +funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand. +But for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C. +is to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and +solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the +opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without +funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the +extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate, +not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging +some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable +father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or +some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly +if you please) to wrong no one." + +Mr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it. + +"I wish, sir," said Mr. Vholes, "to leave a good name behind me. +Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of +Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is +worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I +do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is +painted on the door outside, with that object." + +"And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?" + +"Sir," returned Mr. Vholes, "as I believe I have already mentioned, +it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s +apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I +am far from objecting, for I court inquiry." + +Upon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search +of Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now +but too well. + +He found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found +him in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was +not writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his +eyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be standing +open, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without +being perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the +haggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was +aroused from his dream. + +"Woodcourt, my dear fellow," cried Richard, starting up with extended +hands, "you come upon my vision like a ghost." + +"A friendly one," he replied, "and only waiting, as they say ghosts +do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?" They were seated +now, near together. + +"Badly enough, and slowly enough," said Richard, "speaking at least +for my part of it." + +"What part is that?" + +"The Chancery part." + +"I never heard," returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, "of its +going well yet." + +"Nor I," said Richard moodily. "Who ever did?" He brightened again in +a moment and said with his natural openness, "Woodcourt, I should be +sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your +estimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I +have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of +nothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out +of the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not, +though I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard, +a very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid +I have wanted an object; but I have an object now—or it has me—and +it is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of +me." + +"A bargain," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Do as much by me in return." + +"Oh! You," returned Richard, "you can pursue your art for its own +sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can +strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different +creatures." + +He spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary +condition. + +"Well, well!" he cried, shaking it off. "Everything has an end. We +shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?" + +"Aye! Indeed I will." They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in +deep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of +hearts. + +"You come as a godsend," said Richard, "for I have seen nobody here +yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to +mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You +can hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, that +I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?" + +Mr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. "Now pray," +returned Richard, "don't think me a heap of selfishness. Don't +suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over +this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone. +Ada's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works +for both of us. Do think of that!" + +He was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him +the strongest assurances that he did him no injustice. + +"You see," said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of +lingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, "to an +upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I +cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see +Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to +right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to +extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!" + +Afterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he +was so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety on +this point that in telling me generally of his first visit to +Symond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I had +had before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by +Mr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself would be +sincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the +interview took place, and I now return to the time when Caddy had +recovered and the shade was still between me and my darling. + +I proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It +a little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so +radiantly willing as I had expected. + +"My dear," said I, "you have not had any difference with Richard +since I have been so much away?" + +"No, Esther." + +"Not heard of him, perhaps?" said I. + +"Yes, I have heard of him," said Ada. + +Such tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make +my darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada +thought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with me? Yes, Ada +thought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go +now. Well, I could not understand my darling, with the tears in her +eyes and the love in her face! + +We were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops of +chill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days +when everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at us, the +dust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise +about itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my beautiful girl +quite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were +more funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen +before. + +We had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in a +shop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. "We are not +likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction," said I. +So to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it +written up. Symond's Inn. + +We had next to find out the number. "Or Mr. Vholes's office will do," +I recollected, "for Mr. Vholes's office is next door." Upon which Ada +said, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner there. And +it really was. + +Then came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for +the one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was +right again. So up we went to the second story, when we came to +Richard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel. + +I should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the +handle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table +covered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty +mirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous +words that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +He received us very affectionately, and we sat down. "If you had come +a little earlier," he said, "you would have found Woodcourt here. +There never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to +look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do +would be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery, +so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so—everything that I am not, that +the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes +again." + +"God bless him," I thought, "for his truth to me!" + +"He is not so sanguine, Ada," continued Richard, casting his dejected +look over the bundles of papers, "as Vholes and I are usually, but he +is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into +them, and he has not. He can't be expected to know much of such a +labyrinth." + +As his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two +hands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes +appeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all +bitten away. + +"Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?" said I. + +"Why, my dear Minerva," answered Richard with his old gay laugh, "it +is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines +here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in +an open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's near the +offices and near Vholes." + +"Perhaps," I hinted, "a change from both—" + +"Might do me good?" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the +sentence. "I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one way +now—in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be +ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl, +the suit, my dear girl!" + +These latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to +him. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I could not +see it. + +"We are doing very well," pursued Richard. "Vholes will tell you so. +We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest. +Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them +everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that +nest of sleepers, mark my words!" + +His hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his +despondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in +its determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so +conscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched +me to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly written in +his handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. I +say indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could +have been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in +that same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach, +and disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his +features to the hour of his death. + +"The sight of our dear little woman," said Richard, Ada still +remaining silent and quiet, "is so natural to me, and her +compassionate face is so like the face of old days—" + +Ah! No, no. I smiled and shook my head. + +"—So exactly like the face of old days," said Richard in his cordial +voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing +ever changed, "that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a +little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes +I—don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said Richard, +relinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, "so tired!" + +He took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. "I get," he +repeated gloomily, "so tired. It is such weary, weary work!" + +He was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice +and looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet, +kneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on +his head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to +me. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw! + +"Esther, dear," she said very quietly, "I am not going home again." + +A light shone in upon me all at once. + +"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have +been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I +shall never go home any more!" With those words my darling drew his +head down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I +saw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before +me. + +"Speak to Esther, my dearest," said Richard, breaking the silence +presently. "Tell her how it was." + +I met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. We +neither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to +hear nothing. "My pet," said I. "My love. My poor, poor girl!" I +pitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the impulse that +I had upon me was to pity her so much. + +"Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?" + +"My dear," said I, "to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great +wrong. And as to me!" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive! + +I dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and +Richard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that so +different night when they had first taken me into their confidence +and had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between +them how it was. + +"All I had was Richard's," Ada said; "and Richard would not take it, +Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!" + +"And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame +Durden," said Richard, "that how could we speak to you at such a +time! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one +morning and were married." + +"And when it was done, Esther," said my darling, "I was always +thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I +thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you +ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not +tell what to do, and I fretted very much." + +How selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I +don't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of +them and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so much, +and yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. I never +had experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and +in my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I was not +there to darken their way; I did not do that. + +When I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her +wedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I +remembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage +she had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada +blushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada how +I had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought +why, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all over again, +and I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to +hide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out +of heart. + +Thus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of +returning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then +my darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, calling me +by every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do +without me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have +been the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself, +"Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!" + +"Why, I declare," said I, "I never saw such a wife. I don't think she +loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness' +sake." But I held her tight all the while, and could have wept over +her I don't know how long. + +"I give this dear young couple notice," said I, "that I am only going +away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming +backwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of +me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use +of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!" + +I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered +for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my +heart to turn from. + +So I said (in a merry bustling manner) that unless they gave me some +encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that +liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through +her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it +one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away. + +And when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me +that I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without +her, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing +her there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked +up and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying. + +I came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach +home. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a +short time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was +then dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to +inquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I +cried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so +very, very ill. + +It was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss +of my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after +years. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which +I had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed +stony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some +sort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only +to look up at her windows. + +It was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me, +and it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my +confidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the +new strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the +yellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking +up, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his +office while we were there and turned his head to look up too before +going home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air +of that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I +thought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in +such an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place. + +It was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might +safely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light +foot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the +way. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence +of the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young +voices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss +for my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these +days I would confess to the visit. + +And it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew +anything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the +separation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for +those moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change, +but all the better for that hovering about my darling. + +My guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark +window. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but +he caught the light upon my face as I took mine. + +"Little woman," said he, "You have been crying." + +"Why, yes, guardian," said I, "I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada +has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian." + +I put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that +my words and my look at her empty place had prepared him. + +"Is she married, my dear?" + +I told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to +his forgiveness. + +"She has no need of it," said he. "Heaven bless her and her husband!" +But just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. "Poor +girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!" + +Neither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, "Well, +well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast." + +"But its mistress remains, guardian." Though I was timid about saying +it, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken. +"She will do all she can to make it happy," said I. + +"She will succeed, my love!" + +The letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by +his side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his old +bright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old +way, and said again, "She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak +House is thinning fast, O little woman!" + +I was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was +rather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had +meant to be since the letter and the answer. + +CHAPTER LII + +Obstinacy + +But one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we +were going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the +astounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which +Mr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us +that a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the +murderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation +understand why; but a few more words explained to me that the +murdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my +mother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance. + +This unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched +and distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for +whom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in +him a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first +thoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be +able to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had +sometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out +of life! + +Such crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I always +felt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I could +scarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the +conversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I +came to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that +they were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every +favourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had +known of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in +his behalf that I was quite set up again. + +"Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?" + +"My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so +open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the +gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and +is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a +crime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I +can't!" + +"And I can't," said Mr. Woodcourt. "Still, whatever we believe or +know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are +against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He +has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed +himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my +knowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder +within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be +as innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all +reasons for suspicion falling upon him." + +"True," said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, "It would be +doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth +in any of these respects." + +I felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to +others, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew +withal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce +us to desert him in his need. + +"Heaven forbid!" returned my guardian. "We will stand by him, as he +himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone." He meant Mr. +Gridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter. + +Mr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him +before day, after wandering about the streets all night like a +distracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was +that we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his +messenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn +assurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the +man by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning +with these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to +see the prisoner himself. + +My guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked +the retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret +interest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I +felt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become +personally important to myself that the truth should be discovered +and that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once +run wild, might run wilder. + +In a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with +them. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went. + +It was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one +another and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new +comprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary +prisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year, +have had—as I have read—for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an +arched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so +glaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and +iron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found +the trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench +there and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn. + +When he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread, +and there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced, +putting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment. + +"This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen," +said he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath. +"And now I don't so much care how it ends." + +He scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and his +soldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard. + +"This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in," +said Mr. George, "but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of +it." As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, I sat +down, which seemed to give him great satisfaction. + +"I thank you, miss," said he. + +"Now, George," observed my guardian, "as we require no new assurances +on your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours." + +"Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not +innocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to +myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the +present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I +feel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply." + +He laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to +us. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great +amount of natural emotion by these simple means. + +"First," said my guardian, "can we do anything for your personal +comfort, George?" + +"For which, sir?" he inquired, clearing his throat. + +"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would +lessen the hardship of this confinement?" + +"Well, sir," replied George, after a little cogitation, "I am equally +obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can't say that +there is." + +"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever +you do, George, let us know." + +"Thank you, sir. Howsoever," observed Mr. George with one of his +sunburnt smiles, "a man who has been knocking about the world in a +vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a +place like the present, so far as that goes." + +"Next, as to your case," observed my guardian. + +"Exactly so, sir," returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his +breast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity. + +"How does it stand now?" + +"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to +understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from +time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made +more complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage +it somehow." + +"Why, heaven save us, man," exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his +old oddity and vehemence, "you talk of yourself as if you were +somebody else!" + +"No offence, sir," said Mr. George. "I am very sensible of your +kindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind +to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls +unless he takes it in that point of view." + +"That is true enough to a certain extent," returned my guardian, +softened. "But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take +ordinary precautions to defend himself." + +"Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the +magistrates, ‘Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as +yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is +perfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue +stating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth." + +"But the mere truth won't do," rejoined my guardian. + +"Won't it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!" Mr. George +good-humouredly observed. + +"You must have a lawyer," pursued my guardian. "We must engage a good +one for you." + +"I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr. George with a step backward. "I am +equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything +of that sort." + +"You won't have a lawyer?" + +"No, sir." Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. "I +thank you all the same, sir, but—no lawyer!" + +"Why not?" + +"I don't take kindly to the breed," said Mr. George. "Gridley didn't. +And—if you'll excuse my saying so much—I should hardly have thought +you did yourself, sir." + +"That's equity," my guardian explained, a little at a loss; "that's +equity, George." + +"Is it, indeed, sir?" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. "I +am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general +way I object to the breed." + +Unfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one +massive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a +picture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever +I saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured +to persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well +with his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our +representations that his place of confinement was. + +"Pray think, once more, Mr. George," said I. "Have you no wish in +reference to your case?" + +"I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss," he returned, "by +court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware. +If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a +couple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself +as clearly as I can." + +He looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he +were adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and +after a moment's reflection went on. + +"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and +brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My +shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property +as I have—'tis small—is turned this way and that till it don't know +itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of +that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately +preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't +gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened. +It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it." + +He rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look +and said apologetically, "I am such a short-winded talker that I must +think a bit." Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed. + +"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer +and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes, +but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight +hold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. If I had kept +clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's +not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had +discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off +that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found +there any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as +soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer." + +He stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not +resume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what +purpose opened, I will mention presently. + +"I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often +read in the newspapers), ‘My client says nothing, my client reserves +his defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, 'tis not the +custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to +think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He +would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What +would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was—shut my mouth up, tell +me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence +small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I +care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my +own way—if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a +lady?" + +He had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further +necessity to wait a bit. + +"I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don't +intend to say," looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo +and his dark eyebrows raised, "that I am more partial to being hanged +than another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or +not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I +say it's true; and when they tell me, ‘whatever you say will be +used,' I tell them I don't mind that; I mean it to be used. If they +can't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to +do it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it's +worth nothing to me." + +Taking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table +and finished what he had to say. + +"I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, +and many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the +matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt +broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my +duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap +pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being +seized as a murderer—it don't take a rover who has knocked about so +much as myself so very long to recover from a crash—I worked my way +round to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations +will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and—and that's all +I've got to say." + +The door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less +prepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned, +bright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance, +had been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George +had received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but +without any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. He +now shook them cordially by the hand and said, "Miss Summerson and +gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this +is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet." + +Mr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a +curtsy. + +"Real good friends of mine, they are," sald Mr. George. "It was at +their house I was taken." + +"With a second-hand wiolinceller," Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his +head angrily. "Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object +to." + +"Mat," said Mr. George, "you have heard pretty well all I have been +saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your +approval?" + +Mr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. "Old +girl," said he. "Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval." + +"Why, George," exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her +basket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea +and sugar, and a brown loaf, "you ought to know it don't. You ought +to know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be +got off this way, and you won't be got off that way—what do you mean +by such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, George." + +"Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet," said the +trooper lightly. + +"Oh! Bother your misfortunes," cried Mrs. Bagnet, "if they don't make +you more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my +life to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this +day to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks +should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman +recommended them to you." + +"This is a very sensible woman," said my guardian. "I hope you will +persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet." + +"Persuade him, sir?" she returned. "Lord bless you, no. You don't +know George. Now, there!" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point him +out with both her bare brown hands. "There he stands! As self-willed +and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human +creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and +shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that +man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why, +don't I know him!" cried Mrs. Bagnet. "Don't I know you, George! You +don't mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these +years, I hope?" + +Her friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband, +who shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent +recommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked at +me; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to +do something, though I did not comprehend what. + +"But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years," +said Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork, +looking at me again; "and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well +as I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too +headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is." + +"I accept it with many thanks," returned the trooper. + +"Do you though, indeed?" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on +good-humouredly. "I'm sure I'm surprised at that. I wonder you don't +starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps +you'll set your mind upon THAT next." Here she again looked at me, +and I now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns, +that she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside +the prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and +Mr. Woodcourt, I rose. + +"We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George," said I, "and we +shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable." + +"More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me," he returned. + +"But more persuadable we can, I hope," said I. "And let me entreat +you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the +discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last +importance to others besides yourself." + +He heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which +I spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he +was observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure, +which seemed to catch his attention all at once. + +"'Tis curious," said he. "And yet I thought so at the time!" + +My guardian asked him what he meant. + +"Why, sir," he answered, "when my ill fortune took me to the dead +man's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like +Miss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak +to it." + +For an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since +and hope I shall never feel again. + +"It came downstairs as I went up," said the trooper, "and crossed the +moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep +fringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject, +excepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it +came into my head." + +I cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after +this; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt upon +me from the first of following the investigation was, without my +distinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that I +was indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my +being afraid. + +We three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short +distance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not +waited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly joined +us. + +There was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was +flushed and hurried. "I didn't let George see what I thought about +it, you know, miss," was her first remark when she came up, "but he's +in a bad way, poor old fellow!" + +"Not with care and prudence and good help," said my guardian. + +"A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir," returned Mrs. Bagnet, +hurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, "but I am +uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he +never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as +Lignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have +happened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought +forward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep." + +"With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a +boy," Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity. + +"Now, I tell you, miss," said Mrs. Bagnet; "and when I say miss, I +mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell you!" + +Mrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first +too breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, "Old girl! +Tell 'em!" + +"Why, then, miss," the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her +bonnet for more air, "you could as soon move Dover Castle as move +George on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with. +And I have got it!" + +"You are a jewel of a woman," said my guardian. "Go on!" + +"Now, I tell you, miss," she proceeded, clapping her hands in her +hurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, "that what he +says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but +he does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to +anybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my +Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty +pounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be +brought here straight!" + +Instantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning +up her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey +cloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity. + +"Lignum," said Mrs. Bagnet, "you take care of the children, old man, +and give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old +lady here." + +"But, bless the woman," cried my guardian with his hand in his +pocket, "how is she going? What money has she got?" + +Mrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth +a leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings +and which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction. + +"Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to +travel my own way. Lignum, old boy," kissing him, "one for yourself, +three for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's +mother!" + +And she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another +lost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a +sturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone. + +"Mr. Bagnet," said my guardian. "Do you mean to let her go in that +way?" + +"Can't help it," he returned. "Made her way home once from another +quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella. +Whatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says, +I'LL do it. She does it." + +"Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks," rejoined my +guardian, "and it is impossible to say more for her." + +"She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion," said Mr. Bagnet, +looking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. "And there's +not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must +be maintained." + +CHAPTER LIII + +The Track + +Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together +under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this +pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems +to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, +and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins +him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; +he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his +destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict +that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a +terrible avenger will be heard of before long. + +Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the +whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the +follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and +strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather +languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition +towards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with +his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation—but +through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current +of forefinger. + +Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he +is here to-day and gone to-morrow—but, very unlike man indeed, he is +here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking +into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's +house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads +at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is +propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all +things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards, +he and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers. + +It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home +enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go +home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs. +Bucket—a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been +improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but +which has paused at the level of a clever amateur—he holds himself +aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger +(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for +companionship and conversation. + +A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the +funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person; +strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that +is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin +(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable +carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled +affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the +assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's +College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a +blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes, +with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and +three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of +woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and +if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in +horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified +this day. + +Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so +many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of +the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through +the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd—as for what +not?—and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage, +now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the +people's heads, nothing escapes him. + +"And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself, +apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of +the deceased's house. "And so you are. And so you are! And very well +indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" + +The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of +its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost +emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice +a hair's breadth open while he looks. + +And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is +still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he +murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of +you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!" + +Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive +eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought +down—Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did +they fly with him on that sudden journey?—and until the procession +moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes +himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the +carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful. + +Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage +and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of +space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed +sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the +narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state +expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both; +neither is troubled about that. + +Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides +from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself +arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a +sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all +hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows +the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious +greatness. + +No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be +provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is +crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for +you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him. + +"Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket. + +If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity +as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to +gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of +some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same. + +"Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket. + +Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker. + +"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket. +"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the +kind. Thankee!" + +Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from +somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable +show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the +other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right +sort and goes on, letter in hand. + +Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within +the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of +letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not +incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his +pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient +to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others +as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business. +Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has +occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For +these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender +or receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the +last twenty-four hours. + +"And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in +the same hand, and consists of the same two words." + +What two words? + +He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book +of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly +written in each, "Lady Dedlock." + +"Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money without +this anonymous information." + +Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again, +he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is +brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket +frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint, +that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry +better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and +empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his +refreshment when an idea enters his mind. + +Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room +and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is +sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the +room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they +arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket +draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, "there's none +in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow." + +With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and +after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester +has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he +has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the +funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance. + +Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three +people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to +Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom +it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I +know you." Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr. +Bucket rubs his hands. + +"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir +Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?" + +"Why—not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +"Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your disposal +with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law." + +Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as +though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a +pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of +life, I have indeed." + +The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing +influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes +and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that +decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia +is writing poetry. + +"If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic manner, +adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious +case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of +rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a +consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur +none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall +hesitate for a moment to bear." + +Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this +liberality. + +"My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as +may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical +occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full +of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to +the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent." + +Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head. +Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused. + +"I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is +discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as +if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a +large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last +day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table +and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck +down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he +may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first +marked because of his association with my house—which may have +suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of +greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have +indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position +bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the +assertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my +fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me." + +While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness, +looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr. +Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might +be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion. + +"The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly +illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"—he lays a +stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions—"was held by +the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have +received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my +brother who had committed it, I would not spare him." + +Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he +was the trustiest and dearest person! + +"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies Mr. Bucket +soothingly, "no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm +sure he was." + +Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive +mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she +lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not +the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a +cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of +her melancholy condition. + +"It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket +sympathetically, "but it'll wear off." + +Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are +going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether +he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law? +And a great deal more to the like artless purpose. + +"Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into +persuasive action—and such is his natural gallantry that he had +almost said "my dear"—"it ain't easy to answer those questions at +the present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on +this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket takes +into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, noon, and +night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have +had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer +your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been +traced. And I hope that he may find it"—Mr. Bucket again looks +grave—"to his satisfaction." + +The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed—zample. +Thinks more interest's wanted—get man hanged presentime—than get +man place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt—zample—far better +hang wrong fler than no fler. + +"YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary +twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what +I've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from +information I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a +lady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated +station of society, miss," says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at +another narrow escape from "my dear." + +"The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to his +duty, and perfectly right." + +Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +"In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up a +good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you +have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he +acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist +in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them +into execution. Or," says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for +Volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, "or +who vindicate their outraged majesty." + +Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea +of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in +general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for +the darling man whose loss they all deplore. + +"Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. "Then you cannot be too +discreet." + +Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this +lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case +as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case—a beautiful +case—and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able +to supply in a few hours." + +"I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly +creditable to you." + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very seriously, +"I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove +satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, +miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, "I mean +from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such +cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange +things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, +what you would think to be phenomenons, quite." + +Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so. + +"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great +families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside. +"I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and +you have no idea—come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have +any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what games goes on!" + +The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a +prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very +likely." + +Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here +majestically interposes with the words, "Very good. Thank you!" and +also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end +of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they +must take the consequences. "You will not forget, officer," he adds +with condescension, "that I am at your disposal when you please." + +Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would +suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir +Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket makes his +three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him. + +"Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously +returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase." + +"I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester. + +"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if +I was to ask you why?" + +"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think +it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I +wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the +determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the +same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject +see any objection—" + +Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not +be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the +door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her +remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue +Chamber. + +In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr. +Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire—bright and warm on +the early winter night—admiring Mercury. + +"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket. + +"Three," says Mercury. + +"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and +don't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was +you ever modelled now?" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of +an artist into the turn of his eye and head. + +Mercury never was modelled. + +"Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of +mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would +stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for +the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?" + +"Out to dinner." + +"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?" + +"Yes." + +"Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as her, +so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on +a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the +same way of life as yourself?" + +Answer in the negative. + +"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a +footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived +universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath +that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, +and so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My +Lady a good temper?" + +Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect." + +"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! +What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like +'em all the better for it, don't we?" + +Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom +small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a +man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a +violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket. +"Here she is!" + +The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still +very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful +bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is +particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager +eye and rattles something in his pocket—halfpence perhaps. + +Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the +other Mercury who has brought her home. + +"Mr. Bucket, my Lady." + +Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon +over the region of his mouth. + +"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?" + +"No, my Lady, I've seen him!" + +"Have you anything to say to me?" + +"Not just at present, my Lady." + +"Have you made any new discoveries?" + +"A few, my Lady." + +This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps +upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot, +watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his +grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy +weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going +by, out of view. + +"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming +back to Mercury. "Don't look quite healthy though." + +Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from +headaches. + +Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that. +Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two +hours when she has them bad. By night, too. + +"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr. +Bucket. "Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?" + +Not a doubt about it. + +"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But +the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so +straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?" + +Oh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course! +Conversational and acquiescent on both sides. + +"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr. +Bucket. "Not much time for it, I should say?" + +Besides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise. + +"To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. "That makes a difference. Now I think +of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at +the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business." + +"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way." + +"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it." + +"I didn't see YOU," says Mercury. + +"I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to +visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea—next door but two to the +old original Bun House—ninety year old the old lady is, a single +woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the +time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten." + +"Half-past nine." + +"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was +muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" + +"Of course she was." + +Of course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to +get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in +acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he—this is +all he asks—will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of +bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of +both parties? + +CHAPTER LIV + +Springing a Mine + +Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and +prepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt +and a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of ceremony, +he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of +severe study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a +foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and +marmalade on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these +strengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his +familiar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury "just to mention +quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready +for me, I'm ready for him." A gracious message being returned that +Sir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the +library within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment and +stands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at the +blazing coals. + +Thoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do, +but composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he +might be a famous whist-player for a large stake—say a hundred +guineas certain—with the game in his hand, but with a high +reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a +masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. Bucket +when Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes +slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in +which there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the +idea, a touch of compassion. + +"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later +than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the +indignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much +for me. I am subject to—gout"—Sir Leicester was going to say +indisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket +palpably knows all about it—"and recent circumstances have brought +it on." + +As he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain, +Mr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large +hands on the library-table. + +"I am not aware, officer," Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes +to his face, "whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely +as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would +be interested—" + +"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket with his +head persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear +like an earring, "we can't be too private just at present. You will +presently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under the +circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of +society, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to +myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can't +be too private." + +"That is enough." + +"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket resumes, +"that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in +the door." + +"By all means." Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that +precaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of +habit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in +from the outerside. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I +wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed +it and collected proof against the person who did this crime." + +"Against the soldier?" + +"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier." + +Sir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, "Is the man in custody?" + +Mr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, "It was a woman." + +Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates, +"Good heaven!" + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket begins, standing +over him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the +forefinger of the other in impressive use, "it's my duty to prepare +you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say +that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you +are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman +is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly +and steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against +almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. +If there's a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your +family. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away +to Julius Caesar—not to go beyond him at present—have borne that +blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and +you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family +credit. That's the way you argue, and that's the way you act, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet." + +Sir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows, +sits looking at him with a stony face. + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "thus preparing +you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to +anything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many +characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less +don't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board +that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken +place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move +whatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move +according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be put +out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family +affairs." + +"I thank you for your preparation," returns Sir Leicester after a +silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which I hope is not +necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so +good as to go on. Also"—Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow +of his figure—"also, to take a seat, if you have no objection." + +None at all. Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow. +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come +to the point. Lady Dedlock—" + +Sir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him fiercely. +Mr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient. + +"Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired. That's what her +ladyship is; she's universally admired," says Mr. Bucket. + +"I would greatly prefer, officer," Sir Leicester returns stiffly, "my +Lady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion." + +"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but—it's impossible." + +"Impossible?" + +Mr. Bucket shakes his relentless head. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible. What I +have got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns +on." + +"Officer," retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering +lip, "you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to +overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring +my Lady's name into this communication upon your responsibility—upon +your responsibility. My Lady's name is not a name for common persons +to trifle with!" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more." + +"I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!" Glancing at +the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry figure trembling +from head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr. Bucket feels his way +with his forefinger and in a low voice proceeds. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that +the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and +suspicions of Lady Dedlock." + +"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir—which he never did—I +would have killed him myself!" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his +hand upon the table. But in the very heat and fury of the act he +stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is +slowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes +his head. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and +close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I +can't quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he +long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the +sight of some handwriting—in this very house, and when you yourself, +Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present—the existence, in great poverty, +of a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and +who ought to have been her husband." Mr. Bucket stops and +deliberately repeats, "Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt +about it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards +died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and +his wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries +and through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in +the dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed +me to reckon up her ladyship—if you'll excuse my making use of the +term we commonly employ—and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I +confronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a +witness who had been Lady Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the +shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown +to her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the +way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying +that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. +All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and +through your own Lady. It's my belief that the deceased Mr. +Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and +that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the +matter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after +he had left here, she didn't go down to his chambers with the +intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose +black mantle with a deep fringe to it." + +Sir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that is +probing the life-blood of his heart. + +"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from +me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any +difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no use, that +Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as +you called him (though he's not in the army now) and knows that she +knows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, why do I relate all this?" + +Sir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a +single groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By and by he takes +his hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness, +though there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair, +that Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him. Something frozen and fixed +is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness, +and Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with +now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to +utter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he now breaks silence, +soon, however, controlling himself to say that he does not comprehend +why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late Mr. Tulkinghorn +should have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this +distressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible +intelligence. + +"Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket, "put it +to her ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her ladyship, if you +think it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You'll find, +or I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had the +intention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he considered +it ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so to +understand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very +morning when I examined the body! You don't know what I'm going to +say and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you might +wonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?" + +True. Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive +sounds, says, "True." At this juncture a considerable noise of voices +is heard in the hall. Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to the +library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. Then he +draws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, "Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken +air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut +down so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now +in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet—on the +family account—while I reckon 'em up? And would you just throw in a +nod when I seem to ask you for it?" + +Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, "Officer. The best you can, the +best you can!" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of +the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly +die away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of Mercury +and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who +bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another +man and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair in +an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries and +locks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the +sacred precincts with an icy stare. + +"Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen," says Mr. Bucket +in a confidential voice. "I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I +am; and this," producing the tip of his convenient little staff from +his breast-pocket, "is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it +ain't every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old +gentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your name is; I know it well." + +"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!" cries Mr. Smallweed in a +shrill loud voice. + +"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?" retorts +Mr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper. + +"No!" + +"Why, they killed him," says Mr. Bucket, "on account of his having so +much cheek. Don't YOU get into the same position, because it isn't +worthy of you. You ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf +person, are you?" + +"Yes," snarls Mr. Smallweed, "my wife's deaf." + +"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain't +here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not +only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," says Mr. +Bucket. "This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?" + +"Name of Chadband," Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a +much lower key. + +"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says Mr. +Bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it. +Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?" + +"And Mrs. Snagsby," Mr. Smallweed introduces. + +"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says Mr. Bucket. +"Love him like a brother! Now, what's up?" + +"Do you mean what business have we come upon?" Mr. Smallweed asks, a +little dashed by the suddenness of this turn. + +"Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it's all about in +presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come." + +Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel with +him in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of +oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says +aloud, "Yes. You first!" and retires to his former place. + +"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather +Smallweed then; "I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he +was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was +own brother to a brimstone magpie—leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come +into Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. +They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters +belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a +shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed—his cat's bed. He hid all +manner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and +got 'em, but I looked 'em over first. I'm a man of business, and I +took a squint at 'em. They was letters from the lodger's sweetheart, +and she signed Honoria. Dear me, that's not a common name, Honoria, +is it? There's no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh, +no, I don't think so! Oh, no, I don't think so! And not in the same +hand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don't think so!" + +Here Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his +triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, "Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I'm shaken +all to pieces!" + +"Now, when you're ready," says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his +recovery, "to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know." + +"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?" cries Grandfather Smallweed. +"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his +ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come, +then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it +don't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I +won't have 'em disappear so quietly. I handed 'em over to my friend +and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else." + +"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too," says Mr. +Bucket. + +"I don't care for that. I want to know who's got 'em. And I tell you +what we want—what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more +painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the +interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George +the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice, +and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man." + +"Now I tell you what," says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering his +manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary +fascination to the forefinger, "I am damned if I am a-going to have +my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half +a second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more +painstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do +you think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out and put +it on the arm that fired that shot?" + +Such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is +that he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to apologize. +Mr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him. + +"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the +murder. That's my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and +I shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before long, +if you look sharp. I know my business, and that's all I've got to say +to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know +who's got 'em. I don't mind telling you. I have got 'em. Is that the +packet?" + +Mr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr. +Bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it +as the same. + +"What have you got to say next?" asks Mr. Bucket. "Now, don't open +your mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do it." + +"I want five hundred pound." + +"No, you don't; you mean fifty," says Mr. Bucket humorously. + +It appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred. + +"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider +(without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business," says +Mr. Bucket—Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head—"and you ask me +to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it's an +unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than +that. Hadn't you better say two fifty?" + +Mr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not. + +"Then," says Mr. Bucket, "let's hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a time +I've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he +was in all respects, as ever I come across!" + +Thus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek +smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands, +delivers himself as follows, "My friends, we are now—Rachael, my +wife, and I—in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in +the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are +invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are +bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute +with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are +we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do +we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing, +money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends." + +"You're a man of business, you are," returns Mr. Bucket, very +attentive, "and consequently you're going on to mention what the +nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn't do better." + +"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love," says Mr. Chadband +with a cunning eye, "proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!" + +Mrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband +into the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard, frowning +smile. + +"Since you want to know what we know," says she, "I'll tell you. I +helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. I was in the +service of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the +disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her +ladyship, that the child was dead—she WAS very nearly so—when she +was born. But she's alive, and I know her." With these words, and a +laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," Mrs. +Chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket. + +"I suppose now," returns that officer, "YOU will be expecting a +twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?" + +Mrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can +"offer" twenty pence. + +"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there," says Mr. +Bucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. "What may YOUR +game be, ma'am?" + +Mrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from +stating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes to +light that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom +Mr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in +darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been +the sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so much +commiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's Court +in the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late +habitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the +present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace. +There is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as +open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as +midnight, under the influence—no doubt—of Mr. Snagsby's suborning +and tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived +mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was +Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo, +deceased; and they were "all in it." In what, Mrs. Snagsby does not +with particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr. Snagsby's +son, "as well as if a trumpet had spoken it," and she followed Mr. +Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not +his son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for +some time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and fro, and up and down, +and to piece suspicious circumstances together—and every +circumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this +way she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false +husband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the +Chadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr. +Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr. Guppy, and helped to turn up the +circumstances in which the present company are interested, casually, +by the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is +to terminate in Mr. Snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial +separation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the +friend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the +mourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the +seal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement +possible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no +scheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and +taking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the +ceaseless working of her mill of jealousy. + +While this exordium is in hand—and it takes some time—Mr. Bucket, +who has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at a +glance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd +attention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock +remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, except that he +once or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying on that officer +alone of all mankind. + +"Very good," says Mr. Bucket. "Now I understand you, you know, and +being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this +little matter," again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation +of the statement, "can give it my fair and full attention. Now I +won't allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort, +because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to +make things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am +surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. +It was so opposed to your interests. That's what I look at." + +"We wanted to get in," pleads Mr. Smallweed. + +"Why, of course you wanted to get in," Mr. Bucket asserts with +cheerfulness; "but for a old gentleman at your time of life—what I +call truly venerable, mind you!—with his wits sharpened, as I have +no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which +occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to +consider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as +close as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You +see your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost ground," +says Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way. + +"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to Sir +Leicester Dedlock," returns Mr. Smallweed. + +"That's it! That's where your temper got the better of you. Now, you +keep it under another time and you'll make money by it. Shall I ring +for them to carry you down?" + +"When are we to hear more of this?" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands. + +"Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful +sex is!" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. "I shall have the +pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day—not forgetting +Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty." + +"Five hundred!" exclaims Mr. Smallweed. + +"All right! Nominally five hundred." Mr. Bucket has his hand on the +bell-rope. "SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of +myself and the gentleman of the house?" he asks in an insinuating +tone. + +Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it, +and the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to the +door, and returning, says with an air of serious business, "Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not +to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought +up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that +little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides +of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and +ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he +held all these horses in his hand and could have drove 'em his own +way, I haven't a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, +and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all +dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The +cat's away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the +water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended." + +Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, and +he looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his watch. + +"The party to be apprehended is now in this house," proceeds Mr. +Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising +spirits, "and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence. +Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir. +There'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I'll come back in the +course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet +your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the +nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at +present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to +last." + +Mr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts +the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense +of a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman enters. +Mademoiselle Hortense. + +The moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts +his back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to +turn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in +his chair. + +"I ask you pardon," she mutters hurriedly. "They tell me there was no +one here." + +Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. Bucket. +Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns deadly pale. + +"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock," says Mr. Bucket, nodding +at her. "This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks +back." + +"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns +mademoiselle in a jocular strain. + +"Why, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket, "we shall see." + +Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face, +which gradually changes into a smile of scorn, "You are very +mysterieuse. Are you drunk?" + +"Tolerable sober, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket. + +"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. +Your wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs +that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What +is the intention of this fool's play, say then?" mademoiselle +demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her +dark cheek beating like a clock. + +Mr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her. + +"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!" cries mademoiselle with a +toss of her head and a laugh. "Leave me to pass downstairs, great +pig." With a stamp of her foot and a menace. + +"Now, mademoiselle," says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, "you +go and sit down upon that sofy." + +"I will not sit down upon nothing," she replies with a shower of +nods. + +"Now, mademoiselle," repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration +except with the finger, "you sit down upon that sofy." + +"Why?" + +"Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don't +need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a +foreigner if I can. If I can't, I must be rough, and there's rougher +ones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as +a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your +head, to go and sit down upon that sofy." + +Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that +something in her cheek beats fast and hard, "You are a devil." + +"Now, you see," Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, "you're comfortable +and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of +your sense to do. So I'll give you a piece of advice, and it's this, +don't you talk too much. You're not expected to say anything here, +and you can't keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the +less you PARLAY, the better, you know." Mr. Bucket is very complacent +over this French explanation. + +Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her black +eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid +state, with her hands clenched—and her feet too, one might +suppose—muttering, "Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!" + +"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," says Mr. Bucket, and from this +time forth the finger never rests, "this young woman, my lodger, was +her ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this +young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate +against her ladyship after being discharged—" + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I discharge myself." + +"Now, why don't you take my advice?" returns Mr. Bucket in an +impressive, almost in an imploring, tone. "I'm surprised at the +indiscreetness you commit. You'll say something that'll be used +against you, you know. You're sure to come to it. Never you mind what +I say till it's given in evidence. It is not addressed to you." + +"Discharge, too," cries mademoiselle furiously, "by her ladyship! Eh, +my faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by +remaining with a ladyship so infame!" + +"Upon my soul I wonder at you!" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. "I thought +the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female +going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!" + +"He is a poor abused!" cries mademoiselle. "I spit upon his house, +upon his name, upon his imbecility," all of which she makes the +carpet represent. "Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh, +heaven! Bah!" + +"Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "this intemperate +foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established +a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion +I told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her +time and trouble." + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I ref-use his money all togezzer." + +"If you WILL PARLAY, you know," says Mr. Bucket parenthetically, "you +must take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this +deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house +in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers +of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and +likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an +unfortunate stationer." + +"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "All lie!" + +"The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you +know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close +with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case +was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the +papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in +the same house) I took George into custody as having been seen +hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the +murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased +on former occasions—even threatening him, as the witness made out. +If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I +believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he +might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make +it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!" + +As Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement—for him—and +inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his +forefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes +upon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly +together. + +"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this +young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a +mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering +herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever—in +fact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for +the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living +Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and +saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!" + +Mademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and +lips the words, "You are a devil." + +"Now where," pursues Mr. Bucket, "had she been on the night of the +murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have +since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an +artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult; +and I laid a trap for her—such a trap as I never laid yet, and such +a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was +talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house +being small and this young woman's ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet +into Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a word of surprise +and told her all about it. My dear, don't you give your mind to that +again, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles." Mr. Bucket, +breaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon mademoiselle and laid +his heavy hand upon her shoulder. + +"What is the matter with you now?" she asks him. + +"Don't you think any more," returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory +finger, "of throwing yourself out of window. That's what's the matter +with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn't get up; I'll sit down by +you. Now take my arm, will you? I'm a married man, you know; you're +acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm." + +Vainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound +she struggles with herself and complies. + +"Now we're all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case +could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a +woman in fifty thousand—in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw +this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house +since, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker's +loaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to +Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, ‘My dear, can +you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions +against George, and this, and that, and t'other? Can you do without +rest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say, +‘She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner +without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from +death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I +have got her, if she did this murder?' Mrs. Bucket says to me, as +well as she could speak on account of the sheet, ‘Bucket, I can!' And +she has acted up to it glorious!" + +"Lies!" mademoiselle interposes. "All lies, my friend!" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out +under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous +young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right? +I was right. What does she try to do? Don't let it give you a turn? +To throw the murder on her ladyship." + +Sir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again. + +"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here, +which was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir +Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards +you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words +‘Lady Dedlock' in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I +stopped this very morning, and read the three words ‘Lady Dedlock, +Murderess' in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower +of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place +having seen them all written by this young woman? What do you say to +Mrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding +ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to +Mrs. Bucket having watched the posting of 'em every one by this young +woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?" Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant +in his admiration of his lady's genius. + +Two things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a +conclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a +dreadful right of property in mademoiselle. Secondly, that the very +atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her as if +a close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around +her breathless figure. + +"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful +period," says Mr. Bucket, "and my foreign friend here saw her, I +believe, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and +George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another's +heels. But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go into it. I +found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr. +Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your +house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you'll say, Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so +thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the +rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and +finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street." + +"These are very long lies," mademoiselle interposes. "You prose great +deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking +always?" + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights +in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with +any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which I am now going +to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never +doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday +without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company +with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to +convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so +rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was +altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call +retribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less +experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night, +when her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home +looking—why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the +ocean—it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being +charged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to +want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here +proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that +they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at +a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of +entertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to +fetch her pocket-handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was; +she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind. +As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket, +along with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water +dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the +pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen +hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and +hold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!" + +In a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. "That's one," +says Mr. Bucket. "Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!" + +He rises; she rises too. "Where," she asks him, darkening her large +eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them—and yet they +stare, "where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?" + +"She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr. Bucket. +"You'll see her there, my dear." + +"I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting +tigress-like. + +"You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr. Bucket. + +"I would!" making her eyes very large. "I would love to tear her limb +from limb." + +"Bless you, darling," says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure, +"I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising +animosity against one another when you do differ. You don't mind me +half so much, do you?" + +"No. Though you are a devil still." + +"Angel and devil by turns, eh?" cries Mr. Bucket. "But I am in my +regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy. +I've been lady's maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to +the bonnet? There's a cab at the door." + +Mademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes +herself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her justice, +uncommonly genteel. + +"Listen then, my angel," says she after several sarcastic nods. "You +are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?" + +Mr. Bucket answers, "Not exactly." + +"That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you +make a honourable lady of her?" + +"Don't be so malicious," says Mr. Bucket. + +"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?" cries mademoiselle, referring to Sir +Leicester with ineffable disdain. "Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor +infant! Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other," says Mr. +Bucket. "Come along!" + +"You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me. +It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu, +you old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!" + +With these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth +closed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket +gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar +to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering +away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of +his affections. + +Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he +were still listening and his attention were still occupied. At length +he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises +unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps, +supporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and with more of +those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at +something. + +Heaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold, +the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing +them, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious +heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces +sneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his +bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with +something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses +his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms. + +It is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for +years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never +had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, +honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at the +core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his +life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as +nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her, +almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her +cast down from the high place she has graced so well. + +And even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his +suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like +distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of +mourning and compassion rather than reproach. + +CHAPTER LV + +Flight + +Inspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow, +as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep +preparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the +freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire, +making its way towards London. + +Railroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and +a glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide +night-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such things are +non-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected. +Preparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out. +Bridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at +one another over roads and streams like brick and mortar couples with +an obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up +and left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows +tumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops, where +there are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic and abandoned +in full hopelessness. Along the freezing roads, and through the +night, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind. + +Mrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits +within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey +cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as +being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in +accordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell +is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The +old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately +manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it +often to her lips. "You are a mother, my dear soul," says she many +times, "and you found out my George's mother!" + +"Why, George," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "was always free with me, ma'am, +and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things +my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the +comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line +into his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt +sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother +into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that +he had behaved bad to her." + +"Never, my dear!" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. "My +blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me, +was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and +went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know +about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he +didn't rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn't be +a disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from +a baby!" + +The old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls, +all in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay +good-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at +Chesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young +gentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had been +angry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now +to see him after all, and in a prison too! And the broad stomacher +heaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends under its +load of affectionate distress. + +Mrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves +the old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while—not without +passing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes—and +presently chirps up in her cheery manner, "So I says to George when I +goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe +outside), ‘What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I +have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and +out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy +penitent.' ‘Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, ‘it's because I AM +melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.' +‘What have you done, old fellow?' I says. ‘Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says +George, shaking his head, ‘what I have done has been done this many a +long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to +heaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no +more.' Now, ma'am, when George says to me that it's best not tried to +be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I +draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that +afternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the +lawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain +before him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets +himself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon +years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old +lady he has seen? And George tells me it's Mrs. Rouncewell, +housekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down +at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before +that he's a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, +‘Lignum, that's his mother for five and for-ty pound!'" + +All this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least +within the last four hours. Trilling it out like a kind of bird, with +a pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the +hum of the wheels. + +"Bless you, and thank you," says Mrs. Rouncewell. "Bless you, and +thank you, my worthy soul!" + +"Dear heart!" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. "No +thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so +ready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do +on finding George to be your own son is to make him—for your +sake—have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear +himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won't +do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and +lawyers," exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter +form a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership with +truth and justice for ever and a day. + +"He shall have," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "all the help that can be got +for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and +thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole +family will do their best. I—I know something, my dear; and will +make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, +and finding him in a jail at last." + +The extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying +this, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful +impression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers +them all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yet Mrs. Bagnet +wonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, "My +Lady, my Lady, my Lady!" over and over again. + +The frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise +comes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a chaise +departed. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and +hedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day. +London reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great +tribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite fresh and collected—as +she would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were +the Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any +other military station. + +But when they set out for the prison where the trooper is +confined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her +lavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its +usual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece +of old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher +is ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has +ruffled it these many years. + +Approaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the +act of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to +him to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as +he shuts the door. + +So George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be +alone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old +housekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite +enough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the +mother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their +relationship. + +Not a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word +betrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all +unconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her +emotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs. +Bagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief, +of hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return +since this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less, +and this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such +touching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they +run glistening down her sun-brown face. + +"George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!" + +The trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls +down on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, whether +in the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands +together as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them +towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries. + +"My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite +still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a +man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he +must be, if it pleased God he was alive!" + +She can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All +that time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the +whitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with +her serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of +old girls as she is. + +"Mother," says the trooper when they are more composed, "forgive me +first of all, for I know my need of it." + +Forgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always has +done it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, these +many years, that he was her beloved son George. She has never +believed any ill of him, never. If she had died without this +happiness—and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very +long—she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had +her senses, as her beloved son George. + +"Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my +reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a +purpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother—I am +afraid not a great deal—for leaving; and went away and 'listed, +harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not +I, and that nobody cared for me." + +The trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but +there is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of +expressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in +which he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob. + +"So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had +'listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I +thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and +when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when +I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I +didn't think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a +service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself +why should I ever write." + +"I don't find any fault, child—but not to ease my mind, George? Not +a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?" + +This almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with +a great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat. + +"Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small +consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, +respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance +North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and +famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like +him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my +little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for +most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself +known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of +it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a +man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; +and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your +mind as it was." + +The old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his +powerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder. + +"No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be +so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear +mother, some good might have come of it to myself—and there was the +meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have +purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold; +you would have brought me and my brother and my brother's family +together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something +for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of +you feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself? +How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you +an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to +himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother's +children in the face and pretend to set them an example—I, the +vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and +unhappiness of my mother's life? ‘No, George.' Such were my words, +mother, when I passed this in review before me: ‘You have made your +bed. Now, lie upon it.'" + +Mrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the +old girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, "I told +you so!" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her +interest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke +between the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards +repeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never +failing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to +resort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again. + +"This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best +amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I +should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once +down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old +comrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank +her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and +might." + +To which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes. + +And now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear +recovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy +close of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must +be governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence, +that he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be +got, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised +to act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise +to think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he +is released, or he will break her heart. + +"Mother, 'tis little enough to consent to," returns the trooper, +stopping her with a kiss; "tell me what I shall do, and I'll make a +late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my mother, +I know?" + +A very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella. + +"If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, +she will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the +best advice and assistance." + +"And, George," says the old lady, "we must send with all haste for +your brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me—out in the +world beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of it +myself—and will be of great service." + +"Mother," returns the trooper, "is it too soon to ask a favour?" + +"Surely not, my dear." + +"Then grant me this one great favour. Don't let my brother know." + +"Not know what, my dear?" + +"Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up my +mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done +so much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I haven't +brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under +this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any +pleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my secret +from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my +secret from my brother, of all men." + +"But not always, dear George?" + +"Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to ask +that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's ever broke to +him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish," says the +trooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, "to break it myself and be +governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems +to take it." + +As he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth +of it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet's face, his mother yields her +implicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly. + +"In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as tractable and +obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am +ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up," he glances at +his writing on the table, "an exact account of what I knew of the +deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. +It's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in +it but what's wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight +on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I +hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my +own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not +to have any." + +Matters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time +being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again +the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the +trooper holds her to his broad chest. + +"Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?" + +"I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some +business there that must be looked to directly," Mrs. Rouncewell +answers. + +"Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of +course I know you will. Why should I ask it!" + +Why indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella. + +"Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. +Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the +hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand +pound in gold, my dear!" So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the +old girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell. + +No entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce +Mrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping +out cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and handing Mrs. +Rouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off, +arriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family and +falling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened. + +My Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with +the murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is +looking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so +leisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. Rouncewell. +What has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly? + +"Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with +you?" + +What new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble +so? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why +does she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange +mistrust? + +"What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath." + +"Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son—my youngest, who went +away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison." + +"For debt?" + +"Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful." + +"For what is he in prison then?" + +"Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as—as I +am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn." + +What does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does +she come so close? What is the letter that she holds? + +"Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must +have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I +was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But +think of my dear son wrongfully accused." + +"I do not accuse him." + +"No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. +Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say +it!" + +What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the +person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? +Her Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with +fear. + +"My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in +my old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant and so +solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after +night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your +rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last +night, my Lady, I got this letter." + +"What letter is it?" + +"Hush! Hush!" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened +whisper, "My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don't believe +what's written in it, I know it can't be true, I am sure and certain +that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a +heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to +others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and +any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think +of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most +I consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your +own way always without help, and you are not familiar with your +friends; and all who admire you—and all do—as a beautiful and +elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can't +be approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry +reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, +oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been +passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to +clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady," the old housekeeper pleads with +genuine simplicity, "I am so humble in my place and you are by nature +so high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child, +but I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg +and pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or +justice at this fearful time!" + +Lady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter +from her hand. + +"Am I to read this?" + +"When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the +most that I consider possible." + +"I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can +affect your son. I have never accused him." + +"My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after +reading the letter." + +The old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth +she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the +sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong +earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long +accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long +schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts +up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads +one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and +the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even +her wonder until now. + +She opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account +of the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor, +shot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with +the word "murderess" attached. + +It falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground +she knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before +her announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. The words have +probably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her +head before she begins to understand them. + +"Let him come in!" + +He comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from +the floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of Mr. +Guppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud, +chilling state. + +"Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from +one who has never been welcome to your ladyship"—which he don't +complain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any +particular reason on the face of things why he should be—"but I hope +when I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault +with me," says Mr. Guppy. + +"Do so." + +"Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship," Mr. +Guppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at +his feet, "that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned +to your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart +until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, +communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your +ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps +whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson's +wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over +which I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the +distinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again." + +And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. + +"And yet I am here now," Mr. Guppy admits. "My object being to +communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am +here." + +He cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. "Nor can +I," Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, "too +particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that +it's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no +interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for +my promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred—I, in point +of fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but should have +seen 'em further first." + +Mr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair +with both hands. + +"Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I +was here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and +whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time +apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call +sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely +difficult for me to be sure that I hadn't inadvertently led up to +something contrary to Miss Summerson's wishes. Self-praise is no +recommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man +of business neither." + +Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately +withdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else. + +"Indeed, it has been made so hard," he goes on, "to have any idea +what that party was up to in combination with others that until the +loss which we all deplore I was gravelled—an expression which your +ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to +consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise—a name by which +I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not +acquainted with—got to be so close and double-faced that at times it +wasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, what with the +exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual +friend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic +turn and has your ladyship's portrait always hanging up in his room), +I have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your +ladyship upon your guard. First, will your ladyship allow me to ask +you whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don't +mean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss +Barbary's old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower +extremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?" + +"No!" + +"Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and +have been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and waited +at the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an +hour's turn afterwards to avoid them." + +"What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand +you. What do you mean?" + +"Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no +occasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my +promise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has +dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those +letters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed +when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown +upon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been +here this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or +making." + +Mr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises. + +"Your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what I say +or whether there's nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to +Miss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I +had begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. In +case I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your +guard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should +hope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive +your disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and +assure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me +again." + +She scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when +he has been gone a little while, she rings her bell. + +"Where is Sir Leicester?" + +Mercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone. + +"Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?" + +Several, on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them, +which has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy. Enough; he may go. + +So! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband +knows his wrongs, her shame will be published—may be spreading while +she thinks about it—and in addition to the thunderbolt so long +foreseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an +invisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy. + +Her enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead. +Her enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes +upon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she +recalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may +be represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before +merely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the +hangman's hands were at her neck. + +She has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all +wildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She +rises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks +and moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really +were the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense. + +For as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed, +however subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been +closed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing +her from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences +would have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure +was laid low—which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she +sees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to +think, "if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take +him from my way!" it was but wishing that all he held against her in +his hand might be flung to the winds and chance-sown in many places. +So, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was +his death but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the +arch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and +mangling piecemeal! + +Thus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from +this pursuer, living or dead—obdurate and imperturbable before her +in his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable +in his coffin-bed—there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she +flies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery, +overwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance +is overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind. + +She hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves +them on her table: + + If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe + that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me, + for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard, + or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me, on that + fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After + he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in the + garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him + and make one last petition that he would not protract the + dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you + do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next + morning. + + I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his + door, but there was no reply, and I came home. + + I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May + you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the + unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous + devotion—who avoids you only with a deeper shame than + that with which she hurries from herself—and who writes + this last adieu. + +She veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money, +listens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens +and shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind. + +CHAPTER LVI + +Pursuit + +Impassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house +stares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives +no outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle, +doors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers +with skeleton throats, and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly +bloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating +creatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the +eyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging +carriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk +into downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries +bearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a +spectacle for the angels. + +The Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before +its exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair, +being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that +disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at +length to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle +tapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in; +seeing no one there, takes possession. + +The sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the +ancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels +her on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with +a golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description. +Certain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of +hovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a +short peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at +that document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass +at her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of +these researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass +in that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled +tree. + +Volumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of +reality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion. +Servants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors +are sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not +found. Nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. Her +letter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is +doubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another +world requiring to be personally answered, and all the living +languages, and all the dead, are as one to him. + +They lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put +ice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day +has ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous +breathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the +candle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change +begins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even +his hand in token that he hears and comprehends. + +He fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat +infirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies +upon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of +himself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been +thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word +he said that his words really had come to sound as if there were +something in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers +sounds like what it is—mere jumble and jargon. + +His favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is +the first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it. +After vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes +signs for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at first +understand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants +and brings in a slate. + +After pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that +is not his, "Chesney Wold?" + +No, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library +this morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to +London and is able to attend upon him. + +"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You +will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say +so." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. + +After making a survey of the room and looking with particular +attention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, "My +Lady." + +"My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and +don't know of your illness yet." + +He points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try +to quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their +looking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate +once more and writes "My Lady. For God's sake, where?" And makes an +imploring moan. + +It is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady +Dedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise. +She opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it +twice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be +seen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of relapse or into a +swoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his +faithful and attached old servant's arm. The doctors know that he is +best with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof. + +The slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to +write he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction +at this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in +the necessity he feels for haste and the inability under which he +labours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. He has written the +letter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the height of his +misery, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket. +Thank heaven! That's his meaning. + +Mr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come +up? + +There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish +to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of +every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket +appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his +high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I +hope you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family +credit." + +Sir Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his +face while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's +eye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is +still glancing over the words, he indicates, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet, I understand you." + +Sir Leicester writes upon the slate. "Full forgiveness. Find—" Mr. +Bucket stops his hand. + +"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search after +her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost." + +With the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's +look towards a little box upon a table. + +"Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it +with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure. +Take the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's soon done. Twenty +and thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and +forty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That I'll do, and render an +account of course. Don't spare money? No I won't." + +The velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all +these heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds +the light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he +starts up, furnished for his journey. + +"You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I +believe?" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and +buttoning his coat. + +"Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother." + +"So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well, +then, I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no more. +Your son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what +you've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, +and you won't do that by crying. As to your son, he's all right, I +tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you're the same. +He's discharged honourable; that's about what HE is; with no more +imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a +tidy one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He +conducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a +fine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother +and son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan. +Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you've trusted to me I'll go +through with. Don't you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right +or left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found +what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on +your part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you +better, and these family affairs smoothed over—as, Lord, many other +family affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of +time." + +With this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out, +looking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night +in quest of the fugitive. + +His first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look +all over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The +rooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light in +his hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental +inventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with +himself, would be to see a sight—which nobody DOES see, as he is +particular to lock himself in. + +"A spicy boudoir, this," says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner +furbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. "Must have +cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must +have been hard put to it!" + +Opening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and +jewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors, +and moralizes thereon. + +"One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and +getting myself up for Almac's," says Mr. Bucket. "I begin to think I +must be a swell in the Guards without knowing it." + +Ever looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner +drawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can +scarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a +white handkerchief. + +"Hum! Let's have a look at YOU," says Mr. Bucket, putting down the +light. "What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR motive? +Are you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a +mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?" + +He finds it as he speaks, "Esther Summerson." + +"Oh!" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. "Come, +I'll take YOU." + +He completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has +carried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it, +glides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the +street. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir +Leicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest +coach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be +driven to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a +scientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the +principal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of +the subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, he +knows him. + +His knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering +over the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his +keen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the +midnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where +people are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he +rattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the +snow lies thin—for something may present itself to assist him, +anywhere—he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he +stops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam. + +"Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back." + +He runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his +pipe. + +"I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my +lad. I haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman. +Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died—that was the name, I +know—all right—where does she live?" + +The trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near +Oxford Street. + +"You won't repent it, George. Good night!" + +He is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by +the frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again, +and gets out in a cloud of steam again. + +Mr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed, +rises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and +comes down to the door in his dressing-gown. + +"Don't be alarmed, sir." In a moment his visitor is confidential with +him in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the +lock. "I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket. +Look at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it +myself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock's, quarter of an hour +ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady +Dedlock?" + +"Yes." + +"There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come +out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit—apoplexy or +paralysis—and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been +lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for +him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!" + +Mr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks. + +"I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and more +danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a hundred +pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr. +Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow +her and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have +money and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss +Summerson." + +Mr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, "Miss Summerson?" + +"Now, Mr. Jarndyce"—Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest +attention all along—"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane +heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen. +If ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you +couldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the +time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound +apiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am +charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest +that's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of +murder. If I follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what Sir +Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to +desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady, +answering to the description of a young lady that she has a +tenderness for—I ask no question, and I say no more than that—she +will give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her and +be able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for'ard, +and I'll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come +up with her alone—a hard matter—and I'll do my best, but I don't +answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it's getting on for one +o'clock. When one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth +a thousand pound now instead of a hundred." + +This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be +questioned. Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to +Miss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual +principle, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping +his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the +gloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little time Mr. +Jarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him +directly and place herself under his protection to accompany him +where he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and +awaits her coming at the door. + +There he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide. +Many solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many +solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. +But the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he +perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places +down by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object +drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a +drowning hold on his attention. + +Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the +handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted +power to bring before him the place where she found it and the +night-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, +would he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are +burning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched +huts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind, +where the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the +gaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of +human torture—traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a +lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and +driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all +companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably +dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at +the great door of the Dedlock mansion. + +CHAPTER LVII + +Esther's Narrative + +I had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the +door of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to +speak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or +two of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester +Dedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door +who was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of +affectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find +her, and that I was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my +entreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. Something to this +general purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of +alarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort I could +make to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to +recover my right mind until hours had passed. + +But I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley or +any one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted +with the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and +also explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr. +Bucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to +me in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I +suppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting +beside him, rolling swiftly through the streets. + +His manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me +that a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without +confusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were, +chiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom +he only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with +her last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I +had satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to +consider—taking time to think—whether within my knowledge there was +any one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to +confide under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of +no one but my guardian. But by and by I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He +came into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of +mentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me +of his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with +her unhappy story. + +My companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation, +that we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on +again and said to me, after considering within himself for a few +moments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite +willing to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough +to understand it. + +We had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a +by-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket +took me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It was now +past one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police +officers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like +people who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the +place seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and +calling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any +attention. + +A third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he +whispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised +together while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. It was +a description of my mother that they were busy with, for Mr. Bucket +brought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. It was +very accurate indeed. + +The second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it +out and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an +outer room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was done +with the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet +nobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its +travels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing +with neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the +soles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire. + +"Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?" he asked me as his eyes +met mine. "It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out +in." + +I told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed. + +"It may be a long job," he observed; "but so that it ends well, never +mind, miss." + +"I pray to heaven it may end well!" said I. + +He nodded comfortingly. "You see, whatever you do, don't you go and +fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may +happen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for me, the +better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, +Baronet." + +He was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire +warming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a +confidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a +quarter to two when I heard horses' feet and wheels outside. "Now, +Miss Summerson," said he, "we are off, if you please!" + +He gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out, +and we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and +post horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the +box. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then +handed him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a +few directions to the driver, we rattled away. + +I was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great +rapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all +idea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the +river, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside, +dense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and +basins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships. +At length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which +the wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my +companion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several +men who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the +mouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I +could discern the words, "Found Drowned"; and this and an inscription +about drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in +our visit to that place. + +I had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence +of any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or +to lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet, but +what I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still +it was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long +swollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat +and whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some +slippery steps—as if to look at something secret that he had to +show. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after +turning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared! + +After some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to +know and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in +the carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to +warm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it +made, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little +rush towards me. It never did so—and I thought it did so, hundreds +of times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and +probably was less—but the thought shuddered through me that it would +cast my mother at the horses' feet. + +Mr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant, +darkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. "Don't you be +alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here," he +said, turning to me. "I only want to have everything in train and to +know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!" + +We appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note +of any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging +from the general character of the streets. We called at another +office or station for a minute and crossed the river again. During +the whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion, +wrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single +moment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be +more on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet, +he alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted +past us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a +face that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look, +so overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat +lines of shore—so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of +substance and shadow; so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it +many times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free +from the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon +the bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round +the homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling +on, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely +in upon me—a face rising out of the dreaded water. + +Clattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at +length from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave +the houses behind us. After a while I recognized the familiar way to +Saint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we +changed and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country +was white with snow, though none was falling then. + +"An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson," said Mr. +Bucket cheerfully. + +"Yes," I returned. "Have you gathered any intelligence?" + +"None that can be quite depended on as yet," he answered, "but it's +early times as yet." + +He had gone into every late or early public-house where there +was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being +then much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the +turnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, +and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he +took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful +steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business +tone, "Get on, my lad!" + +With all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we +were yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of one of +these houses and handed me in a cup of tea. + +"Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get +more yourself now, ain't you?" + +I thanked him and said I hoped so. + +"You was what you may call stunned at first," he returned; "and Lord, +no wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on +ahead." + +I don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, but +he put up his finger and I stopped myself. + +"Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I +heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but +couldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked +her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us +now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you +wasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can +catch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there +you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!" + +We were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when I +was just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the +night and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the +carriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready, +my companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home. + +"As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see," he +observed, "I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any +stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I +don't much expect it, but it might be." + +As we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye—the +day was now breaking—and reminded me that I had come down it one +night, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and +poor Jo, whom he called Toughey. + +I wondered how he knew that. + +"When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know," said +Mr. Bucket. + +Yes, I remembered that too, very well. + +"That was me," said Mr. Bucket. + +Seeing my surprise, he went on, "I drove down in a gig that afternoon +to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came +out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your +little maid going up when I was walking the horse down. Making an +inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he +was in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when I +observed you bringing him home here." + +"Had he committed any crime?" I asked. + +"None was charged against him," said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off +his hat, "but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I wanted +him for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady +Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome +as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased +Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have +him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made +an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he WAS away, and +go farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that I didn't +catch him coming back again." + +"Poor creature!" said I. + +"Poor enough," assented Mr. Bucket, "and trouble enough, and well +enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on +my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure +you." + +I asked him why. "Why, my dear?" said Mr. Bucket. "Naturally there +was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a +yard and a half of it, and a remnant over." + +Although I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion +at the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me +to understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me. +With the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of +indifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that +we had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the +garden-gate. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Bucket. "Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. +Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping, +that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They're early +with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what +you've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see +'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that. And +another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the +kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being +secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose." + +We were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely +at the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the +windows. + +"Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room +when he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?" he inquired, glancing at +Mr. Skimpole's usual chamber. + +"You know Mr. Skimpole!" said I. + +"What do you call him again?" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his +ear. "Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be. +Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?" + +"Harold," I told him. + +"Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold," said Mr. Bucket, eyeing +me with great expression. + +"He is a singular character," said I. + +"No idea of money," observed Mr. Bucket. "He takes it, though!" + +I involuntarily returned for answer that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew +him. + +"Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson," he replied. "Your mind will +be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and +I'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where +Toughey was. I made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask +for Toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first, +if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at +that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I +have had a look at him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I +smoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after +they was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that +charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I +pretty well understood his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote +well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without +causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows +in the gayest way, ‘It's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my +friend, because I'm a mere child in such matters and have no idea of +money.' Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and +being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round +a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and +looks as innocent as you like, and says, ‘But I don't know the value +of these things. What am I to DO with this?' ‘Spend it, sir,' says I. +‘But I shall be taken in,' he says, ‘they won't give me the right +change, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never saw such +a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find +Toughey, and I found him." + +I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole +towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish +innocence. + +"Bounds, my dear?" returned Mr. Bucket. "Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, +I'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful +when you are happily married and have got a family about you. +Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in +all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are +dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to +you ‘In worldly matters I'm a child,' you consider that that person +is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have +got that person's number, and it's Number One. Now, I am not a +poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a +company, but I'm a practical one, and that's my experience. So's this +rule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I +never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution +to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, +and so go back to our business." + +I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than +it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household +were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the +morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by +my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be +doubted that this was the truth. + +"Then, Miss Summerson," said my companion, "we can't be too soon at +the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries +there I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The +naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own +way." + +We set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it +shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew +me and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear informed +me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in +another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin +of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows +of bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place, +which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I +pushed it open. + +There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying +asleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead +child, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the +men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a +morose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket +followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently +knew him. + +I had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which I +knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool +near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that +I had to speak and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I +became conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to +begin, and I could not help bursting into tears. + +"Liz," said I, "I have come a long way in the night and through the +snow to inquire after a lady—" + +"Who has been here, you know," Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the +whole group with a composed propitiatory face; "that's the lady the +young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know." + +"And who told YOU as there was anybody here?" inquired Jenny's +husband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now +measured him with his eye. + +"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen +waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons," Mr. Bucket +immediately answered. + +"He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is," growled the +man. + +"He's out of employment, I believe," said Mr. Bucket apologetically +for Michael Jackson, "and so gets talking." + +The woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her +hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have +spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this +attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump +of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck +the handle of his knife violently on the table and told her with an +oath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down. + +"I should like to have seen Jenny very much," said I, "for I am sure +she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very +anxious indeed—you cannot think how anxious—to overtake. Will Jenny +be here soon? Where is she?" + +The woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another +oath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to +Jenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the +latter turned his shaggy head towards me. + +"I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd +me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it's +curious they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine made if +I was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don't so much +complain of you as of some others, and I'm agreeable to make you a +civil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be drawed +like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. Where is she? +She's gone up to Lunnun." + +"Did she go last night?" I asked. + +"Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night," he answered with a +sulky jerk of his head. + +"But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to +her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as +to tell me," said I, "for I am in great distress to know." + +"If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm—" the +woman timidly began. + +"Your master," said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow +emphasis, "will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern +you." + +After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me +again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness. + +"Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady +come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot the lady +said to her. She said, ‘You remember me as come one time to talk to +you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember +me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had +left?' Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young +lady up at the house now? No, she warn't up at the house now. Well, +then, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as +we might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten +for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went—it +might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty +minutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time +by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don't know where she go'd. +She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, +and t'other went right from it. That's all about it. Ask this man. He +heerd it all, and see it all. He knows." + +The other man repeated, "That's all about it." + +"Was the lady crying?" I inquired. + +"Devil a bit," returned the first man. "Her shoes was the worse, and +her clothes was the worse, but she warn't—not as I see." + +The woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. Her +husband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept his +hammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to execute +his threat if she disobeyed him. + +"I hope you will not object to my asking your wife," said I, "how the +lady looked." + +"Come, then!" he gruffly cried to her. "You hear what she says. Cut +it short and tell her." + +"Bad," replied the woman. "Pale and exhausted. Very bad." + +"Did she speak much?" + +"Not much, but her voice was hoarse." + +She answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave. + +"Was she faint?" said I. "Did she eat or drink here?" + +"Go on!" said the husband in answer to her look. "Tell her and cut it +short." + +"She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and +tea. But she hardly touched it." + +"And when she went from here," I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband +impatiently took me up. + +"When she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high +road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. Now, +there's the end. That's all about it." + +I glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and +was ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took +my leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he +looked full at her. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me as we walked quickly away. +"They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact." + +"You saw it?" I exclaimed. + +"Just as good as saw it," he returned. "Else why should he talk about +his ‘twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the +time by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as +that. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE does. Now, you +see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think +she gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should +she give it him for?" + +He repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on, +appearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his +mind. + +"If time could be spared," said Mr. Bucket, "which is the only thing +that can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman; +but it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present +circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any +fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and +scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that +ill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back. +It's a pity but what we had seen the other woman." + +I regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and I felt +sure would have resisted no entreaty of mine. + +"It's possible, Miss Summerson," said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it, +"that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and +it's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't +come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards. +Now, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see my way to the +usefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is +for'ard—straight ahead—and keeping everything quiet!" + +We called at home once more that I might send a hasty note to my +guardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage. +The horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we +were on the road again in a few minutes. + +It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air +was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall +that we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it +was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it +churned—with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells—under +the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped +and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a +standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first +stage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to +dismount from his saddle and lead him at last. + +I could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous under +those delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that I had an +unreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding to my +companion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this +time, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was +engaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing +people whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running +in to warm himself at every fire he saw, talking and drinking and +shaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner, +wheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, yet never seeming to lose +time, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady +face and his business-like "Get on, my lad!" + +When we were changing horses the next time, he came from the +stable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off +him—plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had been +doing frequently since we left Saint Albans—and spoke to me at the +carriage side. + +"Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came on here, +Miss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and +the dress has been seen here." + +"Still on foot?" said I. + +"Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point +she's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living down in her own part +of the country neither." + +"I know so little," said I. "There may be some one else nearer here, +of whom I never heard." + +"That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear; +and don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my +lad!" + +The sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early, +and it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I had never +seen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the +ploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had +been out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great +duration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free +from the anxiety under which I then laboured. + +As we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost +confidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people, +but he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his +finger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of +one long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of +coaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had +seen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their +replies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring beck of +his finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but +he seemed perplexed now when he said, "Get on, my lad!" + +At last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track +of the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing, +he said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for +another while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an +unaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This +corroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at +direction-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a +quarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not to +be down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the +next stage might set us right again. + +The next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue. +There was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable +substantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before +I knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the +carriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the +horses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to +refuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there. + +It was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On +one side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were +unharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage, +and beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was +heavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees. +Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off +in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and +its bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire +glowing and gleaming in the window-pane. As I looked among the stems +of the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the +thaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the +motherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now +welcomed me and of MY mother lying down in such a wood to die. + +I was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered +that before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was +some little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the +fire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no +further to-night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a +tremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her +words and compromised for a rest of half an hour. + +A good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, all +so busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr. +Bucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when +a snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was +very unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast +and some hot negus; and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made +some recompense. + +Punctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came +rumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed, +comforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any +more. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all, +the youngest daughter—a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the +first married, they had told me—got upon the carriage step, reached +in, and kissed me. I have never seen her, from that hour, but I think +of her to this hour as my friend. + +The transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright +and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and +again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with +toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had +been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the +box—I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw +him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco—was +as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to +any human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark +lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to +the carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that +I was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage-head, +but I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope. + +We came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not +recovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but I +knew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers that he +had heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I leaned back +in my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an +excited and quite different man. + +"What is it?" said I, starting. "Is she here?" + +"No, no. Don't deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody's here. But I've got +it!" + +The crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in +ridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face and get his +breath before he spoke to me. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," said he, beating his finger on the apron, +"don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me. +I'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We've come a long way; +never mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!" + +There was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the +stables to know if he meant up or down. + +"Up, I tell you! Up! Ain't it English? Up!" + +"Up?" said I, astonished. "To London! Are we going back?" + +"Miss Summerson," he answered, "back. Straight back as a die. You +know me. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G——" + +"The other?" I repeated. "Who?" + +"You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her. Bring those two +pair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!" + +"You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not +abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know her +to be in!" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand. + +"You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look +alive here with them horses. Send a man for'ard in the saddle to the +next stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order four +on, up, right through. My darling, don't you be afraid!" + +These orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them +caused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me +than the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a mounted +man galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to +with great speed. + +"My dear," said Mr. Bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in again, +"—you'll excuse me if I'm too familiar—don't you fret and worry +yourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present; +but you know me, my dear; now, don't you?" + +I endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of +deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? +Could I not go forward by myself in search of—I grasped his hand +again in my distress and whispered it to him—of my own mother. + +"My dear," he answered, "I know, I know, and would I put you wrong, +do you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don't you?" + +What could I say but yes! + +"Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me +for standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. +Now, are you right there?" + +"All right, sir!" + +"Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!" + +We were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing +up the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up by a +waterwheel. + +CHAPTER LVIII + +A Wintry Day and Night + +Still impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house +carries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. There +are powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of the +hall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky; +and in the same conservatory there is peach blossom turning itself +exotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of +doors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire, +but is expected to return presently. + +Rumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire. +It persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that that +poor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It hears, +my dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world of +five miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is something +wrong at the Dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. One of the +peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised +of all the principal circumstances that will come out before the +Lords on Sir Leicester's application for a bill of divorce. + +At Blaze and Sparkle's the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss's the +mercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age, +the feature of the century. The patronesses of those establishments, +albeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured +there as any other article of the stock-in-trade, are perfectly +understood in this new fashion by the rawest hand behind the counter. +"Our people, Mr. Jones," said Blaze and Sparkle to the hand in +question on engaging him, "our people, sir, are sheep—mere sheep. +Where two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those +two or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and you have the flock." So, +likewise, Sheen and Gloss to THEIR Jones, in reference to knowing +where to have the fashionable people and how to bring what they +(Sheen and Gloss) choose into fashion. On similar unerring +principles, Mr. Sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer +of gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, "Why yes, sir, there +certainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed +among my high connexion, sir. You see, my high connexion must talk +about something, sir; and it's only to get a subject into vogue with +one or two ladies I could name to make it go down with the whole. +Just what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of +any novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of +themselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock and being +perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You'll find, +sir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. If +it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when +I say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for I have made it my +business to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like +a clock, sir." + +Thus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into +Lincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards' time, +it has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. Stables, +which bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long +rested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is to the +effect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in +the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely received +in turf-circles. + +At feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and +among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the +prevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it? +How was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the +genteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new +manner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite +indifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found +to be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never +came out before—positively say things! William Buffy carries one of +these smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House, +where the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff-box to +keep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the +Speaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under +the corner of his wig) cries, "Order at the bar!" three times without +making an impression. + +And not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being +vaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr. +Sladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know +nothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend +that she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with +the last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl, +and the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at +second-hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to +fainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among +these little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters +on such majestic crutches! + +So goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it? + +Sir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with +difficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to rest, +and they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his old +enemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he +seems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be +moved out nearer to the window when he heard it was such inclement +weather, and his head to be so adjusted that he could see the driving +snow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole +wintry day. + +Upon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is +at the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he +would write and whispers, "No, he has not come back yet, Sir +Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a +little time gone yet." + +He withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow +again until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick and +fast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy +whirl of white flakes and icy blots. + +He began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not yet +far spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should +be prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good +fires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it yourself. +He writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs. Rouncewell with a +heavy heart obeys. + +"For I dread, George," the old lady says to her son, who waits below +to keep her company when she has a little leisure, "I dread, my dear, +that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls." + +"That's a bad presentiment, mother." + +"Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear." + +"That's worse. But why, mother?" + +"When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me—and I may +say at me too—as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked +her down." + +"Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother." + +"No I don't, my dear. No I don't. It's going on for sixty year that I +have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. +But it's breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is +breaking up." + +"I hope not, mother." + +"I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in +this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless +to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. +But the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it +has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on." + +"Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not." + +"Ah, so do I, George," the old lady returns, shaking her head and +parting her folded hands. "But if my fears come true, and he has to +know it, who will tell him!" + +"Are these her rooms?" + +"These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them." + +"Why, now," says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a +lower voice, "I begin to understand how you come to think as you do +think, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are +fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, +and that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows +where." + +He is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one, +so, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper +what your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady's state has a +hollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment, +where Mr. Bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces +of her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to +reflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and +vacant air. Dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and +colder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut that will barely +exclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates +and set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that +let their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is +a heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel. + +The old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are +complete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs. +Rouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge +pots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent +comforts to the invalid under present circumstances. Volumnia, not +being supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter, +has found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and +consequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of +the bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at +her kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, "He +is asleep." In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has +indignantly written on the slate, "I am not." + +Yielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old +housekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed, +sympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow and +listens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears of his +old servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old +picture-frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the +silence is fraught with echoes of her own words, "Who will tell him!" + +He has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made +presentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He +is propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual +manner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a +responsible dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready to +his hand. It is necessary—less to his own dignity now perhaps than +for her sake—that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much +himself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock, +is no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to +prevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his +present stand against distress of mind and body most courageously. + +The fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long +continue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon +Boredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of +undisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by +any other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell +on her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures +she ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as +what's his name, her favourite Life Guardsman—the man she dotes on, +the dearest of creatures—who was killed at Waterloo. + +Sir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares +about him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it +necessary to explain. + +"Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my +youngest. I have found him. He has come home." + +Sir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. "George? Your son +George come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?" + +The old housekeeper wipes her eyes. "Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester." + +Does this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long +gone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he +think, "Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after +this, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in +his?" + +It is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he +does. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be +understood. + +"Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?" + +"It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being +well enough to be talked to of such things." + +Besides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that +nobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell's son and that +she was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, with warmth +enough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir +Leicester as soon as he got better. + +"Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?" asks Sir Leicester, + +Mrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the +doctor's injunctions, replies, in London. + +"Where in London?" + +Mrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house. + +"Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly." + +The old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester, +with such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to +receive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling +sleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity +of straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises +there, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his +hearing wheels. + +He is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor +surprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper +son. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow, +squares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily +ashamed of himself. + +"Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!" exclaims Sir +Leicester. "Do you remember me, George?" + +The trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that +sound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a +little helped by his mother, he replies, "I must have a very bad +memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you." + +"When I look at you, George Rouncewell," Sir Leicester observes with +difficulty, "I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold—I remember +well—very well." + +He looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he +looks at the sleet and snow again. + +"I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester," says the trooper, "but would you +accept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir +Leicester, if you would allow me to move you." + +"If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good." + +The trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him, +and turns him with his face more towards the window. "Thank you. You +have your mother's gentleness," returns Sir Leicester, "and your own +strength. Thank you." + +He signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains +at the bedside, waiting to be spoken to. + +"Why did you wish for secrecy?" It takes Sir Leicester some time to +ask this. + +"Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I—I should +still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed—which I hope you +will not be long—I should still hope for the favour of being allowed +to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very +hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very +creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of +subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir +Leicester, that I am not much to boast of." + +"You have been a soldier," observes Sir Leicester, "and a faithful +one." + +George makes his military bow. "As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I +have done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do." + +"You find me," says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted +towards him, "far from well, George Rouncewell." + +"I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester." + +"I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a +sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens," making an endeavour +to pass one hand down one side, "and confuses," touching his lips. + +George, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The +different times when they were both young men (the trooper much the +younger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold +arise before them both and soften both. + +Sir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his +own manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into +silence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more. +George, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and +places him as he desires to be. "Thank you, George. You are another +self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold, +George. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very +familiar." He has put Sir Leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder +in lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again +as he says these words. + +"I was about to add," he presently goes on, "I was about to add, +respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a +slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean +that there was any difference between us (for there has been none), +but that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances +important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while, +of my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to make a journey—I +trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible? +The words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing +them." + +Volumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he delivers himself +with far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a +minute ago. The effort by which he does so is written in the anxious +and labouring expression of his face. Nothing but the strength of his +purpose enables him to make it. + +"Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence—and in the +presence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose truth +and fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son +George, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in +the home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold—in case I should relapse, +in case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech +and the power of writing, though I hope for better things—" + +The old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest +agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with +his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive. + +"Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to +witness—beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly—that I am +on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever +of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest +affection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to +herself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will +be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me." + +Volumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions +to the letter. + +"My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too +superior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is +surrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let it +be known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound +mind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have made +in her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon her. I am +on unaltered terms with her, and I recall—having the full power to +do it if I were so disposed, as you see—no act I have done for her +advantage and happiness." + +His formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has +often had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is serious +and affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant +shielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own +pride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing +less worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the +commonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born +gentleman. In such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both +children of the dust shine equally. + +Overpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows +and closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again resumes +his watching of the weather and his attention to the muffled sounds. +In the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their +acceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him. +Nothing has been said, but it is quite understood. He falls a step or +two backward to be out of sight and mounts guard a little behind his +mother's chair. + +The day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet into +which the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze +begins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The +gloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the +pertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their +source of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly like +fiery fish out of water—as they are. The world, which has been +rumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, "to inquire," begins +to go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend with +all the last new modes, as already mentioned. + +Now does Sir Leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great +pain. Volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for +doing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for it +is not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too, as dark as it will +be all night. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not +dark enough yet. + +His old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to +uphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late. + +"Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master," she softly whispers, "I +must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and +praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and +waiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains, and +light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The +church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and +the night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just +the same." + +"I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak—and she has been so long +gone." + +"Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet." + +"But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!" + +He says it with a groan that wrings her heart. + +She knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon +him; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her. +Therefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then +gently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at +the dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered +self-command, "As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being +confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the +room!" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left +to him to listen. + +But they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when +a quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and +being sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as +it is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him. + +Midnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the +streets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there +are none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the +frigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this +wintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is +like looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in +this case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that, +and all is heavier than before. + +The corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to +go, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and +George keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags tardily +on—or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and +three o'clock—they find a restless craving on him to know more about +the weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly +every half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his +march to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best +report he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling +and even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge. + +Volumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase—the +second turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly +room containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester +banished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard +planted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black +tea—is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among +them, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in +the event, as she expresses it, "of anything happening" to Sir +Leicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and that +the last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in +the known world. + +An effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to +bed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come +forth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her +fair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost, +particularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one +who still does not return. Solitude under such circumstances being +not to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by her maid, who, +impressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very +sleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances +to take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to +nothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of +countenance. + +The periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the +course of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and company +both to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the +small hours of the night. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both +make some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other +times they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion and +dialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether Miss Dedlock, +sitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into +the fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian +genius the maid. + +"How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?" inquires Volumnia, adjusting +her cowl over her head. + +"Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill, +and he even wanders a little sometimes." + +"Has he asked for me?" inquires Volumnia tenderly. + +"Why, no, I can't say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to +say." + +"This is a truly sad time, Mr. George." + +"It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?" + +"You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock," quoth the maid +sharply. + +But Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be wanted +at a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself "if anything +was to happen" and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on +the question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and +not in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly +declares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a +merit of not having "closed an eye"—as if she had twenty or +thirty—though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having +most indisputably opened two within five minutes. + +But when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank, +Volumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to +strengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for +the morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact, +howsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her, +as an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So when the trooper +reappears with his, "Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?" and when the +maid protests, more sharply than before, "You had a deal better go to +bed, Miss Dedlock!" she meekly rises and says, "Do with me what you +think best!" + +Mr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the +door of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it +best to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly, +these steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the +house to himself. + +There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the +eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips +the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of +the great door—under it, into the corners of the windows, into every +chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is +falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the +skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's +Walk, on the stone floor below. + +The trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur +of a great house—no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold—goes up the +stairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's +length. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks, +and of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so +strangely brought together across the wide intermediate space; +thinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind; +thinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms and +the tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the +master of the house upstairs and of the foreboding, "Who will tell +him!" he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he MIGHT see +something now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his +hand upon, and prove to be a fancy. But it is all blank, blank as the +darkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again, +blank as the oppressive silence. + +"All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?" + +"Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester." + +"No word of any kind?" + +The trooper shakes his head. + +"No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?" + +But he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down +without looking for an answer. + +Very familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George +Rouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder +of the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his unexpressed +wish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains at the first +late break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless, +and vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as +if it cried out, "Look what I am bringing you who watch there! Who +will tell him!" + +CHAPTER LIX + +Esther's Narrative + +It was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London +did at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with +streets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition +than when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the +thaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never +slackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than +the horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had +stopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through +streams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become +entangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been +always ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard +any variation in his cool, "Get on, my lads!" + +The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey +back I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped +to make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very +few words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we +came, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into +Islington. + +I will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected +all this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther +behind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be +right and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following +this woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it and discussing +it during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her and +what could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also +that I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long +dwelling on such reflections when we stopped. + +We stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My +companion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with +splashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the +carriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take +it, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from +the rest. + +"Why, my dear!" he said as he did this. "How wet you are!" + +I had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way +into the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a fallen +horse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated +my dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the driver, who knew +him, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his +stable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. They shook it +out and strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and +comfortable. + +"Now, my dear," said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window after +I was shut up. "We're a-going to mark this person down. It may take a +little time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty sure that I've +got a motive. Ain't you?" + +I little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I +should understand it better, but I assured him that I had confidence +in him. + +"So you may have, my dear," he returned. "And I tell you what! If you +only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you after +what I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no trouble at +all. I never see a young woman in any station of society—and I've +seen many elevated ones too—conduct herself like you have conducted +yourself since you was called out of your bed. You're a pattern, you +know, that's what you are," said Mr. Bucket warmly; "you're a +pattern." + +I told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no +hindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now. + +"My dear," he returned, "when a young lady is as mild as she's game, +and as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I expect. +She then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself." + +With these encouraging words—they really were encouraging to me +under those lonely and anxious circumstances—he got upon the box, +and we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then nor +have ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and +worst streets in London. Whenever I saw him directing the driver, I +was prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such +streets, and we never failed to do so. + +Sometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger +building than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at +offices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I +saw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by +an archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of +his little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various +dark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would +be held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within +narrower and easier limits. Single police-officers on duty could now +tell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point to him where to go. +At last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one +of these men, which I supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of +nodding from time to time. When it was finished he came to me looking +very busy and very attentive. + +"Now, Miss Summerson," he said to me, "you won't be alarmed whatever +comes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any further +caution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and +that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don't like to +ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?" + +Of course I got out directly and took his arm. + +"It ain't so easy to keep your feet," said Mr. Bucket, "but take +time." + +Although I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed the +street, I thought I knew the place. "Are we in Holborn?" I asked him. + +"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "Do you know this turning?" + +"It looks like Chancery Lane." + +"And was christened so, my dear," said Mr. Bucket. + +We turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I +heard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence and +as quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one coming +towards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and +stood aside to give me room. In the same moment I heard an +exclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt. I knew his +voice very well. + +It was so unexpected and so—I don't know what to call it, whether +pleasant or painful—to come upon it after my feverish wandering +journey, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back +the tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange +country. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in +such weather!" + +He had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some +uncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I +told him that we had but just left a coach and were going—but then I +was obliged to look at my companion. + +"Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt"—he had caught the name from me—"we +are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket." + +Mr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off +his cloak and was putting it about me. "That's a good move, too," +said Mr. Bucket, assisting, "a very good move." + +"May I go with you?" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to me +or to my companion. + +"Why, Lord!" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself. "Of +course you may." + +It was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped +in the cloak. + +"I have just left Richard," said Mr. Woodcourt. "I have been sitting +with him since ten o'clock last night." + +"Oh, dear me, he is ill!" + +"No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed +and faint—you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes—and Ada +sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and came +straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while, +and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though +God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him +until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is +now, I hope!" + +His friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected +devotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had +inspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I separate +all this from his promise to me? How thankless I must have been if it +had not recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the +change in my appearance: "I will accept him as a trust, and it shall +be a sacred one!" + +We now turned into another narrow street. "Mr. Woodcourt," said Mr. +Bucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, "our business +takes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. Snagsby's. What, +you know him, do you?" He was so quick that he saw it in an instant. + +"Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this place." + +"Indeed, sir?" said Mr. Bucket. "Then you will be so good as to let +me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have +half a word with him?" + +The last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing +silently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my +saying I heard some one crying. + +"Don't be alarmed, miss," he returned. "It's Snagsby's servant." + +"Why, you see," said Mr. Bucket, "the girl's subject to fits, and has +'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I +want certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to +reason somehow." + +"At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr. +Bucket," said the other man. "She's been at it pretty well all night, +sir." + +"Well, that's true," he returned. "My light's burnt out. Show yours a +moment." + +All this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which I +could faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of light +produced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and knocked. +The door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he went in, +leaving us standing in the street. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Woodcourt, "if without obtruding myself on +your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so." + +"You are truly kind," I answered. "I need wish to keep no secret of +my own from you; if I keep any, it is another's." + +"I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as +I can fully respect it." + +"I trust implicitly to you," I said. "I know and deeply feel how +sacredly you keep your promise." + +After a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr. +Bucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. "Please to +come in, Miss Summerson," he said, "and sit down by the fire. Mr. +Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a +medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be +done to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I +particularly want. It's not in her box, and I think it must be about +her; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to +handle without hurting." + +We all three went into the house together; although it was cold and +raw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage +behind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a +grey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke +meekly. + +"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will +excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The +back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing, +to a frightful extent!" + +We went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the +little man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs. +Snagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face. + +"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, "to +wave—not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear—hostilities for +one single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is +Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady." + +She looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and +looked particularly hard at me. + +"My little woman," said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest +corner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, "it is not +unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr. +Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, +at the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. If I +was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I'd rather +not be told." + +He appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I +appeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when Mr. +Bucket took the matter on himself. + +"Now, Mr. Snagsby," said he, "the best thing you can do is to go +along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster—" + +"My Guster, Mr. Bucket!" cried Mr. Snagsby. "Go on, sir, go on. I +shall be charged with that next." + +"And to hold the candle," pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting +himself, "or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're +asked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're a +man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of +heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so good +as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me +have it as soon as ever you can?" + +As they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire +and take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender, +talking all the time. + +"Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look +from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether. +She'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her +generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I'm a-going +to explain it to her." Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat +and shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to Mrs. +Snagsby. "Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman +possessing what you may call charms, you know—‘Believe Me, if All +Those Endearing,' and cetrer—you're well acquainted with the song, +because it's in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are +strangers—charms—attractions, mind you, that ought to give you +confidence in yourself—is, that you've done it." + +Mrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered, +what did Mr. Bucket mean. + +"What does Mr. Bucket mean?" he repeated, and I saw by his face that +all the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the +letter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how important it +must be; "I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and see Othello +acted. That's the tragedy for you." + +Mrs. Snagsby consciously asked why. + +"Why?" said Mr. Bucket. "Because you'll come to that if you don't +look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your +mind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I +tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call an +intellectual woman—with your soul too large for your body, if you +come to that, and chafing it—and you know me, and you recollect +where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don't +you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady." + +Mrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did +at the time. + +"And Toughey—him as you call Jo—was mixed up in the same business, +and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the +same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge +of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn, +deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and +the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no +other. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts +her eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed +head against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. +Woodcourt might have got it by this time.)" + +Mrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"Is that all?" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. "No. See what happens. +Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a +wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your +maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes +a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do +you do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that +maid-servant—knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing +will bring 'em on—in that surprising manner and with that severity +that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be +hanging upon that girl's words!" + +He so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily clasped +my hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it stopped. Mr. +Woodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again. + +"Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make," said Mr. Bucket, +rapidly glancing at it, "is to let me speak a word to this young lady +in private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to +that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one +thing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your +swiftest and best!" In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the +door. "Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?" + +"Quite," said I. + +"Whose writing is that?" + +It was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of +paper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and directed +to me at my guardian's. + +"You know the hand," he said, "and if you are firm enough to read it +to me, do! But be particular to a word." + +It had been written in portions, at different times. I read what +follows: + + I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the + dear one, if I could, once more—but only to see her—not + to speak to her or let her know that I was near. The other + object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the + mother for her share. The assistance that she rendered me, + she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the + dear one's good. You remember her dead child. The men's + consent I bought, but her help was freely given. + +"‘I came.' That was written," said my companion, "when she rested +there. It bears out what I made of it. I was right." + +The next was written at another time: + + I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and + I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no + purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am + saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and + fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but + I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was + right that all that had sustained me should give way at + once and that I should die of terror and my conscience. + +"Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more." + +Those, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost +in the dark: + + I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon + forgotten so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing + about me by which I can be recognized. This paper I part + with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can get + so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive. + +Mr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my +chair. "Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon +as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready." + +I did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for +my unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I +heard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At +length he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important +to address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for +whatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that +she could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed. +The questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what +passed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where +the person went. Holding my mind as steadily as I could to these +points, I went into the next room with them. Mr. Woodcourt would have +remained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us. + +The poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down. +They stood around her, though at a little distance, that she might +have air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but she had a +plaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I +kneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my +shoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into +tears. + +"My poor girl," said I, laying my face against her forehead, for +indeed I was crying too, and trembling, "it seems cruel to trouble +you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter +than I could tell you in an hour." + +She began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she +didn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby! + +"We are all sure of that," said I. "But pray tell me how you got it." + +"Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true, indeed, +Mrs. Snagsby." + +"I am sure of that," said I. "And how was it?" + +"I had been out on an errand, dear lady—long after it was +dark—quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking +person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me +coming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here. +And I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about +here, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I +do, what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm +to me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!" + +It was necessary for her mistress to comfort her—which she did, I +must say, with a good deal of contrition—before she could be got +beyond this. + +"She could not find those places," said I. + +"No!" cried the girl, shaking her head. "No! Couldn't find them. And +she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if +you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, I +know!" + +"Well, Guster, my girl," said he, at first not knowing what to say. +"I hope I should." + +"And yet she was so well spoken," said the girl, looking at me with +wide open eyes, "that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she said +to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her +which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. And so I +told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to +parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far +from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate." + +As I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket +received this with a look which I could not separate from one of +alarm. + +"Oh, dear, dear!" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her +hands. "What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying +ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff—that +you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby—that frightened me so, +Mrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!" + +"You are so much better now," sald I. "Pray, pray tell me more." + +"Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear +lady, because I have been so ill." + +Angry with her, poor soul! + +"There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to +find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with +eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. +And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was +to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded +and never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the +messenger would be paid at the house. And so I said yes, if it was no +harm, and she said no—no harm. And so I took it from her, and she +said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and +consequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and +went." + +"And did she go—" + +"Yes," cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. "Yes! She went the +way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me +from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened." + +Mr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and +immediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I +said, "Don't leave me now!" and Mr. Bucket added, "You'll be better +with us, we may want you; don't lose time!" + +I have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that +it was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the +street-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling +and that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled +people passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the +clogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of +blackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the +courts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor +girl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my +hearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained +house-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great +water-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the +air, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real. + +At last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one +lamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly +struggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground—a +dreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where +I could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in +by filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose +walls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the +gate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and +splashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a +woman lying—Jenny, the mother of the dead child. + +I ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me +with the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to +the figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did +so, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure. + +"Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They +changed clothes at the cottage." + +They changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my +mind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no +meaning to them in any other connexion. + +"And one returned," said Mr. Bucket, "and one went on. And the one +that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and +then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!" + +I could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what +it meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead +child. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron +gate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so lately +spoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered, +senseless creature. She who had brought my mother's letter, who could +give me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide +us to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to +this condition by some means connected with my mother that I could +not follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that +moment; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw but did not +comprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face. +I saw but did not comprehend his touching the other on the breast to +keep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a +reverence for something. But my understanding for all this was gone. + +I even heard it said between them, "Shall she go?" + +"She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They +have a higher right than ours." + +I passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head, +put the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my +mother, cold and dead. + +CHAPTER LX + +Perspective + +I proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all +about me I derived such consolation as I can never think of unmoved. +I have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains, +that I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was +not a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of it if I could +quite keep down the recollection of their sympathy. + +I proceed to other passages of my narrative. + +During the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs. +Woodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us. +When my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him +in our old way—though I could have done that sooner if he would have +believed me—I resumed my work and my chair beside his. He had +appointed the time himself, and we were alone. + +"Dame Trot," said he, receiving me with a kiss, "welcome to the +growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I +propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer +time—as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short." + +"And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?" said I. + +"Aye, my dear? Bleak House," he returned, "must learn to take care of +itself." + +I thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his +kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile. + +"Bleak House," he repeated—and his tone did NOT sound sorrowful, I +found—"must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada, +my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you." + +"It's like you, guardian," said I, "to have been taking that into +consideration for a happy surprise to both of us." + +"Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for +that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be +seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of +Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of +her alone, but of him too, poor fellow." + +"Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?" + +"I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden." + +"Does he still say the same of Richard?" + +"Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on +the contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about +him; who CAN be?" + +My dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in +a day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last +until I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent heart +was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it +had ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions +upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it +a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house. +My guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to +convey to her that he thought she was right. + +"Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard," said I. "When will he awake +from his delusion!" + +"He is not in the way to do so now, my dear," replied my guardian. +"The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made +me the principal representative of the great occasion of his +suffering." + +I could not help adding, "So unreasonably!" + +"Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot," returned my guardian, "what shall we find +reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the +top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason +and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an end—how +should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He +no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older +men did in old times." + +His gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of him +touched me so that I was always silent on this subject very soon. + +"I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the +whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished +by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors," pursued my +guardian. "When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses +from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be +astonished too!" + +He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the +wind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead. + +"Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave +to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada +upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance +of another separation from a friend. Therefore I have particularly +begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not +to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month, +next year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can +wait." + +But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I +thought, had Mr. Woodcourt. + +"So he tells me," returned my guardian. "Very good. He has made his +protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to +be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, +my dear?" + +In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked +her very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be. + +"I think so too," said my guardian. "Less pedigree? Not so much of +Morgan ap—what's his name?" + +That was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very harmless +person, even when we had had more of him. + +"Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains," said +my guardian. "I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better +for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?" + +No. And yet— + +My guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say. + +I had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I could +say. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if +we had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have explained why +even to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else. + +"You see," said my guardian, "our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's +way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is +agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you." + +Yes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I could +not have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite easy in +my mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think! + +"It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do +better." + +"Sure, little woman?" + +Quite sure. I had had a moment's time to think, since I had urged +that duty on myself, and I was quite sure. + +"Good," said my guardian. "It shall be done. Carried unanimously." + +"Carried unanimously," I repeated, going on with my work. + +It was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be ornamenting. +It had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey and never +resumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I +had explained the pattern to him and all the great effects that were +to come out by and by, I thought I would go back to our last theme. + +"You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada +left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another +country. Have you been advising him since?" + +"Yes, little woman, pretty often." + +"Has he decided to do so?" + +"I rather think not." + +"Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?" said I. + +"Why—yes—perhaps," returned my guardian, beginning his answer in a +very deliberate manner. "About half a year hence or so, there is a +medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in +Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated—streams and +streets, town and country, mill and moor—and seems to present an +opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may +sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the +ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough +after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good +service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I +suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, +instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care +for. It is Woodcourt's kind." + +"And will he get this appointment?" I asked. + +"Why, little woman," returned my guardian, smiling, "not being an +oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation +stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in +the shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has the +best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a +very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great +amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will +gather about it, it may be fairly hoped." + +"The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it +falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian." + +"You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will." + +We said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of +Bleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his +side in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered. + +I now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner +where she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I found +I had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to +Chancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hours, and +used to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming +in (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I had no fear of +becoming troublesome just yet. + +On these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times +he would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that table of +his, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. Sometimes I +would come upon him lingering at the door of Mr. Vholes's office. +Sometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood lounging about and +biting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln's Inn, near +the place where I had first seen him, oh how different, how +different! + +That the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I +used to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes's office I knew very +well. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married in +debt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was +meant by Mr. Vholes's shoulder being at the wheel—as I still heard +it was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save, +but I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day. + +She shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned +and graced it so that it became another place. Paler than she had +been at home, and a little quieter than I had thought natural when +she was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed that +I half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his +ruinous career. + +I went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression. +As I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out. +She had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as +she still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from +that ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday +at five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, which +never appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule +of documents on her arm. + +"My dear!" she began. "So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see +you. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? TO be +sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see +you." + +"Then Richard is not come in yet?" said I. "I am glad of that, for I +was afraid of being a little late." + +"No, he is not come in," returned Miss Flite. "He has had a long day +in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like Vholes, I +hope? DON'T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!" + +"I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now," said I. + +"My dearest," returned Miss Flite, "daily and hourly. You know what I +told you of the attraction on the Chancellor's table? My dear, next +to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to +amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?" + +It was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was +no surprise. + +"In short, my valued friend," pursued Miss Flite, advancing her lips +to my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, "I must tell +you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted, +and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +"Ye-es," repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, "my +executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.) +I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch +that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance." + +It made me sigh to think of him. + +"I did at one time mean," said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, "to +nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my +charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor +man, so I have appointed his successor. Don't mention it. This is in +confidence." + +She carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a folded +piece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke. + +"Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds." + +"Really, Miss Flite?" said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her +confidence received with an appearance of interest. + +She nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy. +"Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with +all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, +Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, +Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and +Spinach!" + +The poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen +in her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of her +birds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips, +quite chilled me. + +This was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have +dispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived +within a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner. +Although it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some +minutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we +were to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding a +little conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the window +where I was sitting and began upon Symond's Inn. + +"A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official +one," said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to +make it clearer for me. + +"There is not much to see here," said I. + +"Nor to hear, miss," returned Mr. Vholes. "A little music does +occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon +eject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish +him?" + +I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well. + +"I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his +friends myself," said Mr. Vholes, "and I am aware that the gentlemen +of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an +unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and +evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of +prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find +Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?" + +"He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious." + +"Just so," said Mr. Vholes. + +He stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to the +ceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as if +they were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there +were not a human passion or emotion in his nature. + +"Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?" he resumed. + +"Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend," I answered. + +"But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance." + +"That can do little for an unhappy mind," said I. + +"Just so," said Mr. Vholes. + +So slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were +wasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were +something of the vampire in him. + +"Miss Summerson," said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved +hands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in +black kid or out of it, "this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. +C.'s." + +I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged +when they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and +when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When +Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now +darkened his life. + +"Just so," assented Mr. Vholes again. "Still, with a view to +everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission, +Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very +ill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.'s +connexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself, +but also to my own reputation—dear to myself as a professional man +aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom +I am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I will even +say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support." + +"It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better +marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes," said I, "if +Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which +you are engaged with him." + +Mr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough—or rather gasp—into one of his +black gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even +that. + +"Miss Summerson," he said, "it may be so; and I freely admit that the +young lady who has taken Mr. C.'s name upon herself in so ill-advised +a manner—you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out +that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.'s connexions—is a +highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much +with general society in any but a professional character; still I +trust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young +lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did +give much attention to it from a boy, but I dare say the young lady +is equally eligible in that point of view. She is considered so (I +have heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in +their way than in mine. In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his +interests—" + +"Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!" + +"Pardon me," returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same inward +and dispassionate manner. "Mr. C. takes certain interests under +certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference +to Mr. C,'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss +Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my +desire that everything should be openly carried on—I used those +words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is +producible at any time—I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid down +the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client +of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to +say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I HAVE +carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over +to any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr. +Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional +duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say, +unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very +bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I +regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir? +Yes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of +some agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to +thank you very much, sir!" + +He broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came +into the room. By this time I too well understood Mr. Vholes's +scrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability not to feel +that our worst fears did but keep pace with his client's progress. + +We sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing Richard, +anxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took off his gloves +to dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table, for I +doubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host's +face. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress, +abstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at +other intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large +bright eyes that used to be so merry there was a wanness and a +restlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the +expression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not +like age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and youthful beauty +had all fallen away. + +He ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to +be much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with +Ada. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all +gone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known +little momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me from +the glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like +the echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful. + +Yet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me +there, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not +appear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made a +gasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner and +said that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his +office. + +"Always devoted to business, Vholes!" cried Richard. + +"Yes, Mr. C.," he returned, "the interests of clients are never to be +neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional +man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his +fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the +pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly +irrespective of your own interests, Mr. C." + +Richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes +out. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good +fellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very +good fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it struck me he +had begun to doubt Mr. Vholes. + +Then he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put +things to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who +attended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there and +quietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp being +first removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his +eyes. + +I sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy +listening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I think he +darkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time, +rising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, when Mr. +Woodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half playfully, +half earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and +where he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in +a short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night; +and Richard readily consenting, they went out together. + +They left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still +sitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round her +waist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that side), +but kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them without +striking any note. + +"Esther, my dearest," she said, breaking silence, "Richard is never +so well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan +Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that." + +I pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr. +Woodcourt had come to her cousin John's house and had known us all +there, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had +always liked him, and—and so forth. + +"All true," said Ada, "but that he is such a devoted friend to us we +owe to you." + +I thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no more +about it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I felt her +trembling. + +"Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife +indeed. You shall teach me." + +I teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was fluttering +over the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to speak, that +it was she who had something to say to me. + +"When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before him. +I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never +known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but I +understood the danger he was in, dear Esther." + +"I know, I know, my darling." + +"When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able to +convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new +way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my +sake—as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have +married him just the same, Esther. Just the same!" + +In the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still—a +firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying +away with them—I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones. + +"You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you +see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I +do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely +know Richard better than my love does." + +She spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed +such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear, +dear girl! + +"I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know +every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite +determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I +grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. I want him, +when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when +he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this, +and this supports me." + +I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I +now thought I began to know what it was. + +"And something else supports me, Esther." + +She stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in +motion. + +"I look forward a little while, and I don't know what great aid may +come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be +something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with +greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him +back." + +Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her +in mine. + +"If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look +forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and +think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a +beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him +and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as +he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the +sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, ‘I +thank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and +restored through me!'" + +Oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against +me! + +"These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though +sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when I +look at Richard." + +I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing and +weeping, she replied, "That he may not live to see his child." + +CHAPTER LXI + +A Discovery + +The days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl +brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I +never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in +my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will +shine for ever. + +Not a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I found +Mr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano +and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my very much +mistrusting the probability of his being there without making Richard +poorer, I felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety too +inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada's life. I clearly +perceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved, +after much thinking of it, to make a private visit to Mr. Skimpole +and try delicately to explain myself. My dear girl was the great +consideration that made me bold. + +I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As I +approached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I +felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr. +Skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally +defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through +with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's +door—literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone—and after a +long parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area +when I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to +light the fire with. + +Mr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a +little, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he +asked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I +have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment +daughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect +nosegay? + +I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself +only if he would give me leave. + +"My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course," he said, bringing +his chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating smile, "of +course it's not business. Then it's pleasure!" + +I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not +quite a pleasant matter. + +"Then, my dear Miss Summerson," said he with the frankest gaiety, +"don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT a +pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature, +in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am +imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant +matter, how much less should you! So that's disposed of, and we will +talk of something else." + +Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still +wished to pursue the subject. + +"I should think it a mistake," said Mr. Skimpole with his airy laugh, +"if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don't!" + +"Mr. Skimpole," said I, raising my eyes to his, "I have so often +heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of +life—" + +"Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the junior +partner? D?" said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. "Not an idea of them!" + +"—That perhaps," I went on, "you will excuse my boldness on that +account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is +poorer than he was." + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Skimpole. "So am I, they tell me." + +"And in very embarrassed circumstances." + +"Parallel case, exactly!" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted +countenance. + +"This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I +think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by +visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind, +it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that—if you +would—not—" + +I was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by +both hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way +anticipated it. + +"Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly +not. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I +don't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain +comes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very little pleasure at +our dear Richard's lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates +why. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so +captivating in them, begin to think, ‘This is a man who wants +pounds.' So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because +tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to +think, becoming mercenary, ‘This is the man who HAD pounds, who +borrowed them,' which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young +friends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate +in their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see +them, therefore? Absurd!" + +Through the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned +thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite +astonishing. + +"Besides," he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of +light-hearted conviction, "if I don't go anywhere for pain—which +would be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous +thing to do—why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I +went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of +mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be +disagreeable. They might say, ‘This is the man who had pounds and who +can't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course; nothing could be more +out of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't go near +them—and I won't." + +He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing but +Miss Summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out for +him. + +I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were +gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything +leading to it. I had determined to mention something else, however, +and I thought I was not to be put off in that. + +"Mr. Skimpole," said I, "I must take the liberty of saying before I +conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best +authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor +boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that +occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would +hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much +surprised." + +"No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?" he returned +inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows. + +"Greatly surprised." + +He thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and +whimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his +most engaging manner, "You know what a child I am. Why surprised?" + +I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he +begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to +understand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed +to involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was much +amused and interested when he heard this and said, "No, really?" with +ingenuous simplicity. + +"You know I don't intend to be responsible. I never could do it. +Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me—or below +me," said Mr. Skimpole. "I don't even know which; but as I understand +the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her +practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine +it was chiefly a question of money, do you know?" + +I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this. + +"Ah! Then you see," said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, "I am +hopeless of understanding it." + +I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my +guardian's confidence for a bribe. + +"My dear Miss Summerson," he returned with a candid hilarity that was +all his own, "I can't be bribed." + +"Not by Mr. Bucket?" said I. + +"No," said he. "Not by anybody. I don't attach any value to money. I +don't care about it, I don't know about it, I don't want it, I don't +keep it—it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?" + +I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the +capacity for arguing the question. + +"On the contrary," said Mr. Skimpole, "I am exactly the man to be +placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the +rest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in +such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian +baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far +above suspicion as Caesar's wife." + +Anything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful +impartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed +the matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in +anybody else! + +"Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received +into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. +The boy being in bed, a man arrives—like the house that Jack built. +Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house +and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a +bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received +into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. +Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man +who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in +a state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well. +Should the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole +have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, ‘What's this for? +I don't understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.' Bucket +still entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole, +not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole +perceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is +a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person +of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception +and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they +run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us +comfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and +intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong +faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very +useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want +it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket's weapons; shall +I positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And +again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is +blameable in Bucket to offer the note—much more blameable in Bucket, +because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of +Bucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the +general cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The +state expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that's +all he does!" + +I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took +my leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would +not hear of my returning home attended only by "Little Coavinses," +and accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a +variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that +he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out +for him about our young friends. + +As it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once +finish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and +my guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his +having heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we +afterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being +heavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their +separation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary +behind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which +was published and which showed him to have been the victim of a +combination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was +considered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself +than the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It +was this: "Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is +the incarnation of selfishness." + +And now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly +indeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance +occurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in +my mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as +belonging to a part of my life that was gone—gone like my infancy or +my childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that +subject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has +recalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the +last words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me. + +The months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the +hopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the +miserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court +day after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew +there was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became +one of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any of the +gentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there. + +So completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow +in his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh +air now "but for Woodcourt." It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could +occasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse +him, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed +us greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the +months went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued +his errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that +his desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense +by his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a +gamester. + +I was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at +night, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my +guardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home +together. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I +could not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for +I was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to +finish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour +when I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss +for the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as +it was dusk. + +When we came to the usual place of meeting—it was close by, and Mr. +Woodcourt had often accompanied me before—my guardian was not there. +We waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs +of him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he +had come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with +me. + +It was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very +short one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada +the whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done—my +appreciation of it had risen above all words then—but I hoped he +might not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly. + +Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was +out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same +room into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful +lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart, +the very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them +going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and +promise. + +We were standing by the opened window looking down into the street +when Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved +me. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to +him. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and +compassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know +it now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I +had. Too late. + +"When I returned," he told me, "when I came back, no richer than when +I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so +inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish +thought—" + +"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!" I entreated him. "I do not +deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time, +many!" + +"Heaven knows, beloved of my life," said he, "that my praise is not a +lover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you +see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, +what sacred admiration and what love she wins." + +"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt," cried I, "it is a great thing to win love, it is +a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and +the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and +sorrow—joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it +better; but I am not free to think of yours." + +I said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when +I heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true, +I aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that. +Although I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could +be worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me, +and an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was +derived from him when I thought so. + +He broke the silence. + +"I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will +evermore be as dear to me as now"—and the deep earnestness with +which he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep—"if, after +her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it. +Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I +took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have +always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of +good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should +tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night. +I distress you. I have said enough." + +Something seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he +thought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I +wished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he +showed that first commiseration for me. + +"Dear Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "before we part to-night, something is +left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish—I never +shall—but—" + +I had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his +affliction before I could go on. + +"—I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its +remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I +know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a +noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me +could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none +that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall +make me better." + +He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could +I ever be worthy of those tears? + +"If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together—in tending +Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life—you ever +find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it +used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and +that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr. +Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my +heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been +beloved by you." + +He took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt +still more encouraged. + +"I am induced by what you said just now," said I, "to hope that you +have succeeded in your endeavour." + +"I have," he answered. "With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you who +know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have +succeeded." + +"Heaven bless him for it," said I, giving him my hand; "and heaven +bless you in all you do!" + +"I shall do it better for the wish," he answered; "it will make me +enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you." + +"Ah! Richard!" I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when you +are gone!" + +"I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss +Summerson, even if I were." + +One other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. I +knew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take if I +reserved it. + +"Mr. Woodcourt," said I, "you will be glad to know from my lips +before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright +before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or +desire." + +It was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied. + +"From my childhood I have been," said I, "the object of the untiring +goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every +tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in +the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day." + +"I share those feelings," he returned. "You speak of Mr. Jarndyce." + +"You know his virtues well," said I, "but few can know the greatness +of his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities +have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping +out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage +and respect had not been his already—which I know they are—they +would have been his, I think, on this assurance and in the feeling it +would have awakened in you towards him for my sake." + +He fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I gave +him my hand again. + +"Good night," I said, "Good-bye." + +"The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this +theme between us for ever." + +"Yes." + +"Good night; good-bye." + +He left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His +love, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon +me that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again +and the street was blotted out by my rushing tears. + +But they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me +the beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear to +him as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the +triumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died +away. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be +animated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy +my path, how much easier than his! + +CHAPTER LXII + +Another Discovery + +I had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even the +courage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a little +reproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed in the +dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of any light +to read my guardian's letter by, for I knew it by heart. I took it +from the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents by its own +clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep with it on my +pillow. + +I was up very early in the morning and called Charley to come for a +walk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and +arranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early that I +had a good time still for Charley's lesson before breakfast; Charley +(who was not in the least improved in the old defective article of +grammar) came through it with great applause; and we were altogether +very notable. When my guardian appeared he said, "Why, little woman, +you look fresher than your flowers!" And Mrs. Woodcourt repeated and +translated a passage from the Mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my +being like a mountain with the sun upon it. + +This was all so pleasant that I hope it made me still more like the +mountain than I had been before. After breakfast I waited my +opportunity and peeped about a little until I saw my guardian in his +own room—the room of last night—by himself. Then I made an excuse +to go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after me. + +"Well, Dame Durden?" said my guardian; the post had brought him +several letters, and he was writing. "You want money?" + +"No, indeed, I have plenty in hand." + +"There never was such a Dame Durden," said my guardian, "for making +money last." + +He had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at me. +I have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had never +seen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness upon it +which made me think, "He has been doing some great kindness this +morning." + +"There never was," said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me, +"such a Dame Durden for making money last." + +He had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it and him so much +that when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which was +always put at his side—for sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I +talked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him—I hardly liked +to disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But I found I did not +disturb it at all. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "I want to speak to you. Have I been remiss +in anything?" + +"Remiss in anything, my dear!" + +"Have I not been what I have meant to be since—I brought the answer +to your letter, guardian?" + +"You have been everything I could desire, my love." + +"I am very glad indeed to hear that," I returned. "You know, you said +to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said, yes." + +"Yes," said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm about +me as if there were something to protect me from and looked in my +face, smiling. + +"Since then," said I, "we have never spoken on the subject except +once." + +"And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my +dear." + +"And I said," I timidly reminded him, "but its mistress remained." + +He still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same +bright goodness in his face. + +"Dear guardian," said I, "I know how you have felt all that has +happened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has +passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again, +perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so. +I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please." + +"See," he returned gaily, "what a sympathy there must be between us! +I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted—it's a large +exception—in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When shall +we give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?" + +"When you please." + +"Next month?" + +"Next month, dear guardian." + +"The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life—the +day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than +any other man in the world—the day on which I give Bleak House its +little mistress—shall be next month then," said my guardian. + +I put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as I had done on the +day when I brought my answer. + +A servant came to the door to announce Mr. Bucket, which was quite +unnecessary, for Mr. Bucket was already looking in over the servant's +shoulder. "Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson," said he, rather out of +breath, "with all apologies for intruding, WILL you allow me to order +up a person that's on the stairs and that objects to being left there +in case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? Thank +you. Be so good as chair that there member in this direction, will +you?" said Mr. Bucket, beckoning over the banisters. + +This singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap, +unable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers and +deposited in the room near the door. Mr. Bucket immediately got rid +of the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it. + +"Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce," he then began, putting down his hat and +opening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered finger, +"you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise +knows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line +principally, and he's what you may call a dealer in bills. That's +about what YOU are, you know, ain't you?" said Mr. Bucket, stopping a +little to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly +suspicious of him. + +He seemed about to dispute this designation of himself when he was +seized with a violent fit of coughing. + +"Now, moral, you know!" said Mr. Bucket, improving the accident. +"Don't you contradict when there ain't no occasion, and you won't be +took in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I've +been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester +Dedlock, Baronet, and one way and another I've been in and out and +about his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly +occupied by Krook, marine store dealer—a relation of this +gentleman's that you saw in his lifetime if I don't mistake?" + +My guardian replied, "Yes." + +"Well! You are to understand," said Mr. Bucket, "that this gentleman +he come into Krook's property, and a good deal of magpie property +there was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord bless you, +of no use to nobody!" + +The cunning of Mr. Bucket's eye and the masterly manner in which he +contrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful +auditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case +according to previous agreement and could say much more of Mr. +Smallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in +quite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr. +Smallweed's being deaf as well as suspicious and watching his face +with the closest attention. + +"Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes +into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said +Mr. Bucket. + +"To which? Say that again," cried Mr. Smallweed in a shrill, sharp +voice. + +"To rummage," repeated Mr. Bucket. "Being a prudent man and +accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage +among the papers as you have come into; don't you?" + +"Of course I do," cried Mr. Smallweed. + +"Of course you do," said Mr. Bucket conversationally, "and much to +blame you would be if you didn't. And so you chance to find, you +know," Mr. Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of cheerful +raillery which Mr. Smallweed by no means reciprocated, "and so you +chance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of Jarndyce to +it. Don't you?" + +Mr. Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us and grudgingly nodded +assent. + +"And coming to look at that paper at your full leisure and +convenience—all in good time, for you're not curious to read it, and +why should you be?—what do you find it to be but a will, you see. +That's the drollery of it," said Mr. Bucket with the same lively air +of recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr. Smallweed, who still had +the same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; "what do +you find it to be but a will?" + +"I don't know that it's good as a will or as anything else," snarled +Mr. Smallweed. + +Mr. Bucket eyed the old man for a moment—he had slipped and shrunk +down in his chair into a mere bundle—as if he were much disposed to +pounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the +same agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us. + +"Notwithstanding which," said Mr. Bucket, "you get a little doubtful +and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of +your own." + +"Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?" asked Mr. Smallweed with +his hand to his ear. + +"A very tender mind." + +"Ho! Well, go on," said Mr. Smallweed. + +"And as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated +Chancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card +Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books, +and papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, and +always a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think—and you +never was more correct in your born days—‘Ecod, if I don't look +about me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.'" + +"Now, mind how you put it, Bucket," cried the old man anxiously with +his hand at his ear. "Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick +me up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken to bits!" + +Mr. Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon as +he could be heard through Mr. Smallweed's coughing and his vicious +ejaculations of "Oh, my bones! Oh, dear! I've no breath in my body! +I'm worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!" +Mr. Bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as before. + +"So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, +you take me into your confidence, don't you?" + +I think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill +will and a worse grace than Mr. Smallweed displayed when he admitted +this, rendering it perfectly evident that Mr. Bucket was the very +last person he would have thought of taking into his confidence if he +could by any possibility have kept him out of it. + +"And I go into the business with you—very pleasant we are over it; +and I confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get +yourself into a most precious line if you don't come out with that +there will," said Mr. Bucket emphatically; "and accordingly you +arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr. +Jarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you +trusting yourself to him for your reward; that's about where it is, +ain't it?" + +"That's what was agreed," Mr. Smallweed assented with the same bad +grace. + +"In consequence of which," said Mr. Bucket, dismissing his agreeable +manner all at once and becoming strictly business-like, "you've got +that will upon your person at the present time, and the only thing +that remains for you to do is just to out with it!" + +Having given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and +having given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, Mr. +Bucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend and +his hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my +guardian. It was not produced without much reluctance and many +declarations on the part of Mr. Smallweed that he was a poor +industrious man and that he left it to Mr. Jarndyce's honour not to +let him lose by his honesty. Little by little he very slowly took +from a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much +singed upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had +long ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off again. Mr. +Bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of +a conjuror, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce. As he gave it to my +guardian, he whispered behind his fingers, "Hadn't settled how to +make their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out +twenty pound upon it. First the avaricious grandchildren split upon +him on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably +long, and then they split on one another. Lord! There ain't one of +the family that wouldn't sell the other for a pound or two, except +the old lady—and she's only out of it because she's too weak in her +mind to drive a bargain." + +"Mr Bucket," said my guardian aloud, "whatever the worth of this +paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it +be of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed remunerated +accordingly." + +"Not according to your merits, you know," said Mr. Bucket in friendly +explanation to Mr. Smallweed. "Don't you be afraid of that. According +to its value." + +"That is what I mean," said my guardian. "You may observe, Mr. +Bucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain +truth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many +years, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will +immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the +cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all +other parties interested." + +"Mr. Jarndyce can't say fairer than that, you understand," observed +Mr. Bucket to his fellow-visitor. "And it being now made clear to you +that nobody's a-going to be wronged—which must be a great relief to +YOUR mind—we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home +again." + +He unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning, +and with a look full of meaning and a crook of his finger at parting +went his way. + +We went our way too, which was to Lincoln's Inn, as quickly as +possible. Mr. Kenge was disengaged, and we found him at his table in +his dusty room with the inexpressive-looking books and the piles of +papers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr. Guppy, Mr. Kenge +expressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight +of Mr. Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his double eye-glass as +he spoke and was more Conversation Kenge than ever. + +"I hope," said Mr. Kenge, "that the genial influence of Miss +Summerson," he bowed to me, "may have induced Mr. Jarndyce," he bowed +to him, "to forego some little of his animosity towards a cause and +towards a court which are—shall I say, which take their place in the +stately vista of the pillars of our profession?" + +"I am inclined to think," returned my guardian, "that Miss Summerson +has seen too much of the effects of the court and the cause to exert +any influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they are a part of the +occasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I lay this paper on your +desk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my +hands." + +He did so shortly and distinctly. + +"It could not, sir," said Mr. Kenge, "have been stated more plainly +and to the purpose if it had been a case at law." + +"Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the +purpose?" said my guardian. + +"Oh, fie!" said Mr. Kenge. + +At first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper, +but when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had +opened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became +amazed. "Mr. Jarndyce," he said, looking off it, "you have perused +this?" + +"Not I!" returned my guardian. + +"But, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, "it is a will of later date than +any in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's handwriting. +It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be +cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks +of fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!" + +"Well!" said my guardian. "What is that to me?" + +"Mr. Guppy!" cried Mr. Kenge, raising his voice. "I beg your pardon, +Mr. Jarndyce." + +"Sir." + +"Mr. Vholes of Symond's Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. +Glad to speak with him." + +Mr. Guppy disappeared. + +"You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused +this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest +considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still +leaving it a very handsome one," said Mr. Kenge, waving his hand +persuasively and blandly. "You would further have seen that the +interests of Mr. Richard Carstone and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs. +Richard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it." + +"Kenge," said my guardian, "if all the flourishing wealth that the +suit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two +young cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask ME to +believe that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?" + +"Oh, really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is +a very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a +very great system, a very great system. Really, really!" + +My guardian said no more, and Mr. Vholes arrived. He was modestly +impressed by Mr. Kenge's professional eminence. + +"How do you do, Mr. Vholes? Will you be so good as to take a chair +here by me and look over this paper?" + +Mr. Vholes did as he was asked and seemed to read it every word. He +was not excited by it, but he was not excited by anything. When he +had well examined it, he retired with Mr. Kenge into a window, and +shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length. +I was not surprised to observe Mr. Kenge inclined to dispute what +he said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever +did agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed +to get the better of Mr. Kenge too in a conversation that sounded +as if it were almost composed of the words "Receiver-General," +"Accountant-General," "report," "estate," and "costs." When they had +finished, they came back to Mr. Kenge's table and spoke aloud. + +"Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes," said Mr. +Kenge. + +Mr. Vholes said, "Very much so." + +"And a very important document, Mr. Vholes," said Mr. Kenge. + +Again Mr. Vholes said, "Very much so." + +"And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next +term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in +it," said Mr. Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian. + +Mr. Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep +respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an +authority. + +"And when," asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr. +Kenge had rattled his money and Mr. Vholes had picked his pimples, +"when is next term?" + +"Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month," said Mr. Kenge. "Of +course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this +document and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of +course you will receive our usual notification of the cause being in +the paper." + +"To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention." + +"Still bent, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the +outer office to the door, "still bent, even with your enlarged mind, +on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr. +Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr. +Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr. +Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? +Now, really, really!" + +He said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it +were a silver trowel with which to spread the cement of his words on +the structure of the system and consolidate it for a thousand ages. + +CHAPTER LXIII + +Steel and Iron + +George's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and +George himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his +rides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain +hand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George so +occupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther north +to look about him. + +As he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green +woods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and +ashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching +fires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the +features of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper, +looking about him and always looking for something he has come to +find. + +At last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of +iron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the +trooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse and +asks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts. + +"Why, master," quoth the workman, "do I know my own name?" + +"'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?" asks the trooper. + +"Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right." + +"And where might it be now?" asks the trooper with a glance before +him. + +"The bank, the factory, or the house?" the workman wants to know. + +"Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently," mutters the trooper, +stroking his chin, "that I have as good as half a mind to go back +again. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell +at the factory, do you think?" + +"Tain't easy to say where you'd find him—at this time of the day you +might find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his +contracts take him away." + +And which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys—the tallest +ones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on those +chimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll +see 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall +which forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's. + +The trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about +him. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much +disposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of +Rouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of +Rouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to +be invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are +Rouncewell's hands—a little sooty too. + +He comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great +perplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety +of shapes—in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in +axles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched +into eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery; +mountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of +it glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it +showering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron, +white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a +Babel of iron sounds. + +"This is a place to make a man's head ache too!" says the trooper, +looking about him for a counting-house. "Who comes here? This is very +like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if +likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir." + +"Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?" + +"Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him." + +The young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, +for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to +be found. "Very like me before I was set up—devilish like me!" +thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard +with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the +office, Mr. George turns very red. + +"What name shall I say to my father?" asks the young man. + +George, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers "Steel," and +is so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office, +who sits at a table with account-books before him and some sheets of +paper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes. +It is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view +below. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron, +purposely broken to be tested at various periods of their service, in +various capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke +is seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys +to mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys. + +"I am at your service, Mr. Steel," says the gentleman when his +visitor has taken a rusty chair. + +"Well, Mr. Rouncewell," George replies, leaning forward with his left +arm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of meeting +his brother's eye, "I am not without my expectations that in the +present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served +as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I was once rather +partial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours. I +believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran +away, and never did any good but in keeping away?" + +"Are you quite sure," returns the ironmaster in an altered voice, +"that your name is Steel?" + +The trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls +him by his name, and grasps him by both hands. + +"You are too quick for me!" cries the trooper with the tears +springing out of his eyes. "How do you do, my dear old fellow? I +never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me +as all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!" + +They shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the +trooper still coupling his "How do you do, my dear old fellow!" with +his protestation that he never thought his brother would have been +half so glad to see him as all this! + +"So far from it," he declares at the end of a full account of what +has preceded his arrival there, "I had very little idea of making +myself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my +name I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a +letter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had +considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me." + +"We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George," +returns his brother. "This is a great day at home, and you could not +have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an +agreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he +shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your +travels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your nieces for a +little polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event, +and you will be made the hero of it." + +Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that he +resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being overborne, +however, by his brother and his nephew—concerning whom he renews his +protestations that he never could have thought they would have been +half so glad to see him—he is taken home to an elegant house in all +the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture +of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as +are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their +children. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and +accomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of Rosa, his +niece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these +young ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely +taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a +woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there +is great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment, +and Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge +to be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received +with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when +he lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all +these things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the +evening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, +over his counterpane. + +The brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room, +where the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show how +he thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when George +squeezes his hand and stops him. + +"Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly +welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than +brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as +to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How," says the +trooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable firmness at +his brother, "how is my mother to be got to scratch me?" + +"I am not sure that I understand you, George," replies the +ironmaster. + +"I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She must +be got to do it somehow." + +"Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?" + +"Of course I do. In short," says the trooper, folding his arms more +resolutely yet, "I mean—TO—scratch me!" + +"My dear George," returns his brother, "is it so indispensable that +you should undergo that process?" + +"Quite! Absolutely! I couldn't be guilty of the meanness of coming +back without it. I should never be safe not to be off again. I have +not sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of +your rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! If I am to remain and +hold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. You are a man of +celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it's +to be brought about." + +"I can tell you, George," replies the ironmaster deliberately, "how +it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose as +well. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she +recovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the world +that would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son? +Do you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against +the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it? +If you do, you are wrong. No, George! You must make up your mind to +remain UNscratched, I think." There is an amused smile on the +ironmaster's face as he watches his brother, who is pondering, deeply +disappointed. "I think you may manage almost as well as if the thing +were done, though." + +"How, brother?" + +"Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the +misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know." + +"That's true!" says the trooper, pondering again. Then he wistfully +asks, with his hand on his brother's, "Would you mind mentioning +that, brother, to your wife and family?" + +"Not at all." + +"Thank you. You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an +undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and +not of the mean sort?" + +The ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents. + +"Thank you. Thank you. It's a weight off my mind," says the trooper +with a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a hand on +each leg, "though I had set my heart on being scratched, too!" + +The brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a +certain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the +world is all on the trooper's side. + +"Well," he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, "next and last, +those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me +to fall in here and take my place among the products of your +perseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It's more than +brotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it," +shaking him a long time by the hand. "But the truth is, brother, I am +a—I am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular +garden." + +"My dear George," returns the elder, concentrating his strong steady +brow upon him and smiling confidently, "leave that to me, and let me +try." + +George shakes his head. "You could do it, I have not a doubt, if +anybody could; but it's not to be done. Not to be done, sir! Whereas +it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of some +trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness—brought on +by family sorrows—and that he would rather have that help from our +mother's son than from anybody else." + +"Well, my dear George," returns the other with a very slight shade +upon his open face, "if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester +Dedlock's household brigade—" + +"There it is, brother," cries the trooper, checking him, with his +hand upon his knee again; "there it is! You don't take kindly to that +idea; I don't mind it. You are not used to being officered; I am. +Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything +about me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed to carry +things with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same point. I +don't say much about my garrison manners because I found myself +pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be noticed here, +I dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold, +where there's more room for a weed than there is here; and the dear +old lady will be made happy besides. Therefore I accept of Sir +Leicester Dedlock's proposals. When I come over next year to give +away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have the sense to keep +the household brigade in ambuscade and not to manoeuvre it on your +ground. I thank you heartily again and am proud to think of the +Rouncewells as they'll be founded by you." + +"You know yourself, George," says the elder brother, returning the +grip of his hand, "and perhaps you know me better than I know myself. +Take your way. So that we don't quite lose one another again, take +your way." + +"No fear of that!" returns the trooper. "Now, before I turn my +horse's head homewards, brother, I will ask you—if you'll be so +good—to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send from +these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now to the +person it's written to. I am not much accustomed to correspondence +myself, and I am particular respecting this present letter because I +want it to be both straightforward and delicate." + +Herewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink but +in a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows: + + Miss Esther Summerson, + + A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket + of a letter to myself being found among the papers of a + certain person, I take the liberty to make known to you + that it was but a few lines of instruction from abroad, + when, where, and how to deliver an enclosed letter to a + young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in England. I + duly observed the same. + + I further take the liberty to make known to you that it + was got from me as a proof of handwriting only and that + otherwise I would not have given it up, as appearing to + be the most harmless in my possession, without being + previously shot through the heart. + + I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have + supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in + existence, I never could and never would have rested until + I had discovered his retreat and shared my last farthing + with him, as my duty and my inclination would have equally + been. But he was (officially) reported drowned, and + assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night + in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival from + the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers + and men on board, and know to have been (officially) + confirmed. + + I further take the liberty to state that in my humble + quality as one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever + continue to be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring + servant and that I esteem the qualities you possess above + all others far beyond the limits of the present dispatch. + + I have the honour to be, + + GEORGE + +"A little formal," observes the elder brother, refolding it with a +puzzled face. + +"But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?" asks +the younger. + +"Nothing at all." + +Therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron +correspondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty +farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His +brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to +ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will +bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a +servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old +grey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is followed +by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all +in brotherly communion. Then they once more shake hands long and +heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and +fires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon +the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in +the avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of +accoutrements under the old elm-trees. + +CHAPTER LXIV + +Esther's Narrative + +Soon after I had that conversation with my guardian, he put a sealed +paper in my hand one morning and said, "This is for next month, my +dear." I found in it two hundred pounds. + +I now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought were +necessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, which I +knew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please him and +hoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so quietly because +I was not quite free from my old apprehension that Ada would be +rather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet himself. I had no +doubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the +most private and simple manner. Perhaps I should only have to say to +Ada, "Would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?" +Perhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and I +might not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was +over. I thought that if I were to choose, I would like this best. + +The only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I was +going to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged some +time. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me and was +remarkably softened now in comparison with what she had been when we +first knew her. There was no trouble she would not have taken to have +been of use to me, but I need hardly say that I only allowed her to +take as little as gratified her kindness without tasking it. + +Of course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course +it was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of +occupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was +absolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with +great heaps of it—baskets full and tables full—and do a little, and +spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what +there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it, +were Charley's great dignities and delights. + +Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the +subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and +Jarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did +encourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a +burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time, +but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to +retain only its feverish anxieties. From something my guardian said +one day when we were talking about this, I understood that my +marriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been +told to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how +rejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were +a little more prosperous. + +The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town +and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He had told +me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just +come in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of +all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when +a letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him +in the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken +and at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added +in a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada. + +I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was +ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next +morning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be +wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this +purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was +never, never, never near the truth. + +It was night when I came to my journey's end and found my guardian +waiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had +begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that +he might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible to +be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I +said to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness. Not that +it required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his +being there at all was an act of kindness. + +Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he +said, "Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have +brought you here?" + +"Well, guardian," said I, "without thinking myself a Fatima or you a +Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it." + +"Then to ensure your night's rest, my love," he returned gaily, "I +won't wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to +express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor +unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his +value to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it +came into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some +unpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I +therefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place +was found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up for him +and making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day +before yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I was not +housekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to +be. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly +be got to come and give me her advice and opinion. And here she is," +said my guardian, "laughing and crying both together!" + +Because he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him +what I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word. + +"Tut, tut!" said my guardian. "You make too much of it, little woman. +Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!" + +"It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian—with a heart full of +thanks." + +"Well, well," said he. "I am delighted that you approve. I thought +you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress +of Bleak House." + +I kissed him and dried my eyes. "I know now!" said I. "I have seen +this in your face a long while." + +"No; have you really, my dear?" said he. "What a Dame Durden it is to +read a face!" + +He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and +was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to +bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was +with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I +repeated every word of the letter twice over. + +A most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we +went out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my mighty +housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side +wall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw was that the +beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds +and flowers at home. + +"You see, my dear," observed my guardian, standing still with a +delighted face to watch my looks, "knowing there could be no better +plan, I borrowed yours." + +We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were +nestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees +were sporting on the grass, to the house itself—a cottage, quite a +rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil +and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around +it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung +with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest +point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where +cricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was +flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And +still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic +verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded +with woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the papering on +the walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all +the pretty objects, MY little tastes and fancies, MY little methods +and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, +my odd ways everywhere. + +I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, +but one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, oh, +would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his +peace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because +although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, +and it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. I +did not wish him to forget me—perhaps he might not have done so, +without these aids to his memory—but my way was easier than his, and +I could have reconciled myself even to that so that he had been the +happier for it. + +"And now, little woman," said my guardian, whom I had never seen so +proud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my +appreciation of them, "now, last of all, for the name of this house." + +"What is it called, dear guardian?" + +"My child," said he, "come and see," + +He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said, +pausing before we went out, "My dear child, don't you guess the +name?" + +"No!" said I. + +We went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak +House. + +He led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down +beside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, "My darling +girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really +solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which +you brought the answer," smiling as he referred to it, "I had my own +too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different +circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes +dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I +need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you +brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?" + +I was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was +lost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays descended, +softly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I felt as if +the brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels. + +"Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When +it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really +make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no +doubt at all." + +I clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and +wept. "Lie lightly, confidently here, my child," said he, pressing me +gently to him. "I am your guardian and your father now. Rest +confidently here." + +Soothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially, +like the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the +sunshine, he went on. + +"Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented +and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with +whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame +Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could +never change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been +in Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until +yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not +have my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my +dear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her +admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for +the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!" + +He stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh. +For I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise. + +"Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have +looked forward to it," he said exultingly, "for months on months! A +few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to +throw away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into +a separate confidence. ‘Now, madam,' said I, ‘I clearly perceive—and +indeed I know, to boot—that your son loves my ward. I am further +very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to +a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, +so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though +you watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our +story—ours—yours and mine. ‘Now, madam,' said I, ‘come you, knowing +this, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour; +set what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'—for +I scorned to mince it—‘and tell me what is the true legitimacy when +you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour +to her old Welsh blood, my dear," cried my guardian with enthusiasm, +"I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less +admiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!" + +He tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his +old fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the +protecting manner I had thought about! + +"One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he +spoke with my knowledge and consent—but I gave him no encouragement, +not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too +miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all +that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan +Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead—stood beside +your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its +little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my +life!" + +He rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My +husband—I have called him by that name full seven happy years +now—stood at my side. + +"Allan," said my guardian, "take from me a willing gift, the best +wife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know +you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You +know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its +namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I +sacrifice? Nothing, nothing." + +He kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he +said more softly, "Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is +a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you +some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old +place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take +my dear." + +He moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in +the sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, "I +shall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman, +due west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to +my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run +away and never come back!" + +What happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope, +what gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month +was out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own +house was to depend on Richard and Ada. + +We all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in +town, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news +to him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few +minutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with my guardian +first to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his +side, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon. + +When we came home we found that a young man had called three times in +the course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the +occasion of his third call that I was not expected to return before +ten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then. +He had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy. + +As I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I +always associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out +that in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old +proposal and his subsequent retraction. "After that," said my +guardian, "we will certainly receive this hero." So instructions were +given that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they +were scarcely given when he did come again. + +He was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered +himself and said, "How de do, sir?" + +"How do you do, sir?" returned my guardian. + +"Thank you, sir, I am tolerable," returned Mr. Guppy. "Will you allow +me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my +particular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by +the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling." + +My guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down. + +"Tony," said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. "Will +you open the case?" + +"Do it yourself," returned the friend rather tartly. + +"Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir," Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration, +began, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by +nudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most +remarkable manner, "I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by +herself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But +Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has +passed between us on former occasions?" + +"Miss Summerson," returned my guardian, smiling, "has made a +communication to that effect to me." + +"That," said Mr. Guppy, "makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out +of my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with satisfaction +to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination +that's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that +he don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my +certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it." + +"Thank you, Mr. Guppy," returned my guardian. "I am quite willing—I +believe I use a legal phrase—to admit the certificate." + +Mr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket +and proceeded without it. + +"I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which +takes the form of an annuity"—here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her +head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and +put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me—"and a few +pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never +be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know," said +Mr. Guppy feelingly. + +"Certainly an advantage," returned my guardian. + +"I HAVE some connexion," pursued Mr. Guppy, "and it lays in the +direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a 'ouse +in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow +bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent), +and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith." + +Here Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling +her head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her. + +"It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens," said Mr. Guppy, "and in +the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my +friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has +known me," Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, "from +boyhood's hour." + +Mr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs. + +"My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of +clerk and will live in the 'ouse," said Mr. Guppy. "My mother will +likewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street +Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no +want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by +taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper +circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing." + +Mr. Jobling said "Certainly" and withdrew a little from the elbow of +Mr Guppy's mother. + +"Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the +confidence of Miss Summerson," said Mr. Guppy, "(mother, I wish you'd +be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was +formerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of +marriage." + +"That I have heard," returned my guardian. + +"Circumstances," pursued Mr. Guppy, "over which I had no control, but +quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. +At which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I may even +add, magnanimous." + +My guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused. + +"Now, sir," said Mr. Guppy, "I have got into that state of mind +myself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish +to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which +perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I +did suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT eradicated. Its +influence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am +willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had +any control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I +had the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in +Walcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her +acceptance." + +"Very magnanimous indeed, sir," observed my guardian. + +"Well, sir," replied Mr. Guppy with candour, "my wish is to BE +magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss +Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the +opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit +may be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks +of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at." + +"I take upon myself, sir," said my guardian, laughing as he rang the +bell, "to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is +very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good +evening, and wishes you well." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that tantamount, sir, to +acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" + +"To decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. + +Mr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who +suddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling. + +"Indeed?" said he. "Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you +represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of +the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't +wanted." + +But Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She +wouldn't hear of it. "Why, get along with you," said she to my +guardian, "what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? You +ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!" + +"My good lady," returned my guardian, "it is hardly reasonable to ask +me to get out of my own room." + +"I don't care for that," said Mrs. Guppy. "Get out with you. If we +ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good +enough. Go along and find 'em." + +I was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's +power of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest +offence. + +"Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you," repeated +Mrs. Guppy. "Get out!" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's mother +so much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out. +"Why don't you get out?" said Mrs. Guppy. "What are you stopping here +for?" + +"Mother," interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing +her back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, "WILL you +hold your tongue?" + +"No, William," she returned, "I won't! Not unless he gets out, I +won't!" + +However, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's +mother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much +against her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every +time her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should +immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and +above all things that we should get out. + +CHAPTER LXV + +Beginning the World + +The term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr. +Kenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient +hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to +go down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and +was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that +my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked +forward—a very little way now—to the help that was to come to her, +and never drooped. + +It was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come on +there, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest +myself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We left home +directly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in good time and +walked down there through the lively streets—so happily and +strangely it seemed!—together. + +As we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and +Ada, I heard somebody calling "Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!" And +there was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little +carriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so +many), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. I +had written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done, +but had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back, +and the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so +overjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers, +and was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her +hands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of +precious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for +her, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm +her down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan, +standing at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased +as either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than +that I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking +after Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as +she could see us. + +This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to +Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse +than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery +that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what +was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for +occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared to +be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to +get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional +gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in +wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them +told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and +quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about +the pavement of the Hall. + +We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us +Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it. +He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he +could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he +said, over for good. + +Over for good! + +When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another +quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set +things right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? +It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was! + +Our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd, +and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and +bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all +exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce +or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching +for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper +began to be carried out—bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got +into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, +which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, +anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. +Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing +Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person +who was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over. +Yes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing +too. + +At this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an +affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was +deferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see +us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr. Woodcourt." + +"Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me with +polished politeness. "How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is +not here?" + +No. He never came there, I reminded him. + +"Really," returned Mr. Kenge, "it is as well that he is NOT here +to-day, for his—shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his +indomitable singularity of opinion?—might have been strengthened, +perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened." + +"Pray what has been done to-day?" asked Allan. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity. + +"What has been done to-day?" + +"What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, not +much has been done; not much. We have been checked—brought up +suddenly, I would say—upon the—shall I term it threshold?" + +"Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said Allan. "Will +you tell us that?" + +"Most certainly, if I could," said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone +into that, we have not gone into that." + +"We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low +inward voice were an echo. + +"You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his +silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a +great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has +been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not +inaptly, a monument of Chancery practice." + +"And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. + +"Very well indeed, sir," returned Mr. Kenge with a certain +condescending laugh he had. "Very well! You are further to reflect, +Mr. Woodcourt," becoming dignified almost to severity, "that on the +numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of +procedure in this great cause, there has been expended study, +ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high +intellect. For many years, the—a—I would say the flower of the bar, +and the—a—I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of +the woolsack—have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the +public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of +this great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth, +sir." + +"Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. +"Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate +is found to have been absorbed in costs?" + +"Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU +say?" + +"I believe so," said Mr. Vholes. + +"And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?" + +"Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?" + +"Probably," said Mr. Vholes. + +"My dearest life," whispered Allan, "this will break Richard's +heart!" + +There was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew +Richard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual +decay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her +foreboding love sounded like a knell in my ears. + +"In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir," said Mr. Vholes, coming +after us, "you'll find him in court. I left him there resting himself +a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson." As he gave me +that slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of +his bag before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant +shadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he +gave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client, +and his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low +door at the end of the Hall. + +"My dear love," said Allan, "leave to me, for a little while, the +charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada's +by and by!" + +I would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to +Richard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished. +Hurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what +news I had returned. "Little woman," said he, quite unmoved for +himself, "to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater +blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!" + +We talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was +possible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to +Symond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my +darling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and +threw her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and +said that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him +sitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure. +On being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have +spoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth +being full of blood, and Allan had brought him home. + +He was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There +were restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as +possible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan +stood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be +quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing +me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he +looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day. + +I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he +said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss me, +my dear!" + +It was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low +state cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our +intended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My husband had +been a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both and +wished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if +my own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand +and hold it to his breast. + +We spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times +that he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his +feet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. "Yes, surely, +dearest Richard!" But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so +serene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so +near—I knew—I knew! + +It was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we +were silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for +my dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada +leaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed +often, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all, +"Where is Woodcourt?" + +Evening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian +standing in the little hall. "Who is that, Dame Durden?" Richard +asked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face +that some one was there. + +I looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded "Yes," bent over +Richard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me +in a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. "Oh, sir," said Richard, +"you are a good man, you are a good man!" and burst into tears for +the first time. + +My guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping +his hand on Richard's. + +"My dear Rick," said he, "the clouds have cleared away, and it is +bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or +less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?" + +"I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin +the world." + +"Aye, truly; well said!" cried my guardian. + +"I will not begin it in the old way now," said Richard with a sad +smile. "I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you +shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it." + +"Well, well," said my guardian, comforting him; "well, well, well, +dear boy!" + +"I was thinking, sir," resumed Richard, "that there is nothing on +earth I should so much like to see as their house—Dame Durden's and +Woodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to +recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than +anywhere." + +"Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick," said my guardian, "and our +little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very +day. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?" + +Richard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind +the head of the couch. + +"I say nothing of Ada," said Richard, "but I think of her, and have +thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending +over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, +my dear love, my poor girl!" + +He clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually +released her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and +moved her lips. + +"When I get down to Bleak House," said Richard, "I shall have much to +tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won't +you?" + +"Undoubtedly, dear Rick." + +"Thank you; like you, like you," said Richard. "But it's all like +you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you +remembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like +coming to the old Bleak House again." + +"And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, +you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come +to me, my love!" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over +her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed +within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.) + +"It was a troubled dream?" said Richard, clasping both my guardian's +hands eagerly. + +"Nothing more, Rick; nothing more." + +"And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity +the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?" + +"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?" + +"I will begin the world!" said Richard with a light in his eyes. + +My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly +lift up his hand to warn my guardian. + +"When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the +old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been +to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and +blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn +child?" said Richard. "When shall I go?" + +"Dear Rick, when you are strong enough," returned my guardian. + +"Ada, my darling!" + +He sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she +could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted. + +"I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray +shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have +scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my +Ada, before I begin the world?" + +A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid +his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, +and with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not +this! The world that sets this right. + +When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came +weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty. + +CHAPTER LXVI + +Down in Lincolnshire + +There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is +upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir +Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; +but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any +brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for +certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the +park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at +night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be +laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all +mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the +peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once +occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large +fans—like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing +all their other beaux—did once occasionally say, when the world +assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, +entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her +company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have +never been known to object. + +Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road +among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of +horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester—invalided, bent, and +almost blind, but of worthy presence yet—riding with a stalwart man +beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain +spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse +stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is +still for a few moments before they ride away. + +War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain +intervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady +fire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to +Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to +abandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which +Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or +misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently +aggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of +committing a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. +Similarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the +disputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth +vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home; +similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by +testifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is +whispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is +really most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of +being implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little +does he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered +in the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now, +is not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the +satisfaction of both. + +In one of the lodges of the park—that lodge within sight of the +house where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in +Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child—the stalwart +man, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling +hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a +little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy +little man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of +stirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way +of a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction. +A shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some +mongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to +the name of Phil. + +A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of +hearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to +observe—which few do, for the house is scant of company in these +times—the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards +them. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey +cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are +seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found +gambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and +when the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening +air from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the +lodge on the inspiring topic of the "British Grenadiers"; and as the +evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while +two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the +old girl. Discipline must be maintained." + +The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no +longer; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long +drawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my +Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined +only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually +contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more, +in truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the +damp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so +obdurate, will have opened and received him. + +Volumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her +face, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the +long evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her +yawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of +the pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on +the Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and +Boodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle +and no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be +one of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her +reading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not +appear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes +broad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously +repeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she +finds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her +bird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a +memorandum concerning herself in the event of "anything happening" to +her kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course +of reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay. + +The cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness, +but take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard +in the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at +the old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of +cousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness +of the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under +penitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that +such fernal old jail's—nough t'sew fler up—frever. + +The only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the +place in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated, +when something is to be done for the county or the country in the way +of gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come +out in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the +exhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during +three hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year, +is a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables +upside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her +condescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as +in the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of +teeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she +twirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes +of the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with +sandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and +unassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular +kind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of +another age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre +stems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no +drops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have +both departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem +Volumnias. + +For the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of +overgrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their +hands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the +window-panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less +the property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly +likenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which +start out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding +through the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in +which to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a +stealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few +people care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops +from the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the +victim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and +departs. + +Thus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and +vacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry +lowering; so sombre and motionless always—no flag flying now by day, +no rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go, +no visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of +life about it—passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have +died away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull +repose. + +CHAPTER LXVII + +The Close of Esther's Narrative + +Full seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The +few words that I have to add to what I have written are soon penned; +then I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. Not +without much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope, +on his or hers. + +They gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never +left her. The little child who was to have done so much was born +before the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and +I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name. + +The help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in +the eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore +his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power +was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand +and how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope +within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of +God. + +They throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country +garden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married +then. I was the happiest of the happy. + +It was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she +would come home. + +"Both houses are your home, my dear," said he, "but the older Bleak +House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do +it, come and take possession of your home." + +Ada called him "her dearest cousin, John." But he said, no, it must +be guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and +he had an old association with the name. So she called him guardian, +and has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no +other name. I say the children; I have two little daughters. + +It is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at +all grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so +it is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the +morning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go +round. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond +of her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to +do and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I +might suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill +did half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly +what Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really +afraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was +decimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a +good bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being +ashamed of it. + +Caddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer +creature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with +the children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life. +Caddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and +lives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works +very hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do +very little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has +to do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new +house with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one. +I have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great +mortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but +I hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in +Borrioboola-Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the +king of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody—who survived the +climate—for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to +sit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more +correspondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy's poor +little girl. She is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I +believe there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in +her scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to +soften the affliction of her child. + +As if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of +Peepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and doing +extremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits +his deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is +still believed in in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of +Peepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French +clock in his dressing-room—which is not his property. + +With the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house +by throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we +inaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see +us. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in +drawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have their +way. + +I never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a +good man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me +he is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is +my husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling, +he is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel +towards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him +and so easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never +lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is +with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side, +Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman—all just the same as ever; and +I answer, "Yes, dear guardian!" just the same. + +I have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment +since the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I +remarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and +he said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that +very day. + +I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that +has been in her face—for it is not there now—seems to have purified +even its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality. +Sometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that +she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel—it is difficult to +express—as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear +Esther in her prayers. + +I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am +one. + +We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we +have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the +people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear +his praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night +but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and +soothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from +the beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often +gone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. Is not this +to be rich? + +The people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even like +me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I +owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I +do everything I do in life for his sake. + +A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and +my guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was +sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch, +when Allan came home. So he said, "My precious little woman, what are +you doing here?" And I said, "The moon is shining so brightly, Allan, +and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here +thinking." + +"What have you been thinking about, my dear?" said Allan then. + +"How curious you are!" said I. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, but +I will. I have been thinking about my old looks—such as they were." + +"And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?" said +Allan. + +"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD +have loved me any better, even if I had retained them." + +"‘Such as they were'?" said Allan, laughing. + +"Such as they were, of course." + +"My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do +you ever look in the glass?" + +"You know I do; you see me do it." + +"And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?" + +I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know +that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is +very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my +guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was +seen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me—even +supposing—. + + diff --git a/src/mobydick.txt b/src/mobydick.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4357379 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mobydick.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21116 @@ +CHAPTER 1. Loomings. + +Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having +little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me +on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part +of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and +regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about +the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever +I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and +bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever +my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral +principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and +methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to +get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. +With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I +quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they +but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, +cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. + +There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by +wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her +surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme +downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and +cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of +land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. + +Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears +Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What +do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand +thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some +leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some +looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the +rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these +are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to +counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are +the green fields gone? What do they here? + +But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and +seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the +extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder +warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water +as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of +them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets +and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell +me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all +those ships attract them thither? + +Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take +almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a +dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in +it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest +reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will +infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. +Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this +experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical +professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for +ever. + +But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, +quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley +of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his +trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were +within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up +from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands +winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in +their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and +though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this +shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were +fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, +when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among +Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop +of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel +your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon +suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy +him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian +trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a +robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? +Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a +mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out +of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did +the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely +all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that +story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild +image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that +same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image +of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. + +Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin +to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my +lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a +passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a +purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers +get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not enjoy +themselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger; +nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a +Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction +of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all +honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind +whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, +without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. +And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory +in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I +never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously +buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who +will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled +fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old +Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the +mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids. + +No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, +plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. +True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to +spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of +thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor, +particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the +Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if +just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been +lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in +awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a +schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and +the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off +in time. + +What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom +and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, +I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel +Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and +respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t +a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may +order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the +satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is +one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or +metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is +passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, +and be content. + +Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of +paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single +penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must +pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and +being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable +infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being +paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man +receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly +believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no +account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign +ourselves to perdition! + +Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome +exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, +head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if +you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the +Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from +the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not +so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many +other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But +wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a +merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling +voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the +constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in +some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And, +doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand +programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in +as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive +performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run +something like this: + +“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._ +“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. “BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.” + +Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the +Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when +others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short +and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I +cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the +circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives +which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced +me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the +delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill +and discriminating judgment. + +Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale +himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my +curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island +bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all +the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, +helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things +would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an +everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and +land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to +perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let +me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of +the place one lodges in. + +By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the +great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild +conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into +my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them +all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. + + +CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag. + +I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my +arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city +of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night +in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little +packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching +that place would offer, till the following Monday. + +As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at +this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well +be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was +made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a +fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous +old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has +of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though +in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket +was her great original—the Tyre of this Carthage;—the place where the +first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket +did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes +to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did +that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with +imported cobblestones—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in +order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the +bowsprit? + +Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me +in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a +matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a +very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold +and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had +sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So, +wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of +a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the +north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you +may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to +inquire the price, and don’t be too particular. + +With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The +Crossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further +on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came +such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and +ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay +ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary for me, +when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from +hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most +miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one +moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of +the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t +you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are +stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets +that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not +the cheeriest inns. + +Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, +and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At +this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of +the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light +proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood +invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the +uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble +over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying +particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, +Gomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then +must needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and +hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior +door. + +It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black +faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of +Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the +preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping +and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing +out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’ + +Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the +docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a +swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly +representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words +underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.” + +Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought +I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this +Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and +the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated +little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here +from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a +poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very +spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. + +It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied +as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, +where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than +ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, +is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the +hob quietly toasting for bed. “In judging of that tempestuous wind +called Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the +only copy extant—“it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou +lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the +outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where +the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only +glazier.” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my +mind—old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are +windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t +stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint +here and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The +universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted +off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth +against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with +his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a +corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the +tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken +wrapper—(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty +night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their +oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the +privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. + +But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up +to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra +than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the +line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in +order to keep out this frost? + +Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the +door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be +moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a +Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a +temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans. + +But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there +is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted +feet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be. + + +CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn. + +Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, +low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of +the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large +oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the +unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent +study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of +the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its +purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first +you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New +England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint +of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and +especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the +entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however +wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. + +But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, +portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the +picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a +nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive +a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, +half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to +it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what +that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, +deceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight +gale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a +blasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up of +the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to +that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. _That_ once found +out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint +resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself? + +In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own, +partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with +whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner +in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its +three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, +purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of +impaling himself upon the three mast-heads. + +The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish +array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with +glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots +of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping +round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed +mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal +and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, +horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances +and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With +this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan +Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that +harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—was flung in Javan seas, and run away +with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The +original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle +sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last +was found imbedded in the hump. + +Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way—cut +through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with +fireplaces all round—you enter the public room. A still duskier place +is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled +planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft’s +cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored +old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like +table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities +gathered from this wide world’s remotest nooks. Projecting from the +further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den—the bar—a rude +attempt at a right whale’s head. Be that how it may, there stands the +vast arched bone of the whale’s jaw, so wide, a coach might almost +drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old +decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, +like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), +bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells +the sailors deliriums and death. + +Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true +cylinders without—within, the villanous green goggling glasses +deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians +rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads’ goblets. Fill to +_this_ mark, and your charge is but a penny; to _this_ a penny more; +and so on to the full glass—the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp +down for a shilling. + +Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about +a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of _skrimshander_. I +sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with +a room, received for answer that his house was full—not a bed +unoccupied. “But avast,” he added, tapping his forehead, “you haint no +objections to sharing a harpooneer’s blanket, have ye? I s’pose you are +goin’ a-whalin’, so you’d better get used to that sort of thing.” + +I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should +ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that +if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the +harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander +further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with +the half of any decent man’s blanket. + +“I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?—you want supper? +Supper’ll be ready directly.” + +I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the +Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with +his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space +between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but +he didn’t make much headway, I thought. + +At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an +adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland—no fire at all—the landlord said +he couldn’t afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each in a +winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and hold +to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But the +fare was of the most substantial kind—not only meat and potatoes, but +dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in a +green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful +manner. + +“My boy,” said the landlord, “you’ll have the nightmare to a dead +sartainty.” + +“Landlord,” I whispered, “that aint the harpooneer is it?” + +“Oh, no,” said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, “the +harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he +don’t—he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes ’em rare.” + +“The devil he does,” says I. “Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?” + +“He’ll be here afore long,” was the answer. + +I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this “dark +complexioned” harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so +turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into +bed before I did. + +Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not +what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the +evening as a looker on. + +Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord +cried, “That’s the Grampus’s crew. I seed her reported in the offing +this morning; a three years’ voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now +we’ll have the latest news from the Feegees.” + +A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung +open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their +shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, +all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they +seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from +their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, +that they made a straight wake for the whale’s mouth—the bar—when the +wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out +brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon +which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he +swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never +mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, +or on the weather side of an ice-island. + +The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even +with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began +capering about most obstreperously. + +I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though +he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his +own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much +noise as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the +sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though +but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I +will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six +feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I +have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and +burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the +deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem +to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a +Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of +those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When +the revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man +slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my +comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his +shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with +them, they raised a cry of “Bulkington! Bulkington! where’s +Bulkington?” and darted out of the house in pursuit of him. + +It was now about nine o’clock, and the room seeming almost +supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself +upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the +entrance of the seamen. + +No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal +rather not sleep with your own brother. I don’t know how it is, but +people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to +sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, +and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely +multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should +sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep +two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all +sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and +cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. + +The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the +thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a +harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of +the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. +Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home +and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at +midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming? + +“Landlord! I’ve changed my mind about that harpooneer.—I shan’t sleep +with him. I’ll try the bench here.” + +“Just as you please; I’m sorry I can’t spare ye a tablecloth for a +mattress, and it’s a plaguy rough board here”—feeling of the knots and +notches. “But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I’ve got a carpenter’s plane +there in the bar—wait, I say, and I’ll make ye snug enough.” So saying +he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting +the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning +like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the +plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was +near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit—the +bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing +in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the +shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in +the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a +brown study. + +I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too +short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too +narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher +than the planed one—so there was no yoking them. I then placed the +first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, +leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I +soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from +under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, +especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from +the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in +the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the +night. + +The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn’t I steal +a march on him—bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be +wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon +second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next +morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be +standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down! + +Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of +spending a sufferable night unless in some other person’s bed, I began +to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices +against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I’ll wait awhile; he must be +dropping in before long. I’ll have a good look at him then, and perhaps +we may become jolly good bedfellows after all—there’s no telling. + +But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, +and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. + +“Landlord!” said I, “what sort of a chap is he—does he always keep such +late hours?” It was now hard upon twelve o’clock. + +The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be +mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. “No,” he +answered, “generally he’s an early bird—airley to bed and airley to +rise—yes, he’s the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out +a peddling, you see, and I don’t see what on airth keeps him so late, +unless, may be, he can’t sell his head.” + +“Can’t sell his head?—What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are +telling me?” getting into a towering rage. “Do you pretend to say, +landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed +Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around +this town?” + +“That’s precisely it,” said the landlord, “and I told him he couldn’t +sell it here, the market’s overstocked.” + +“With what?” shouted I. + +“With heads to be sure; ain’t there too many heads in the world?” + +“I tell you what it is, landlord,” said I quite calmly, “you’d better +stop spinning that yarn to me—I’m not green.” + +“May be not,” taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, “but I +rayther guess you’ll be done _brown_ if that ere harpooneer hears you a +slanderin’ his head.” + +“I’ll break it for him,” said I, now flying into a passion again at +this unaccountable farrago of the landlord’s. + +“It’s broke a’ready,” said he. + +“Broke,” said I—“_broke_, do you mean?” + +“Sartain, and that’s the very reason he can’t sell it, I guess.” + +“Landlord,” said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a +snow-storm—“landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one +another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a +bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half +belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have +not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and +exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling +towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow—a sort of connexion, +landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest +degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this +harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the +night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay +that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good +evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I’ve no idea of +sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, _you_ I mean, landlord, _you_, +sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render +yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.” + +“Wall,” said the landlord, fetching a long breath, “that’s a purty long +sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be +easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived +from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of ’balmed New Zealand +heads (great curios, you know), and he’s sold all on ’em but one, and +that one he’s trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it +would not do to be sellin’ human heads about the streets when folks is +goin’ to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as +he was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for +all the airth like a string of inions.” + +This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed +that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me—but at the +same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a +Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal +business as selling the heads of dead idolators? + +“Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.” + +“He pays reg’lar,” was the rejoinder. “But come, it’s getting dreadful +late, you had better be turning flukes—it’s a nice bed; Sal and me +slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There’s plenty of room +for two to kick about in that bed; it’s an almighty big bed that. Why, +afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the +foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and +somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. +Arter that, Sal said it wouldn’t do. Come along here, I’ll give ye a +glim in a jiffy;” and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards +me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a +clock in the corner, he exclaimed “I vum it’s Sunday—you won’t see that +harpooneer to-night; he’s come to anchor somewhere—come along then; +_do_ come; _won’t_ ye come?” + +I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was +ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, +with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four +harpooneers to sleep abreast. + +“There,” said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest +that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; “there, make +yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye.” I turned round from +eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. + +Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of +the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then +glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, +could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, +the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a +whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a +hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a +large seaman’s bag, containing the harpooneer’s wardrobe, no doubt in +lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone +fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon +standing at the head of the bed. + +But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the +light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to +arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it +to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little +tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an +Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as +you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible +that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the +streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to +try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy +and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious +harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit +of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my +life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink +in the neck. + +I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this +head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on +the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in +the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a +little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, +half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about +the harpooneer’s not coming home at all that night, it being so very +late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, +and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself +to the care of heaven. + +Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery, +there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not +sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had +pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard +a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into +the room from under the door. + +Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal +head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word +till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New +Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without +looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on +the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted +cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was +all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time +while employed in unlacing the bag’s mouth. This accomplished, however, +he turned round—when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was +of a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with +large blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s just as I thought, he’s a +terrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here +he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his +face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be +sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were +stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this; +but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story +of a white man—a whaleman too—who, falling among the cannibals, had +been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course +of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And +what is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his outside; a man can be +honest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly +complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely +independent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be +nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot +sun’s tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had +never been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these +extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were +passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at +all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced +fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a +seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in +the middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head—a ghastly +thing enough—and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his +hat—a new beaver hat—when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. +There was no hair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a +small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now +looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger +stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker +than ever I bolted a dinner. + +Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but +it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this +head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. +Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and +confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of +him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at +the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game +enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer +concerning what seemed inexplicable in him. + +Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed +his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were +checkered with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all +over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years’ +War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still +more, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs +were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that +he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman +in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to +think of it. A peddler of heads too—perhaps the heads of his own +brothers. He might take a fancy to mine—heavens! look at that tomahawk! + +But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about +something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me +that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, +or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in +the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image +with a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days’ old +Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought +that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar +manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened +a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing +but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage +goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, +sets up this little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the +andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, +so that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine +or chapel for his Congo idol. + +I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but +ill at ease meantime—to see what was next to follow. First he takes +about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places +them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on +top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into +a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the +fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed +to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the +biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite +offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to +fancy such dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these +strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from +the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing +some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in +the most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the +idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket +as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. + +All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and seeing +him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business +operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time, +now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which +I had so long been bound. + +But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one. +Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for +an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the +handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment +the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between +his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it +now; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me. + +Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him +against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might +be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his +guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my +meaning. + +“Who-e debel you?”—he at last said—“you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.” +And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the +dark. + +“Landlord, for God’s sake, Peter Coffin!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch! +Coffin! Angels! save me!” + +“Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again growled the +cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the +hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. +But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light +in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him. + +“Don’t be afraid now,” said he, grinning again, “Queequeg here wouldn’t +harm a hair of your head.” + +“Stop your grinning,” shouted I, “and why didn’t you tell me that that +infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?” + +“I thought ye know’d it;—didn’t I tell ye, he was a peddlin’ heads +around town?—but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look +here—you sabbee me, I sabbee—you this man sleepe you—you sabbee?” + +“Me sabbee plenty”—grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and +sitting up in bed. + +“You gettee in,” he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and +throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a +civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a +moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely +looking cannibal. What’s all this fuss I have been making about, +thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just +as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep +with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. + +“Landlord,” said I, “tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or +whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will +turn in with him. But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with +me. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.” + +This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely +motioned me to get into bed—rolling over to one side as much as to +say—“I won’t touch a leg of ye.” + +“Good night, landlord,” said I, “you may go.” + +I turned in, and never slept better in my life. + + +CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane. + +Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown +over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost +thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of +odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his +tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no +two parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his +keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt +sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times—this same arm of his, I +say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork +quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I +could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues +together; and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I +could tell that Queequeg was hugging me. + +My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a +child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me; +whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The +circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other—I +think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little +sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, +was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,—my +mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to +bed, though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, +the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But +there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the +third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, +and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets. + +I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse +before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small +of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the sun +shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the +streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse +and worse—at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my +stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at +her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good +slippering for my misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to +lie abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and +most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For +several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than +I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. +At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and +slowly waking from it—half steeped in dreams—I opened my eyes, and the +before sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt +a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and +nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. +My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, +silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely +seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, +frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet +ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid +spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided +away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it +all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in +confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I +often puzzle myself with it. + +Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the +supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to +those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg’s pagan arm +thrown round me. But at length all the past night’s events soberly +recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to +the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm—unlock his +bridegroom clasp—yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, +as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse +him—“Queequeg!”—but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, my +neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a +slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk +sleeping by the savage’s side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A +pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the +broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! “Queequeg!—in the name of +goodness, Queequeg, wake!” At length, by dint of much wriggling, and +loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his +hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in +extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself +all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in +bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if +he did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim +consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over +him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings +now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at +last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow, +and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon +the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, +if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress +afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, +under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the +truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you +will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this +particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much +civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; +staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for +the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, +a man like Queequeg you don’t see every day, he and his ways were well +worth unusual regarding. + +He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall +one, by the by, and then—still minus his trowsers—he hunted up his +boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his +next movement was to crush himself—boots in hand, and hat on—under the +bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he +was hard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I +ever heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his +boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition +stage—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized +to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His +education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not +been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled +himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, +he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At +last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over +his eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not +being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide +ones—probably not made to order either—rather pinched and tormented him +at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. + +Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the +street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view +into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that +Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; +I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and +particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He +complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the +morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to my +amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his +chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a +piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water +and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept +his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed +corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it +a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the +wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. +Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers’s best cutlery with a +vengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came +to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how +exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept. + +The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of +the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his +harpoon like a marshal’s baton. + + +CHAPTER 5. Breakfast. + +I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the +grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him, +though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my +bedfellow. + +However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a +good thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper +person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be +backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in +that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about +him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for. + +The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the +night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were +nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, +and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and +harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky +beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning +gowns. + +You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This +young fellow’s healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and +would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days +landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades +lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the +complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly +bleached withal; _he_ doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who +could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints, +seemed like the Andes’ western slope, to show forth in one array, +contrasting climates, zone by zone. + +“Grub, ho!” now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we +went to breakfast. + +They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease +in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though: +Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch +one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But +perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as +Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in +the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo’s +performances—this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode +of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort +of thing is to be had anywhere. + +These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that +after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some +good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every man +maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked +embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the +slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas—entire +strangers to them—and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here +they sat at a social breakfast table—all of the same calling, all of +kindred tastes—looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they +had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green +Mountains. A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior +whalemen! + +But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg sat there among them—at the head of +the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I +cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have +cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, +and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, +to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks +towards him. But _that_ was certainly very coolly done by him, and +every one knows that in most people’s estimation, to do anything coolly +is to do it genteelly. + +We will not speak of all Queequeg’s peculiarities here; how he eschewed +coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to +beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew +like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was +sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat +on, when I sallied out for a stroll. + + +CHAPTER 6. The Street. + +If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish +an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a +civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first +daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford. + +In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will +frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign +parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners +will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not +unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live +Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water +Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only +sailors; but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street +corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy +flesh. It makes a stranger stare. + +But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, +and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft +which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still +more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town +scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain +and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; +fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and +snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence +they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. +Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat +and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. +Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak. + +No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one—I mean a +downright bumpkin dandy—a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his +two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a +country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished +reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the +comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his +sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his +canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those +straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, +buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest. + +But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, +and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a +queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would +this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of +Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten +one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to +live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not +like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run +with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. +Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more +patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New +Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of +a country? + +Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty +mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave +houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian +oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the +bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that? + +In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their +daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. +You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, +they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly +burn their lengths in spermaceti candles. + +In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples—long +avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful +and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by +their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is +art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright +terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at +creation’s final day. + +And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But +roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks +is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that +bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young +girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off +shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of +the Puritanic sands. + + +CHAPTER 7. The Chapel. + +In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are +the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who +fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not. + +Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this +special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving +sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called +bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found +a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and +widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks +of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart +from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and +incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these +silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble +tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the +pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not +pretend to quote:— + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was +lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, _November_ +1_st_, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, +WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats’ +crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the +Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, _December_ 31_st_, 1839. THIS MARBLE +Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows +of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, _August_ +3_d_, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. + +Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated +myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see +Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a +wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage +was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because +he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading +those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of +the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, +I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, +and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not +the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here +before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of +those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed +afresh. + +Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing +among flowers can say—here, _here_ lies my beloved; ye know not the +desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in +those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in +those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden +infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse +resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a +grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as +here. + +In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; +why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no +tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is +that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix +so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if +he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the +Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what +eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies +antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we +still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are +dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all +the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify +a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. + +But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these +dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. + +It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a +Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky +light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who +had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But +somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine +chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an +immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a +speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what +then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. +Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true +substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too +much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking +that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees +of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is +not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat +and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. + + +CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. + +I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable +robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon +admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, +sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it +was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he +was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in +his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the +ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy +winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging +into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his +wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing +bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No +one having previously heard his history, could for the first time +behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were +certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that +adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that +he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for +his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot +cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of +the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one +by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner; +when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit. + +Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a +regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the +floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the +architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and +finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side +ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife +of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of +red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely +headed, and stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, +considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad +taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both +hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple +cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still +reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if +ascending the main-top of his vessel. + +The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case +with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of +wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of +the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, +these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not +prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn +round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder +step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him +impregnable in his little Quebec. + +I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. +Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and +sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any +mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober +reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. +Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies +his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties +and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the +word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a +self-containing stronghold—a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial +well of water within the walls. + +But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, +borrowed from the chaplain’s former sea-farings. Between the marble +cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back +was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating +against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy +breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there +floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s +face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the +ship’s tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into +the Victory’s plank where Nelson fell. “Ah, noble ship,” the angel +seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy +helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling +off—serenest azure is at hand.” + +Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that +had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the +likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a +projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed +beak. + +What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s +foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the +world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first +descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is +the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. +Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; +and the pulpit is its prow. + + +CHAPTER 9. The Sermon. + +Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered +the scattered people to condense. “Starboard gangway, there! side away +to larboard—larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!” + +There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a +still slighter shuffling of women’s shoes, and all was quiet again, and +every eye on the preacher. + +He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his +large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and +offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying +at the bottom of the sea. + +This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a +bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog—in such tones he +commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards +the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy— + + + “The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom, + While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down + to doom. + + “I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there; + Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to + despair. + + “In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him + mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints— No more the whale did me + confine. + + “With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; + Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The face of my Deliverer God. + + “My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I + give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.” + + + + +Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the +howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned +over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon +the proper page, said: “Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the +first chapter of Jonah—‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up +Jonah.’” + +“Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one +of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what +depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant +lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in +the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the +floods surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the +waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But _what_ +is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a +two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to +me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us +all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly +awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally +the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the +sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the +command of God—never mind now what that command was, or how +conveyed—which he found a hard command. But all the things that God +would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he +oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we +must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein +the hardness of obeying God consists. + +“With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at +God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men +will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the +Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks +a ship that’s bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto +unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no +other city than the modern Cadiz. That’s the opinion of learned men. +And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from +Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when +the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern +Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, +the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the +westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not +then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? +Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with +slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the +shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So +disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen +in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had +been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a fugitive! no +baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,—no friends accompany him +to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he +finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as +he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for +the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger’s +evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and +confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the +man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but +still serious way, one whispers to the other—“Jack, he’s robbed a +widow;” or, “Joe, do you mark him; he’s a bigamist;” or, “Harry lad, I +guess he’s the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, +one of the missing murderers from Sodom.” Another runs to read the bill +that’s stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is +moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a +parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads, and +looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now +crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah +trembles, and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so +much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that +itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the +sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him +pass, and he descends into the cabin. + +“‘Who’s there?’ cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making +out his papers for the Customs—‘Who’s there?’ Oh! how that harmless +question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. +But he rallies. ‘I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon +sail ye, sir?’ Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, +though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that +hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. ‘We sail with the +next coming tide,’ at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing +him. ‘No sooner, sir?’—‘Soon enough for any honest man that goes a +passenger.’ Ha! Jonah, that’s another stab. But he swiftly calls away +the Captain from that scent. ‘I’ll sail with ye,’—he says,—‘the passage +money how much is that?—I’ll pay now.’ For it is particularly written, +shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, +‘that he paid the fare thereof’ ere the craft did sail. And taken with +the context, this is full of meaning. + +“Now Jonah’s Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects +crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In +this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and +without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all +frontiers. So Jonah’s Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah’s +purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; +and it’s assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; +but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with +gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions +still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. +Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his +passage. ‘Point out my state-room, Sir,’ says Jonah now, ‘I’m +travel-weary; I need sleep.’ ‘Thou lookest like it,’ says the Captain, +‘there’s thy room.’ Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock +contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain +laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about the doors of +convicts’ cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed +and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the +little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is +close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, +beneath the ship’s water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment +of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of +his bowels’ wards. + +“Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly +oscillates in Jonah’s room; and the ship, heeling over towards the +wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and +all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity +with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight +itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it +hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his +tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful +fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that +contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor, the +ceiling, and the side, are all awry. ‘Oh! so my conscience hangs in +me!’ he groans, ‘straight upwards, so it burns; but the chambers of my +soul are all in crookedness!’ + +“Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still +reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the +Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; +as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy +anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at +last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as +over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and +there’s naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, +Jonah’s prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. + +“And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and +from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, +glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded +smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not +bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to +break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when +boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is +shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with +trampling feet right over Jonah’s head; in all this raging tumult, +Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, +feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far +rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving +the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides +of the ship—a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast +asleep. But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead +ear, ‘What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!’ Startled from his lethargy +by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the +deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he +is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave +after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs +roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet +afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the +steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing +bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the +tormented deep. + +“Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his +cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The +sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, +and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to +high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this +great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah’s; that discovered, then +how furiously they mob him with their questions. ‘What is thine +occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, +my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask +him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer +to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put +by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard +hand of God that is upon him. + +“‘I am a Hebrew,’ he cries—and then—‘I fear the Lord the God of Heaven +who hath made the sea and the dry land!’ Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well +mightest thou fear the Lord God _then!_ Straightway, he now goes on to +make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more +appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating +God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his +deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him +forth into the sea, for he knew that for _his_ sake this great tempest +was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means +to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; +then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not +unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. + +“And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; +when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea +is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water +behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless +commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into +the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory +teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed +unto the Lord out of the fish’s belly. But observe his prayer, and +learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and +wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is +just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with +this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards +His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; +not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing +to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance +of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah +before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a +model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it +like Jonah.” + +While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, +slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, +when describing Jonah’s sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. +His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed +the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from +off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his +simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them. + +There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the +leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with +closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself. + +But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, +with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these +words: + +“Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press +upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that +Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to +me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come +down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, +and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads _me_ that other +and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to _me_, as a pilot of the +living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true +things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the +ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should +raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God +by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never +reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed +him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him +along ‘into the midst of the seas,’ where the eddying depths sucked him +ten thousand fathoms down, and ‘the weeds were wrapped about his head,’ +and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond +the reach of any plummet—‘out of the belly of hell’—when the whale +grounded upon the ocean’s utmost bones, even then, God heard the +engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the +fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale +came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the +delights of air and earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;’ +when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and +beaten—his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring +of the ocean—Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding. And what was that, +shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it! + +“This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of +the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from +Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God +has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than +to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe +to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would +not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him +who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is +himself a castaway!” + +He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his +face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with +a heavenly enthusiasm,—“But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of +every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, +than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than +the kelson is low? Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward +delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever +stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong +arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has +gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the +truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out +from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant +delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his +God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the +waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake +from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness +will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final +breath—O Father!—chiefly known to me by Thy rod—mortal or immortal, +here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world’s, +or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is +man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?” + +He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with +his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, +and he was left alone in the place. + + +CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend. + +Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there +quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some +time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the +stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that +little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a +jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to +himself in his heathenish way. + +But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going +to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap +began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth +page—as I fancied—stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and +giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He +would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number +one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was +only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his +astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited. + +With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and +hideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his countenance +yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You +cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I +saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, +fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a +thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty +bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not +altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never +had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, +his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked +more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to +decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent +one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington’s +head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long +regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were +likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on +top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed. + +Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be +looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my +presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but +appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous +book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night +previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found +thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference +of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do +not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their +calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had +noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, +with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; +appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. +All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there +was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand +miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is—which was the only +way he could get there—thrown among people as strange to him as though +he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; +preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; +always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; +though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, +perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of +so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man +gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the +dyspeptic old woman, he must have “broken his digester.” + +As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that +mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then +only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering +round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the +storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of +strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart +and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing +savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a +nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland +deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to +feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that +would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus +drew me. I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness +has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some +friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At +first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my +referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me +whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I +thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented. + +We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to +him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures +that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we +went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to +be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, +producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And +then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it +regularly passing between us. + +If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan’s +breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and +left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and +unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his +forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that +henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we +were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a +countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too +premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage +those old rules would not apply. + +After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room +together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his +enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out some +thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and +mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them +towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he +silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers’ pockets. I let them stay. +He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed +the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed +anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I +deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or +otherwise. + +I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible +Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in +worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you +suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and +earth—pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an +insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?—to do +the will of God—_that_ is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do +to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—_that_ is +the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish +that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular +Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him +in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped +prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with +Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that +done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences +and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat. + +How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential +disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the +very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often +lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our +hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair. + + +CHAPTER 11. Nightgown. + +We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and +Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs +over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free +and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what +little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like +getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future. + +Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position +began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves +sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the +head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two +noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt +very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; +indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the +room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some +small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world +that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If +you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been +so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But +if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown +of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general +consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For +this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, +which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height +of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket +between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there +you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. + +We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at +once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether +by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always +keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of +being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright +except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper +element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey +part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and +self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the +unilluminated twelve-o’clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable +revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that +perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide +awake; and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs +from his Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong +repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how +elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them. +For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me, +even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy +then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord’s policy of +insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential +comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend. +With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the +Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue +hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp. + +Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to +far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; +and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He +gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of +his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar +with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story +such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give. + + +CHAPTER 12. Biographical. + +Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and +South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. + +When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a +grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green +sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong +desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or +two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and +on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of +unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins—royal +stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he +nourished in his untutored youth. + +A Sag Harbor ship visited his father’s bay, and Queequeg sought a +passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of +seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father’s influence +could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled +off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when +she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a +low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into +the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with +its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and +when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her +side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; +climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the +deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though +hacked in pieces. + +In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a +cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and +Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his +wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and +told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage—this +sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain’s cabin. They put him down +among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter +content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained +no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of +enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at bottom—so he told me—he +was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the +arts whereby to make his people still happier than they were; and more +than that, still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of +whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians could be both +miserable and wicked; infinitely more so, than all his father’s +heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the +sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they +spent their wages in _that_ place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for +lost. Thought he, it’s a wicked world in all meridians; I’ll die a +pagan. + +And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, +wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer +ways about him, though now some time from home. + +By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having +a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he +being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not +yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, +had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty +pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,—as +soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he +proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They +had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a +sceptre now. + +I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future +movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon +this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my +intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port +for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to +accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the +same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my +every hap; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of +both worlds. To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection +I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, +could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was +wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted +with the sea, as known to merchant seamen. + +His story being ended with his pipe’s last dying puff, Queequeg +embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the +light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon +were sleeping. + + +CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow. + +Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, +for a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my +comrade’s money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed +amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between +me and Queequeg—especially as Peter Coffin’s cock and bull stories +about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person +whom I now companied with. + +We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own +poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg’s canvas sack and hammock, away we went +down to “the Moss,” the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the +wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg so +much—for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their +streets,—but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we +heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg +now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I +asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and +whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in +substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet +he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of +assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate +with the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers and +mowers, who go into the farmers’ meadows armed with their own +scythes—though in no wise obliged to furnish them—even so, Queequeg, +for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon. + +Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about +the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The +owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his +heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the +thing—though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in +which to manage the barrow—Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it +fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. “Why,” +said I, “Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would +think. Didn’t the people laugh?” + +Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of +Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water +of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and +this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided +mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once +touched at Rokovoko, and its commander—from all accounts, a very +stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain—this +commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg’s sister, a +pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding +guests were assembled at the bride’s bamboo cottage, this Captain +marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself over +against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the +King, Queequeg’s father. Grace being said,—for those people have their +grace as well as we—though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such +times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying +the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts—Grace, I +say, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial +ceremony of the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and +consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beverage +circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the +ceremony, and thinking himself—being Captain of a ship—as having plain +precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King’s own +house—the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the +punchbowl;—taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. “Now,” said +Queequeg, “what you tink now?—Didn’t our people laugh?” + +At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the +schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one +side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees +all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of +casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the +world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while +from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises +of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises +were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only +begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, +for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness +of all earthly effort. + +Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little +Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his +snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!—how I spurned that turnpike +earth!—that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish +heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea +which will permit no records. + +At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. +His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed +teeth. On, on we flew; and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to +the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. +Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a +wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. +So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging +bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of +the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow +beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything +more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies +and bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come +from the heart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these +young saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin’s +hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage caught +him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity and strength, +sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightly tapping his stern +in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, +while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe +and passed it to me for a puff. + +“Capting! Capting!” yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer; +“Capting, Capting, here’s the devil.” + +“Hallo, _you_ sir,” cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking +up to Queequeg, “what in thunder do you mean by that? Don’t you know +you might have killed that chap?” + +“What him say?” said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. + +“He say,” said I, “that you came near kill-e that man there,” pointing +to the still shivering greenhorn. + +“Kill-e,” cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly +expression of disdain, “ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e +so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!” + +“Look you,” roared the Captain, “I’ll kill-e _you_, you cannibal, if +you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye.” + +But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to +mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted +the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to +side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor +fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all +hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, +seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in +one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of +snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable +of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing +the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the +midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and +crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured +one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, +caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next +jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was +run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern +boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long +living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming +like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by +turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I +looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. +The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the +water, Queequeg, now took an instant’s glance around him, and seeming +to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes +more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the other +dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor +bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the +captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a +barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive. + +Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he +at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He +only asked for water—fresh water—something to wipe the brine off; that +done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the +bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to +himself—“It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We +cannibals must help these Christians.” + + +CHAPTER 14. Nantucket. + +Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a +fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. + +Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of +the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely +than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of +sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than +you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some +gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they +don’t grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have +to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that +pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true +cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, +to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an +oasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand +shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, +belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island +of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will +sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these +extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois. + +Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was +settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle +swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant +Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child +borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the +same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage +they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory +casket,—the poor little Indian’s skeleton. + +What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should +take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs +in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more +experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, +launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; +put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at +Behring’s Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared +everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the +flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea +Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that +his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and +malicious assaults! + +And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from +their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like +so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, +and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America +add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English +overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; +two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s. For the sea +is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a +right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; +armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though +following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, +other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw +their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone +resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to +it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. +_There_ is his home; _there_ lies his business, which a Noah’s flood +would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. +He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among +the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years +he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells +like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. +With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to +sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight +of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his +very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. + + +CHAPTER 15. Chowder. + +It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to +anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no +business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord +of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the +Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept +hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin +Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he +plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck +at the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a +yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to +the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a +corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first +man we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very +much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg +insisted that the yellow warehouse—our first point of departure—must be +left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say +it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in +the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to +inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no +mistaking. + +Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses’ ears, +swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an +old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other +side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. +Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I +could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort +of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, +_two_ of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks +I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; +tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel; and here a gallows! +and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out +oblique hints touching Tophet? + +I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman +with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, +under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured +eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen +shirt. + +“Get along with ye,” said she to the man, “or I’ll be combing ye!” + +“Come on, Queequeg,” said I, “all right. There’s Mrs. Hussey.” + +And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving +Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon +making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, +postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little +room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently +concluded repast, turned round to us and said—“Clam or Cod?” + +“What’s that about Cods, ma’am?” said I, with much politeness. + +“Clam or Cod?” she repeated. + +“A clam for supper? a cold clam; is _that_ what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?” +says I, “but that’s a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter +time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?” + +But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple +Shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing +but the word “clam,” Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading +to the kitchen, and bawling out “clam for two,” disappeared. + +“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make out a supper for us +both on one clam?” + +However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the +apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder +came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! +hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than +hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up +into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully +seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the +frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing +food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we +despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and +bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey’s clam and cod announcement, I thought I +would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered +the word “cod” with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few +moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different +flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us. + +We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I +to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What’s +that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? “But look, +Queequeg, ain’t that a live eel in your bowl? Where’s your harpoon?” + +Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its +name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for +breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you +began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area +before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a +polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account +books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the +milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning +happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s +boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and +marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head, +looking very slip-shod, I assure ye. + +Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey +concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to +precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded +his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. “Why not?” said I; +“every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon—but why not?” “Because +it’s dangerous,” says she. “Ever since young Stiggs coming from that +unfort’nt v’y’ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with +only three barrels of _ile_, was found dead in my first floor back, +with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to +take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg” +(for she had learned his name), “I will just take this here iron, and +keep it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow +for breakfast, men?” + +“Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of +variety.” + + +CHAPTER 16. The Ship. + +In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no +small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been +diligently consulting Yojo—the name of his black little god—and Yojo +had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it +everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in +harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, +Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest +wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order +to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, +I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though +it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship +myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg. + +I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great +confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and surprising forecast +of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather +good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in +all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs. + +Now, this plan of Queequeg’s, or rather Yojo’s, touching the selection +of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little +relied upon Queequeg’s sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to +carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances +produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and +accordingly prepared to set about this business with a determined +rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that +trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up +with Yojo in our little bedroom—for it seemed that it was some sort of +Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with +Queequeg and Yojo that day; _how_ it was I never could find out, for, +though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his +liturgies and XXXIX Articles—leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his +tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of +shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much prolonged +sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three +ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the +Pequod. _Devil-Dam_, I do not know the origin of; _Tit-bit_ is obvious; +_Pequod_, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated +tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I +peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the +Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for +a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us. + +You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I +know;—square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box +galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a +rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old +school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed +look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and +calms of all four oceans, her old hull’s complexion was darkened like a +French grenadier’s, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her +venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts—cut somewhere on the coast of +Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale—her masts +stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her +ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped +flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these +her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining +to the wild business that for more than half a century she had +followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he +commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one +of the principal owners of the Pequod,—this old Peleg, during the term +of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and +inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, +unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake’s carved buckler or +bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his +neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of +trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased +bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were +garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the +sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews +and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, +but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile +wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that tiller +was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her +hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest, +felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching +its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things +are touched with that. + +Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having +authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at +first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of +tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It +seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical +shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber +black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the +right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of +these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at +the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved +to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem’s head. A +triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the +insider commanded a complete view forward. + +And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by +his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the +ship’s work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of +command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all +over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a +stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was +constructed. + +There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of +the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, +and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style; +only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest +wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his +continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to +windward;—for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed +together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl. + +“Is this the Captain of the Pequod?” said I, advancing to the door of +the tent. + +“Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of +him?” he demanded. + +“I was thinking of shipping.” + +“Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer—ever been in a +stove boat?” + +“No, Sir, I never have.” + +“Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say—eh? + +“Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I’ve been +several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that—” + +“Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that +leg?—I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of +the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose +now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant +ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?—it +looks a little suspicious, don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hast +thou?—Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost not think of +murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?” + +I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of +these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated +Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather +distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the +Vineyard. + +“But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of +shipping ye.” + +“Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.” + +“Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?” + +“Who is Captain Ahab, sir?” + +“Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship.” + +“I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself.” + +“Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg—that’s who ye are speaking to, +young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted +out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We +are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest +to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way +of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap +eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one +leg.” + +“What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?” + +“Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed +up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a +boat!—ah, ah!” + +I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at +the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I +could, “What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know +there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed +I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.” + +“Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou +dost not talk shark a bit. _Sure_, ye’ve been to sea before now; sure +of that?” + +“Sir,” said I, “I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in +the merchant—” + +“Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant +service—don’t aggravate me—I won’t have it. But let us understand each +other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel +inclined for it?” + +“I do, sir.” + +“Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live +whale’s throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!” + +“I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to +be got rid of, that is; which I don’t take to be the fact.” + +“Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find +out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to +see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just +step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back +to me and tell me what ye see there.” + +For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not +knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But +concentrating all his crow’s feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started +me on the errand. + +Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the +ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely +pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but +exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I +could see. + +“Well, what’s the report?” said Peleg when I came back; “what did ye +see?” + +“Not much,” I replied—“nothing but water; considerable horizon though, +and there’s a squall coming up, I think.” + +“Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go +round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can’t ye see the world where +you stand?” + +I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the +Pequod was as good a ship as any—I thought the best—and all this I now +repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his +willingness to ship me. + +“And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,” he added—“come +along with ye.” And so saying, he led the way below deck into the +cabin. + +Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and +surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with +Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other +shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd +of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; +each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a +nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in +whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state +stocks bringing in good interest. + +Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a +Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to +this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the +peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by +things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same +Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They +are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance. + +So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with +Scripture names—a singularly common fashion on the island—and in +childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the +Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless +adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these +unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not +unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when +these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a +globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and +seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and +beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think +untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s sweet or +savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding +breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental +advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language—that man makes +one in a whole nation’s census—a mighty pageant creature, formed for +noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically +regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems +a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For +all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be +sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. +But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; +and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from +another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. + +Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. +But unlike Captain Peleg—who cared not a rush for what are called +serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the +veriest of all trifles—Captain Bildad had not only been originally +educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but +all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely +island creatures, round the Horn—all that had not moved this native +born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his +vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common +consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from +conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself +had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn +foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled +tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening +of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the +reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, +and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible +conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world +quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little +cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a +broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, +chief-mate, and captain, and finally a ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted +before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from +active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining +days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income. + +Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an +incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard +task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a +curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, +upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, +sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, +he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used +to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an +inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When +Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking +at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch +something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at +something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished +before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian +character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no +superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like +the worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat. + +Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I +followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks +was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, +and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was +placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was +buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in +reading from a ponderous volume. + +“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been +studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my +certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?” + +As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, +Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, +and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg. + +“He says he’s our man, Bildad,” said Peleg, “he wants to ship.” + +“Dost thee?” said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me. + +“I _dost_,” said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. + +“What do ye think of him, Bildad?” said Peleg. + +“He’ll do,” said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at +his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. + +I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, +his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said +nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, +and drawing forth the ship’s articles, placed pen and ink before him, +and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time +to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for +the voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid +no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares +of the profits called _lays_, and that these lays were proportioned to +the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the +ship’s company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my +own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the +sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt +that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th +lay—that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, +whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was +what they call a rather _long lay_, yet it was better than nothing; and +if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I +would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years’ beef and board, +for which I would not have to pay one stiver. + +It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely +fortune—and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those +that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the +world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this +grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the +275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been +surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a +broad-shouldered make. + +But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about +receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard +something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad; +how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore +the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the +whole management of the ship’s affairs to these two. And I did not know +but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about +shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, +quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his +own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his +jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he +was such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded +us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, “_Lay_ not up for +yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth—” + +“Well, Captain Bildad,” interrupted Peleg, “what d’ye say, what lay +shall we give this young man?” + +“Thou knowest best,” was the sepulchral reply, “the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh wouldn’t be too much, would it?—‘where moth and rust do +corrupt, but _lay_—’” + +_Lay_, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, +shall not _lay_ up many _lays_ here below, where moth and rust do +corrupt. It was an exceedingly _long lay_ that, indeed; and though from +the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet +the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and +seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a +_teenth_ of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven +hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time. + +“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,” cried Peleg, “thou dost not want to +swindle this young man! he must have more than that.” + +“Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,” again said Bildad, without lifting +his eyes; and then went on mumbling—“for where your treasure is, there +will your heart be also.” + +“I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,” said Peleg, “do +ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say.” + +Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said, +“Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the +duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship—widows and orphans, +many of them—and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this +young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those +orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg.” + +“Thou Bildad!” roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the +cabin. “Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these +matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be +heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape +Horn.” + +“Captain Peleg,” said Bildad steadily, “thy conscience may be drawing +ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can’t tell; but as thou art +still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy +conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering +down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.” + +“Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye +insult me. It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that +he’s bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, +and start my soul-bolts, but I’ll—I’ll—yes, I’ll swallow a live goat +with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, +drab-coloured son of a wooden gun—a straight wake with ye!” + +As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a +marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him. + +Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and +responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all +idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily +commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, +I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened +wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the +transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of +withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As +for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more +left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a +little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at last—“the +squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at +sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs +the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, +Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, +for the three hundredth lay.” + +“Captain Peleg,” said I, “I have a friend with me who wants to ship +too—shall I bring him down to-morrow?” + +“To be sure,” said Peleg. “Fetch him along, and we’ll look at him.” + +“What lay does he want?” groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in +which he had again been burying himself. + +“Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad,” said Peleg. “Has he ever +whaled it any?” turning to me. + +“Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.” + +“Well, bring him along then.” + +And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I +had done a good morning’s work, and that the Pequod was the identical +ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape. + +But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the +Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though, +indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and +receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by +arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, +and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the +captain have a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he +does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to +the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to +have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into his +hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain +Ahab was to be found. + +“And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou +art shipped.” + +“Yes, but I should like to see him.” + +“But I don’t think thou wilt be able to at present. I don’t know +exactly what’s the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the +house; a sort of sick, and yet he don’t look so. In fact, he ain’t +sick; but no, he isn’t well either. Any how, young man, he won’t always +see me, so I don’t suppose he will thee. He’s a queer man, Captain +Ahab—so some think—but a good one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no +fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; +doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. +Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in +colleges, as well as ’mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders +than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than +whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our +isle! Oh! he ain’t Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t Captain Peleg; +_he’s Ahab_, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!” + +“And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did +they not lick his blood?” + +“Come hither to me—hither, hither,” said Peleg, with a significance in +his eye that almost startled me. “Look ye, lad; never say that on board +the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. +’Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died +when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at +Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, +perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn +thee. It’s a lie. I know Captain Ahab well; I’ve sailed with him as +mate years ago; I know what he is—a good man—not a pious, good man, +like Bildad, but a swearing good man—something like me—only there’s a +good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly; +and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind +for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump +that brought that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever +since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a +kind of moody—desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all +pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young +man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad +one. So good-bye to thee—and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens +to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife—not three voyages +wedded—a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that +old man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm +in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his +humanities!” + +As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been +incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain +wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, +I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what, +unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange +awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was +not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did +not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed +like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. +However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so +that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind. + + +CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan. + +As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all +day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I +cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, +never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue +even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other +creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of +footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the +torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the +inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. + +I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these +things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, +pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these +subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most +absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;—but what of that? Queequeg +thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; +and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let +him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans +alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and +sadly need mending. + +Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and +rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door; +but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside. +“Queequeg,” said I softly through the key-hole:—all silent. “I say, +Queequeg! why don’t you speak? It’s I—Ishmael.” But all remained still +as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant +time; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through +the key-hole; but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the +key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see +part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing +more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden +shaft of Queequeg’s harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous +had taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That’s strange, +thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he +seldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside +here, and no possible mistake. + +“Queequeg!—Queequeg!”—all still. Something must have happened. +Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly resisted. +Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person +I met—the chamber-maid. “La! la!” she cried, “I thought something must +be the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was +locked; and not a mouse to be heard; and it’s been just so silent ever +since. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your +baggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma’am!—Mistress! murder! Mrs. +Hussey! apoplexy!”—and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I +following. + +Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a +vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation +of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy +meantime. + +“Wood-house!” cried I, “which way to it? Run for God’s sake, and fetch +something to pry open the door—the axe!—the axe! he’s had a stroke; +depend upon it!”—and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs +again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and +vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. + +“What’s the matter with you, young man?” + +“Get the axe! For God’s sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry +it open!” + +“Look here,” said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet, +so as to have one hand free; “look here; are you talking about prying +open any of my doors?”—and with that she seized my arm. “What’s the +matter with you? What’s the matter with you, shipmate?” + +In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand +the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of +her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed—“No! I haven’t +seen it since I put it there.” Running to a little closet under the +landing of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that +Queequeg’s harpoon was missing. “He’s killed himself,” she cried. “It’s +unfort’nate Stiggs done over again—there goes another counterpane—God +pity his poor mother!—it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad +a sister? Where’s that girl?—there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, +and tell him to paint me a sign, with—“no suicides permitted here, and +no smoking in the parlor;”—might as well kill both birds at once. Kill? +The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What’s that noise there? You, young +man, avast there!” + +And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force +open the door. + +“I don’t allow it; I won’t have my premises spoiled. Go for the +locksmith, there’s one about a mile from here. But avast!” putting her +hand in her side-pocket, “here’s a key that’ll fit, I guess; let’s +see.” And with that, she turned it in the lock; but, alas! Queequeg’s +supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. + +“Have to burst it open,” said I, and was running down the entry a +little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing +I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a +sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark. + +With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming +against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good +heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and self-collected; right +in the middle of the room; squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on +top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat +like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life. + +“Queequeg,” said I, going up to him, “Queequeg, what’s the matter with +you?” + +“He hain’t been a sittin’ so all day, has he?” said the landlady. + +But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt +like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost +intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained; +especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of +eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals. + +“Mrs. Hussey,” said I, “he’s _alive_ at all events; so leave us, if you +please, and I will see to this strange affair myself.” + +Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon +Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he could +do—for all my polite arts and blandishments—he would not move a peg, +nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in +the slightest way. + +I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan; do +they fast on their hams that way in his native island. It must be so; +yes, it’s part of his creed, I suppose; well, then, let him rest; he’ll +get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can’t last for ever, thank God, +and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I don’t believe it’s very +punctual then. + +I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long +stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, +as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or +brig, confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); +after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o’clock, I +went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg +must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there +he was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began +to grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to +be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room, +holding a piece of wood on his head. + +“For heaven’s sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and +have some supper. You’ll starve; you’ll kill yourself, Queequeg.” But +not a word did he reply. + +Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep; +and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to +turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as +it promised to be a very cold night; and he had nothing but his +ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not +get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the mere +thought of Queequeg—not four feet off—sitting there in that uneasy +position, stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really +wretched. Think of it; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide +awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan! + +But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of +day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he +had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of +sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, but +with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his +forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was over. + +Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person’s religion, +be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any +other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when +a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment +to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to +lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and +argue the point with him. + +And just so I now did with Queequeg. “Queequeg,” said I, “get into bed +now, and lie and listen to me.” I then went on, beginning with the rise +and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various +religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show +Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings +in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; +useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene +and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such +an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly +pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous +Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; +hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must +necessarily be half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic +religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In +one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first +born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated +through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. + +I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with +dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it +in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great +feast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great battle +wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o’clock in the +afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening. + +“No more, Queequeg,” said I, shuddering; “that will do;” for I knew the +inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who +had visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, +when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in +the yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one, they were +placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, +with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their mouths, +were sent round with the victor’s compliments to all his friends, just +as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys. + +After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much +impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow +seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered +from his own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more +than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and, +finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true +religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending +concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such +a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan +piety. + +At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty +breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not +make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the +Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones. + + +CHAPTER 18. His Mark. + +As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg +carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us +from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, +and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that +craft, unless they previously produced their papers. + +“What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?” said I, now jumping on the +bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. + +“I mean,” he replied, “he must show his papers.” + +“Yes,” said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from +behind Peleg’s, out of the wigwam. “He must show that he’s converted. +Son of darkness,” he added, turning to Queequeg, “art thou at present +in communion with any Christian church?” + +“Why,” said I, “he’s a member of the first Congregational Church.” Here +be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at +last come to be converted into the churches. + +“First Congregational Church,” cried Bildad, “what! that worships in +Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman’s meeting-house?” and so saying, taking out +his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana +handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the +wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at +Queequeg. + +“How long hath he been a member?” he then said, turning to me; “not +very long, I rather guess, young man.” + +“No,” said Peleg, “and he hasn’t been baptized right either, or it +would have washed some of that devil’s blue off his face.” + +“Do tell, now,” cried Bildad, “is this Philistine a regular member of +Deacon Deuteronomy’s meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass +it every Lord’s day.” + +“I don’t know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,” said +I; “all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First +Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.” + +“Young man,” said Bildad sternly, “thou art skylarking with me—explain +thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.” + +Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. “I mean, sir, the same +ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, +and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us +belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole +worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some +queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in _that_ we all +join hands.” + +“Splice, thou mean’st _splice_ hands,” cried Peleg, drawing nearer. +“Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast +hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy—why Father +Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something. Come +aboard, come aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog +there—what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great +anchor, what a harpoon he’s got there! looks like good stuff that; and +he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did +you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a +fish?” + +Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon +the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats +hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his +harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:— + +“Cap’ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well, +spose him one whale eye, well, den!” and taking sharp aim at it, he +darted the iron right over old Bildad’s broad brim, clean across the +ship’s decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight. + +“Now,” said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, “spos-ee him whale-e +eye; why, dad whale dead.” + +“Quick, Bildad,” said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close +vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin +gangway. “Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship’s papers. We must +have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, +Quohog, we’ll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that’s more than ever was +given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket.” + +So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon +enrolled among the same ship’s company to which I myself belonged. + +When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for +signing, he turned to me and said, “I guess, Quohog there don’t know +how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name +or make thy mark?” + +But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken +part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the +offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact +counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so +that through Captain Peleg’s obstinate mistake touching his +appellative, it stood something like this:— + +Quohog. his X mark. + +Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, +and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his +broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one +entitled “The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,” placed it in +Queequeg’s hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, +looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, “Son of darkness, I must do +my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for +the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, +which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial +bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the +wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer +clear of the fiery pit!” + +Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad’s language, +heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. + +“Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,” +cried Peleg. “Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the +shark out of ’em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty +sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out +of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never +came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he +shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case +he got stove and went to Davy Jones.” + +“Peleg! Peleg!” said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, “thou thyself, +as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what +it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can’st thou prate in this +ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this +same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on +Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did’st +thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?” + +“Hear him, hear him now,” cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and +thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,—“hear him, all of ye. +Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death +and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an +everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over +us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to +think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking +of; and how to save all hands—how to rig jury-masts—how to get into the +nearest port; that was what I was thinking of.” + +Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where +we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some +sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he +stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which +otherwise might have been wasted. + + +CHAPTER 19. The Prophet. + +“Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?” + +Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from +the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the +above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, +levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but +shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a +black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all +directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated +ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up. + +“Have ye shipped in her?” he repeated. + +“You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,” said I, trying to gain a little +more time for an uninterrupted look at him. + +“Aye, the Pequod—that ship there,” he said, drawing back his whole arm, +and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed +bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. + +“Yes,” said I, “we have just signed the articles.” + +“Anything down there about your souls?” + +“About what?” + +“Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though, +I know many chaps that hav’n’t got any,—good luck to ’em; and they are +all the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a +wagon.” + +“What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I. + +“_He’s_ got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that +sort in other chaps,” abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous +emphasis upon the word _he_. + +“Queequeg,” said I, “let’s go; this fellow has broken loose from +somewhere; he’s talking about something and somebody we don’t know.” + +“Stop!” cried the stranger. “Ye said true—ye hav’n’t seen Old Thunder +yet, have ye?” + +“Who’s Old Thunder?” said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness +of his manner. + +“Captain Ahab.” + +“What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?” + +“Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye +hav’n’t seen him yet, have ye?” + +“No, we hav’n’t. He’s sick they say, but is getting better, and will be +all right again before long.” + +“All right again before long!” laughed the stranger, with a solemnly +derisive sort of laugh. “Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then +this left arm of mine will be all right; not before.” + +“What do you know about him?” + +“What did they _tell_ you about him? Say that!” + +“They didn’t tell much of anything about him; only I’ve heard that he’s +a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.” + +“That’s true, that’s true—yes, both true enough. But you must jump when +he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go—that’s the word with +Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off +Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; +nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar +in Santa?—heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver +calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last +voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn’t ye hear a word about them +matters and something more, eh? No, I don’t think ye did; how could ye? +Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows’ever, mayhap, ye’ve +heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of +that, I dare say. Oh yes, _that_ every one knows a’most—I mean they +know he’s only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.” + +“My friend,” said I, “what all this gibberish of yours is about, I +don’t know, and I don’t much care; for it seems to me that you must be +a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, +of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all +about the loss of his leg.” + +“_All_ about it, eh—sure you do?—all?” + +“Pretty sure.” + +With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like +stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a +little, turned and said:—“Ye’ve shipped, have ye? Names down on the +papers? Well, well, what’s signed, is signed; and what’s to be, will +be; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all. Anyhow, it’s all +fixed and arranged a’ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, +I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity ’em! Morning to ye, +shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I’m sorry I stopped +ye.” + +“Look here, friend,” said I, “if you have anything important to tell +us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are +mistaken in your game; that’s all I have to say.” + +“And it’s said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; +you are just the man for him—the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, +morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell ’em I’ve concluded not to make one +of ’em.” + +“Ah, my dear fellow, you can’t fool us that way—you can’t fool us. It +is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a +great secret in him.” + +“Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.” + +“Morning it is,” said I. “Come along, Queequeg, let’s leave this crazy +man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?” + +“Elijah.” + +Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each +other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was +nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone +perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and +looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, +though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I +said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my +comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner +that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us, +but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This +circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, +shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments +and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain +Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver +calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship +the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the +voyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy +things. + +I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really +dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, +and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, +without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and +finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug. + + +CHAPTER 20. All Astir. + +A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. +Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on +board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything +betokened that the ship’s preparations were hurrying to a close. +Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam +keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing +and providing at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on +the rigging were working till long after night-fall. + +On the day following Queequeg’s signing the articles, word was given at +all the inns where the ship’s company were stopping, that their chests +must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon the +vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, +resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they +always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail +for several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and +there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod +was fully equipped. + +Every one knows what a multitude of things—beds, sauce-pans, knives and +forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are +indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling, +which necessitates a three-years’ housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far +from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And +though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means +to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of +the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution +of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote +harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, +whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and +especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which +the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare +spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but +a spare Captain and duplicate ship. + +At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the +Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water, +fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time +there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and +ends of things, both large and small. + +Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain +Bildad’s sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable +spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if _she_ +could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after +once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a +jar of pickles for the steward’s pantry; another time with a bunch of +quills for the chief mate’s desk, where he kept his log; a third time +with a roll of flannel for the small of some one’s rheumatic back. +Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity—Aunt +Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this +charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn +her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, +and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother +Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of +well-saved dollars. + +But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on +board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and +a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor +Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him +a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down +went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a +while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men +down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and +then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam. + +During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the +craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and +when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they +would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected +aboard every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could +attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I +had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly +in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so +long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the +absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open +sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he +be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up +his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I +said nothing, and tried to think nothing. + +At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would +certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early +start. + + +CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard. + +It was nearly six o’clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we +drew nigh the wharf. + +“There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,” said I to +Queequeg, “it can’t be shadows; she’s off by sunrise, I guess; come +on!” + +“Avast!” cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close +behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating +himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain +twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah. + +“Going aboard?” + +“Hands off, will you,” said I. + +“Lookee here,” said Queequeg, shaking himself, “go ’way!” + +“Ain’t going aboard, then?” + +“Yes, we are,” said I, “but what business is that of yours? Do you +know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?” + +“No, no, no; I wasn’t aware of that,” said Elijah, slowly and +wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable +glances. + +“Elijah,” said I, “you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We +are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be +detained.” + +“Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?” + +“He’s cracked, Queequeg,” said I, “come on.” + +“Holloa!” cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few +paces. + +“Never mind him,” said I, “Queequeg, come on.” + +But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my +shoulder, said—“Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that +ship a while ago?” + +Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, “Yes, +I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure.” + +“Very dim, very dim,” said Elijah. “Morning to ye.” + +Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and +touching my shoulder again, said, “See if you can find ’em now, will +ye? + +“Find who?” + +“Morning to ye! morning to ye!” he rejoined, again moving off. “Oh! I +was going to warn ye against—but never mind, never mind—it’s all one, +all in the family too;—sharp frost this morning, ain’t it? Good-bye to +ye. Shan’t see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it’s before the +Grand Jury.” And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving +me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence. + +At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound +quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the +hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward +to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a +light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a +tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his +face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber +slept upon him. + +“Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?” said I, +looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the +wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to; hence I +would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that +matter, were it not for Elijah’s otherwise inexplicable question. But I +beat the thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to +Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to +establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper’s rear, +as though feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado, +sat quietly down there. + +“Gracious! Queequeg, don’t sit there,” said I. + +“Oh! perry dood seat,” said Queequeg, “my country way; won’t hurt him +face.” + +“Face!” said I, “call that his face? very benevolent countenance then; +but how hard he breathes, he’s heaving himself; get off, Queequeg, you +are heavy, it’s grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look, +he’ll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don’t wake.” + +Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and +lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing +over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning +him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his +land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, +chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening +some of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house +comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy +fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was +very convenient on an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs +which are convertible into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief +calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself +under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. + +While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk +from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper’s head. + +“What’s that for, Queequeg?” + +“Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!” + +He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe, +which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed +his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The +strong vapor now completely filling the contracted hole, it began to +tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed +troubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice; then sat up and +rubbed his eyes. + +“Holloa!” he breathed at last, “who be ye smokers?” + +“Shipped men,” answered I, “when does she sail?” + +“Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain +came aboard last night.” + +“What Captain?—Ahab?” + +“Who but him indeed?” + +I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we +heard a noise on deck. + +“Holloa! Starbuck’s astir,” said the rigger. “He’s a lively chief mate, +that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to.” And so +saying he went on deck, and we followed. + +It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and +threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively +engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various +last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly +enshrined within his cabin. + + +CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas. + +At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship’s +riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and +after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with +her last gift—a night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her +brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward—after all this, the +two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to +the chief mate, Peleg said: + +“Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is +all ready—just spoke to him—nothing more to be got from shore, eh? +Well, call all hands, then. Muster ’em aft here—blast ’em!” + +“No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg,” said +Bildad, “but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding.” + +How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain +Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the +quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as +well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign +of him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin. But +then, the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in +getting the ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, +as that was not at all his proper business, but the pilot’s; and as he +was not yet completely recovered—so they said—therefore, Captain Ahab +stayed below. And all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the +merchant service many captains never show themselves on deck for a +considerable time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the +cabin table, having a farewell merry-making with their shore friends, +before they quit the ship for good with the pilot. + +But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain +Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and +commanding, and not Bildad. + +“Aft here, ye sons of bachelors,” he cried, as the sailors lingered at +the main-mast. “Mr. Starbuck, drive ’em aft.” + +“Strike the tent there!”—was the next order. As I hinted before, this +whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on board the +Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known +to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor. + +“Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!—jump!”—was the next command, and +the crew sprang for the handspikes. + +Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot +is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be +it known, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed +pilots of the port—he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot +in order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was +concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft—Bildad, I say, might +now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the +approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave +of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some +sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good +will. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that +no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in +getting under weigh; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice +copy of Watts in each seaman’s berth. + +Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped +and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he +would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I +paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of +the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for +a pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in +pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred +and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, +and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in +the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my +first kick. + +“Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?” he roared. +“Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don’t ye +spring, I say, all of ye—spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red +whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I +say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!” And so saying, he moved +along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while +imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I, +Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day. + +At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It +was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into +night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose +freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of +teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white +ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from +the bows. + +Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as +the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering +frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his +steady notes were heard,— + + +_“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living +green. So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.”_ + + + +Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They +were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in +the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there +was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and +meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the +spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. + +At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no +longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging +alongside. + +It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected +at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet; +very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a +voyage—beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands of his +hard earned dollars were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate +sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to +encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye to +a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,—poor old Bildad +lingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides; ran down into the +cabin to speak another farewell word there; again came on deck, and +looked to windward; looked towards the wide and endless waters, only +bounded by the far-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards the +land; looked aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere and +nowhere; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, +convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, +for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, +“Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can.” + +As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for all +his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern +came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to deck—now +a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate. + +But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look about +him,—“Captain Bildad—come, old shipmate, we must go. Back the main-yard +there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now! Careful, +careful!—come, Bildad, boy—say your last. Luck to ye, Starbuck—luck to +ye, Mr. Stubb—luck to ye, Mr. Flask—good-bye and good luck to ye +all—and this day three years I’ll have a hot supper smoking for ye in +old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!” + +“God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men,” murmured old +Bildad, almost incoherently. “I hope ye’ll have fine weather now, so +that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye—a pleasant sun is all he +needs, and ye’ll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be +careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave the boats needlessly, ye +harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent. +within the year. Don’t forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind +that cooper don’t waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in +the green locker! Don’t whale it too much a’ Lord’s days, men; but +don’t miss a fair chance either, that’s rejecting Heaven’s good gifts. +Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I +thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. +Good-bye, good-bye! Don’t keep that cheese too long down in the hold, +Mr. Starbuck; it’ll spoil. Be careful with the butter—twenty cents the +pound it was, and mind ye, if—” + +“Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,—away!” and with that, +Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat. + +Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a +screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave +three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone +Atlantic. + + +CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore. + +Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded +mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. + +When on that shivering winter’s night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive +bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her +helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon +the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous +voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another +tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest +things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; +this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only +say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that +miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give +succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, +hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our +mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s +direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, +though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and +through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, +fights ’gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks +all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly +rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe! + +Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally +intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid +effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the +wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the +treacherous, slavish shore? + +But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, +indefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, +than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For +worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the +terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O +Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy +ocean-perishing—straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! + + +CHAPTER 24. The Advocate. + +As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; +and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among +landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I +am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby +done to us hunters of whales. + +In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish +the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not +accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a +stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, +it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were +he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation +of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale +Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed +pre-eminently presuming and ridiculous. + +Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us +whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a +butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we +are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is +true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been +all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honor. And +as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye +shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally +unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm +whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But +even granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered +slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable +carrion of those battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to +drink in all ladies’ plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much +enhances the popular conceit of the soldier’s profession; let me assure +ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would +quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale’s vast tail, +fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the +comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and +wonders of God! + +But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it +unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding +adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn +round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory! + +But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of +scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. + +Why did the Dutch in De Witt’s time have admirals of their whaling +fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit +out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some +score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did +Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties +upwards of £1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of +America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world; +sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen +thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, +at the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our +harbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if +there be not something puissant in whaling? + +But this is not the half; look again. + +I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, +point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty +years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken +in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way +and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so +continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may +well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves +pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to +catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past +the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and +least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes +which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If +American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage +harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor and glory of the +whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted +between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the +heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns; but I +say that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, +that were as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. +For in their succourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish +sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, +battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines +and muskets would not willingly have dared. All that is made such a +flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the +life-time commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures +which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted +unworthy of being set down in the ship’s common log. Ah, the world! Oh, +the world! + +Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, +scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe +and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific +coast. It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy +of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, +it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated +the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, +and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts. + +That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was +given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first +blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned +those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched +there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. +Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the +emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent +biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. +The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do +commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the +missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive +missionaries to their first destinations. If that double-bolted land, +Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom +the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold. + +But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no +æsthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to +shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet +every time. + +The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you +will say. + +_The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler?_ Who +wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who +composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a +prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down +the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And +who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke! + +True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no +good blood in their veins. + +_No good blood in their veins?_ They have something better than royal +blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel; +afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of +Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and +harpooneers—all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—this day darting the +barbed iron from one side of the world to the other. + +Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not +respectable. + +_Whaling not respectable?_ Whaling is imperial! By old English +statutory law, the whale is declared “a royal fish.” * + +Oh, that’s only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any +grand imposing way. + +_The whale never figured in any grand imposing way?_ In one of the +mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world’s +capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian +coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.* + +*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. + +Grant it, since you cite it; but, say what you will, there is no real +dignity in whaling. + +_No dignity in whaling?_ The dignity of our calling the very heavens +attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your +hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I +know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty +whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of +antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns. + +And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet +undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute +in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably +ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a +man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, +my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in +my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory +to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. + + +CHAPTER 25. Postscript. + +In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but +substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who +should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell +eloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be +blameworthy? + +It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even +modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their +functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, +and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, +precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s head is +solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, +though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run +well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, +concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in +common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints +his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man +who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a +quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to +much in his totality. + +But the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind of oil is +used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar +oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. +What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, +unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? + +Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and +queens with coronation stuff! + + +CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires. + +The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a +Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an +icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being +hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood +would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time +of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which +his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those +summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his +thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties +and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was +merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; +quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and +closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, +like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for +long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow +or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was +warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed +to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he +had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life +for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame +chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there +were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some +cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly +conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, +the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline +him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some +organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than +from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his. And +if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more +did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, +tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, +and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some +honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often +evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. “I +will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a +whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and +useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the +encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more +dangerous comrade than a coward. + +“Aye, aye,” said Stubb, the second mate, “Starbuck, there, is as +careful a man as you’ll find anywhere in this fishery.” But we shall +ere long see what that word “careful” precisely means when used by a +man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter. + +Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a +sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon +all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in +this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits +of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly +wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after +sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted +in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical +ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for +theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. +What doom was his own father’s? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could +he find the torn limbs of his brother? + +With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain +superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which +could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But +it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such +terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature +that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in +him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its +confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it +was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, +while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or +whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet +cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, +which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged +and mighty man. + +But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete +abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I have the heart +to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose +the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint +stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; +men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble +and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any +ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their +costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so +far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character +seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a +valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, +completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But +this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, +but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt +see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that +democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; +Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all +democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality! + +If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall +hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic +graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among +them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall +touch that workman’s arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a +rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics +bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one +royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou +great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, +Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly +hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old +Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who +didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a +throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest +Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O +God! + + +CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. + +Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, +according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; +neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an +indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the +chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged +for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his +whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his +crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable +arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about +the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very +death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and +off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his +old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated +monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death +into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no +telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; +but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a +comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a +sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, +about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and +not sooner. + +What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, +unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a +world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; +what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that +thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black +little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would +almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his +nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready +loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever +he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from +the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in +readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his +legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth. + +I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his +peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, +whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless +miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in +time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated +handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal +tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of +disinfecting agent. + +The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha’s Vineyard. A +short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, +who somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally +and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of +honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost +was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic +bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of +any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, +the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least +water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small +application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This +ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in +the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a +three years’ voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted +that length of time. As a carpenter’s nails are divided into wrought +nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask +was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They +called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could +be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in +Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers +inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions +of those battering seas. + +Now these three mates—Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous men. +They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the +Pequod’s boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which +Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the +whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being +armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio +of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins. + +And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic +Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, +who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the +former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and +moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy +and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set +down who the Pequod’s harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of +them belonged. + +First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected +for his squire. But Queequeg is already known. + +Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly +promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there still exists the last +remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the +neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring +harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of +Gay-Headers. Tashtego’s long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, +and black rounding eyes—for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but +Antarctic in their glittering expression—all this sufficiently +proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud +warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had +scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer +snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now +hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon +of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires. To look +at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have +credited the superstitions of some of the earlier Puritans, and +half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers +of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate’s squire. + +Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black +negro-savage, with a lion-like tread—an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended +from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called +them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to +them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, +lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been +anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors +most frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold +life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what +manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, +and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six +feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at +him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to +beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, +Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a +chess-man beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it +said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men +before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans +born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same +with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military +and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the +construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, +because in all these cases the native American liberally provides the +brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No +small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the +outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews +from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the +Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland +Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage +homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, +but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all +Islanders in the Pequod, _Isolatoes_ too, I call such, not +acknowledging the common continent of men, but each _Isolato_ living on +a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, +what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from +all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying +Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world’s grievances before that bar +from which not very many of them ever come back. Black Little Pip—he +never did—oh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim +Pequod’s forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine; +prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck +on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in +glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there! + + +CHAPTER 28. Ahab. + +For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was +seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the +watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed +to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from +the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was +plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and +dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to +penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin. + +Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly +gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague +disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the +sea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at +times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly +recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived +of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was +almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish +prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or +uneasiness—to call it so—which I felt, yet whenever I came to look +about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such +emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, +were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the +tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me +acquainted with, still I ascribed this—and rightly ascribed it—to the +fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation +in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the +aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was +most forcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and +induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. +Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own +different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of +them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being +Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had +biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the +southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, +gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable +weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey +and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the +ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping +and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of +the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the +taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension; +Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck. + +There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the +recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when +the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, +or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His +whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an +unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Threading its way out +from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his +tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you +saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that +perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a +great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and +without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from +top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still +greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or +whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could +certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or +no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once +Tashtego’s senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew, +superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old did +Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the +fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this +wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman +insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out +of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, +the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested +this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no +white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever +Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out—which might hardly come to +pass, so he muttered—then, whoever should do that last office for the +dead, would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole. + +So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the +livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly +noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the +barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come +to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished +bone of the sperm whale’s jaw. “Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,” said +the old Gay-Head Indian once; “but like his dismasted craft, he shipped +another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of ’em.” + +I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of +the Pequod’s quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, +there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the +plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and +holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out +beyond the ship’s ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest +fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and +fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor +did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest +gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not +painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not +only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion +in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some +mighty woe. + +Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. +But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either +standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or +heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to +grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if, +when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry +bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it +came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, +for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he +seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only +making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling +preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so +that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite +Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that +layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose +the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. + +Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the +pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him +from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and +May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, +ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some +few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, +in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish +air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, +which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. + + +CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb. + +Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went +rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost +perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the +Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, +redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped +up—flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights +seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely +pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted +suns! For sleeping man, ’twas hard to choose between such winsome days +and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning +weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward +world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild +hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice +most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more +and more they wrought on Ahab’s texture. + +Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less +man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders, +the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the +night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he +seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits +were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. “It feels +like going down into one’s tomb,”—he would mutter to himself—“for an +old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my +grave-dug berth.” + +So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were +set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below; +and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors +flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt +it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when +this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the +silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old +man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled +way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like +these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because +to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory +heel, such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony +step, that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of +sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; +and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from +taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, +with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if +Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say +nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting +something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the +insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know +Ahab then. + +“Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab, “that thou wouldst wad me that +fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; +where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at +last.—Down, dog, and kennel!” + +Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly +scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, +“I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half +like it, sir.” + +“Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, +as if to avoid some passionate temptation. + +“No, sir; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, “I will not tamely be +called a dog, sir.” + +“Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, +or I’ll clear the world of thee!” + +As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors +in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. + +“I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,” +muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. “It’s +very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don’t well know whether to go +back and strike him, or—what’s that?—down here on my knees and pray for +him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the +first time I ever _did_ pray. It’s queer; very queer; and he’s queer +too; aye, take him fore and aft, he’s about the queerest old man Stubb +ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!—his eyes like powder-pans! is +he mad? Anyway there’s something on his mind, as sure as there must be +something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, +more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don’t sleep then. +Didn’t that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always +finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the +sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and +the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on +it? A hot old man! I guess he’s got what some folks ashore call a +conscience; it’s a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say—worse nor a +toothache. Well, well; I don’t know what it is, but the Lord keep me +from catching it. He’s full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the +after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what’s +that for, I should like to know? Who’s made appointments with him in +the hold? Ain’t that queer, now? But there’s no telling, it’s the old +game—Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it’s worth a fellow’s while to be +born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think +of it, that’s about the first thing babies do, and that’s a sort of +queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ’em. +But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh +commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth—So here goes again. +But how’s that? didn’t he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times +a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of _that!_ He might as +well have kicked me, and done with it. Maybe he _did_ kick me, and I +didn’t observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It +flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil’s the matter with me? I +don’t stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort +of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, +though—How? how? how?—but the only way’s to stash it; so here goes to +hammock again; and in the morning, I’ll see how this plaguey juggling +thinks over by daylight.” + + +CHAPTER 30. The Pipe. + +When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the +bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a +sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also +his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool +on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. + +In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were +fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could +one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without +bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, +and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab. + +Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth +in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. “How +now,” he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no +longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be +gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and +ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with +such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were +the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this +pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white +vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like +mine. I’ll smoke no more—” + +He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the +waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe +made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks. + + +CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab. + +Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. + +“Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man’s +ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to +kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And +then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept +kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask—you know how +curious all dreams are—through all this rage that I was in, I somehow +seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an +insult, that kick from Ahab. ‘Why,’ thinks I, ‘what’s the row? It’s not +a real leg, only a false leg.’ And there’s a mighty difference between +a living thump and a dead thump. That’s what makes a blow from the +hand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. +The living member—that makes the living insult, my little man. And +thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly +toes against that cursed pyramid—so confoundedly contradictory was it +all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, ‘what’s his leg +now, but a cane—a whalebone cane. Yes,’ thinks I, ‘it was only a +playful cudgelling—in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me—not a +base kick. Besides,’ thinks I, ‘look at it once; why, the end of it—the +foot part—what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed +farmer kicked me, _there’s_ a devilish broad insult. But this insult is +whittled down to a point only.’ But now comes the greatest joke of the +dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of +badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the +shoulders, and slews me round. ‘What are you ’bout?’ says he. Slid! +man, but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was +over the fright. ‘What am I about?’ says I at last. ‘And what business +is that of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do _you_ want a +kick?’ By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned +round his stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he +had for a clout—what do you think, I saw?—why thunder alive, man, his +stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on +second thoughts, ‘I guess I won’t kick you, old fellow.’ ‘Wise Stubb,’ +said he, ‘wise Stubb;’ and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of +eating of his own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn’t going to +stop saying over his ‘wise Stubb, wise Stubb,’ I thought I might as +well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my +foot for it, when he roared out, ‘Stop that kicking!’ ‘Halloa,’ says I, +‘what’s the matter now, old fellow?’ ‘Look ye here,’ says he; ‘let’s +argue the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he did,’ +says I—‘right _here_ it was.’ ‘Very good,’ says he—‘he used his ivory +leg, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he did,’ says I. ‘Well then,’ says he, ‘wise +Stubb, what have you to complain of? Didn’t he kick with right good +will? it wasn’t a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you +were kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It’s +an honor; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England +the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and +made garter-knights of; but, be _your_ boast, Stubb, that ye were +kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; _be_ +kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kick back; +for you can’t help yourself, wise Stubb. Don’t you see that pyramid?’ +With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to +swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my +hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask?” + +“I don’t know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.’” + +“May be; may be. But it’s made a wise man of me, Flask. D’ye see Ahab +standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing +you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him, +whatever he says. Halloa! What’s that he shouts? Hark!” + +“Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts! + +“If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him! + +“What do you think of that now, Flask? ain’t there a small drop of +something queer about that, eh? A white whale—did ye mark that, man? +Look ye—there’s something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask. +Ahab has that that’s bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes this way.” + + +CHAPTER 32. Cetology. + +Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost +in its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere +the Pequod’s weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of +the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter +almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the +more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which +are to follow. + +It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, +that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The +classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here +essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down. + +“No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled +Cetology,” says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820. + +“It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry +as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families. +* * * Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal” +(sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839. + +“Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters.” +“Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea.” “A field +strewn with thorns.” “All these incomplete indications but serve to +torture us naturalists.” + +Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson, +those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real +knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in +some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are +the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at +large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:—The Authors +of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner; +Ray; Linnæus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; +Marten; Lacépède; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick +Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; +the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to +what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above +cited extracts will show. + +Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen +ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional +harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate +subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing +authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great +sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy +mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper +upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of +the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the +profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the +then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to +this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats +and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference +to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past +days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was +to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a +new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,—the +Greenland whale is deposed,—the great sperm whale now reigneth! + +There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the +living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest +degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale’s and Bennett’s; +both in their time surgeons to English South-Sea whale-ships, and both +exact and reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to +be found in their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes, +it is of excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific +description. As yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, +lives not complete in any literature. Far above all other hunted +whales, his is an unwritten life. + +Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular +comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the +present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent +laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I +hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; +because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very +reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical +description of the various species, or—in this place at least—to much +of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of +a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. + +But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the +Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea +after them; to have one’s hands among the unspeakable foundations, +ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I +that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful +tauntings in Job might well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a +covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam +through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with +whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There +are some preliminaries to settle. + +First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology +is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it +still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of +Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnæus declares, “I hereby separate the whales from +the fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, +sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnæus’s express edict, +were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the +Leviathan. + +The grounds upon which Linnæus would fain have banished the whales from +the waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular +heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem +intrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege naturæ jure +meritoque.” I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley +Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and +they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether +insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. + +Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned +ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. +This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal +respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnæus has given +you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood; +whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded. + +Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as +conspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a +whale is _a spouting fish with a horizontal tail_. There you have him. +However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded +meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a +fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is +still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have +noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a +vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, +though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal +position. + +By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude +from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified +with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other +hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as +alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish +must be included in this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the +grand divisions of the entire whale host. + +*I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and +Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are +included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish +are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, +and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny +their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their +passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology. + +First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary +BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them +all, both small and large. + +I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE. + +As the type of the FOLIO I present the _Sperm Whale_; of the OCTAVO, +the _Grampus_; of the DUODECIMO, the _Porpoise_. + +FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:—I. The +_Sperm Whale_; II. the _Right Whale_; III. the _Fin-Back Whale_; IV. +the _Hump-backed Whale_; V. the _Razor Back Whale_; VI. the _Sulphur +Bottom Whale_. + +BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER I. (_Sperm Whale_).—This whale, among the +English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter +whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the +French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the +Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; +the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in +aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the +only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is +obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged +upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically +considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was +almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil +was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days +spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a +creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland +or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was +that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable +of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was +exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment +and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you +nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of +time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was +still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a +notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation +must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this +spermaceti was really derived. + +BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER II. (_Right Whale_).—In one respect this is +the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly +hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or +baleen; and the oil specially known as “whale oil,” an inferior article +in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by +all the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black +Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a +deal of obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus +multitudinously baptised. What then is the whale, which I include in +the second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the +English naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; the +Baleine Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the +Swedes. It is the whale which for more than two centuries past has been +hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale +which the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on +the Brazil Banks, on the Nor’ West Coast, and various other parts of +the world, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds. + +Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the +English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree +in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single +determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by +endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that +some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. +The right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with +reference to elucidating the sperm whale. + +BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER III. (_Fin-Back_).—Under this head I reckon +a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and +Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale +whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the +Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and +in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less +portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great +lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting +folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, +from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin +is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder +part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed +end. Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, +this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the +surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with +spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows +upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery +circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and +wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes +back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some +men are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly +rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his +straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear +upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in +swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan seems +the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark +that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the +Fin-Back is sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic +species denominated _Whalebone whales_, that is, whales with baleen. Of +these so called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be several +varieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broad-nosed whales +and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched whales; under-jawed +whales and rostrated whales, are the fishermen’s names for a few sorts. + +In connection with this appellative of “Whalebone whales,” it is of +great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be +convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is +in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded +upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that +those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to +afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other +detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. +How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose +peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, +without any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in +other and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the +humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases. +Then, this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these +has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the +same with the other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales, +they form such irregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of +them detached, such an irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all +general methodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one +of the whale-naturalists has split. + +But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the +whale, in his anatomy—there, at least, we shall be able to hit the +right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the +Greenland whale’s anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have +seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the +Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various +leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as +available to the systematizer as those external ones already +enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales +bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. +And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only +one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed. + +BOOK I. (_Folio_) CHAPTER IV. (_Hump Back_).—This whale is often seen +on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, +and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or +you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the +popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the +sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very +valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of +all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any +other of them. + +BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER V. (_Razor Back_).—Of this whale little is +known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a +retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no +coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which +rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor +does anybody else. + +BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER VI. (_Sulphur Bottom_).—Another retiring +gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the +Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; +at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and +then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is +never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are +told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true +of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. + +Thus ends BOOK I. (_Folio_), and now begins BOOK II. (_Octavo_). + +OCTAVOES.*—These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which +present may be numbered:—I., the _Grampus_; II., the _Black Fish_; +III., the _Narwhale_; IV., the _Thrasher_; V., the _Killer_. + +*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. +Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of +the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them +in figure, yet the bookbinder’s Quarto volume in its dimensioned form +does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume +does. + +BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER I. (_Grampus_).—Though this fish, whose +loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to +landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not +popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand +distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised +him for one. He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to +twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the +waist. He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil +is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light. By some +fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the +great sperm whale. + +BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER II. (_Black Fish_).—I give the popular +fishermen’s names for all these fish, for generally they are the best. +Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, and +suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called, +because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the +Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known, and from the +circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he +carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale +averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost +all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin +in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more +profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the +Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic +employment—as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and +quite alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. +Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you +upwards of thirty gallons of oil. + +BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER III. (_Narwhale_), that is, _Nostril +whale_.—Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose +from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The +creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five +feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly +speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw +in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found +on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner +something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What +precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to +say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and +bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for +a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin +said it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the +surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his +horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these +surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided +horn may really be used by the Narwhale—however that may be—it would +certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. +The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, +and the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the +Unicornism to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From +certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same +sea-unicorn’s horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote +against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. +It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same +way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. +Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. +Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that +voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him +from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the +Thames; “when Sir Martin returned from that voyage,” saith Black +Letter, “on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long +horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle +at Windsor.” An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on +bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn, +pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature. + +The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a +milk-white ground colour, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. +His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, +and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas. + +BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER IV. (_Killer_).—Of this whale little is +precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed +naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say +that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage—a sort of +Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and +hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. +The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. +Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the +ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on +sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included. + +BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER V. (_Thrasher_).—This gentleman is famous +for his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He +mounts the Folio whale’s back, and as he swims, he works his passage by +flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar +process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both +are outlaws, even in the lawless seas. + + Thus ends BOOK II. (_Octavo_), and begins BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_). + +DUODECIMOES.—These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. +II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise. + +To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may +possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five +feet should be marshalled among WHALES—a word, which, in the popular +sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set down +above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my +definition of what a whale is—_i.e._ a spouting fish, with a horizontal +tail. + +BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER 1. (_Huzza Porpoise_).—This is the +common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own +bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something +must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always +swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing +themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their +appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of +fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. +They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted +a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding +these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly +gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield +you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid +extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among +jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise meat +is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a +porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very +readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; +and you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature. + +BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER II. (_Algerine Porpoise_).—A pirate. +Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat +larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make. +Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many +times, but never yet saw him captured. + +BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER III. (_Mealy-mouthed Porpoise_).—The +largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as it +is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been +designated, is that of the fishers—Right-Whale Porpoise, from the +circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In +shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a +less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and +gentleman-like figure. He has no fins on his back (most other porpoises +have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel +hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils all. Though his entire back down to his +side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark +in a ship’s hull, called the “bright waist,” that line streaks him from +stem to stern, with two separate colours, black above and white below. +The white comprises part of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which +makes him look as if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a +meal-bag. A most mean and mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of +the common porpoise. + + * * * * * * + +Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as the +Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the +Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive, +half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by +reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their +fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to +future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If +any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then +he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his +Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:—The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk +Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the +Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; +the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic, +Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists +of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I +omit them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them +for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. + +Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be +here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have +kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus +unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the +crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small +erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true +ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever +completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the +draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! + + +CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder. + +Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place +as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising +from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown +of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet. + +The large importance attached to the harpooneer’s vocation is evinced +by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries +and more ago, the command of a whale ship was not wholly lodged in the +person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an +officer called the Specksnyder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; +usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In +those days, the captain’s authority was restricted to the navigation +and general management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting +department and all its concerns, the Specksnyder or Chief Harpooneer +reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted +title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but +his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as +senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain’s more +inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the +harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since +in the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the +boat, but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling +ground) the command of the ship’s deck is also his; therefore the grand +political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart +from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their +professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as +their social equal. + +Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is +this—the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and +merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and +so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in +the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in +the captain’s cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with +it. + +Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest +of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and +the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high +or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their +common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and +hard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a +less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind +how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some +primitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious +externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, +and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in +which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated +grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost as +much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the +shabbiest of pilot-cloth. + +And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least +given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only homage +he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience; though he +required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon the +quarter-deck; and though there were times when, owing to peculiar +circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he +addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or _in +terrorem_, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means +unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea. + +Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind +those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself; +incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than +they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of +his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested; +through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an +irresistible dictatorship. For be a man’s intellectual superiority what +it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over +other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and +entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. +This it is, that for ever keeps God’s true princes of the Empire from +the world’s hustings; and leaves the highest honors that this air can +give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite +inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than +through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass. +Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political +superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to idiot +imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of +Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an +imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the +tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would +depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing, +ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one +now alluded to. + +But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket +grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and +Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old +whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings +and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it +must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and +featured in the unbodied air! + + +CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table. + +It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale +loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord +and master; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking +an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on +the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on +the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the +tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But +presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to the +deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, “Dinner, Mr. +Starbuck,” disappears into the cabin. + +When the last echo of his sultan’s step has died away, and Starbuck, +the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then +Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, +and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of +pleasantness, “Dinner, Mr. Stubb,” and descends the scuttle. The second +Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the +main brace, to see whether it will be all right with that important +rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid “Dinner, +Mr. Flask,” follows after his predecessors. + +But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, +seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all +sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his +shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right +over the Grand Turk’s head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching +his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so +far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other +processions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into +the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, +then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab’s presence, +in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave. + +It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense +artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck +some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and +defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those +very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that +same commander’s cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say +deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of the +table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this +difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of +Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously, +therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he +who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own +private dinner-table of invited guests, that man’s unchallenged power +and dominion of individual influence for the time; that man’s royalty +of state transcends Belshazzar’s, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. +Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Cæsar. +It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. +Now, if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a +ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that +peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned. + +Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion +on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still +deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be +served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, +there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, +their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man’s knife, as he carved +the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they +would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even +upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his +knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab +thereby motioned Starbuck’s plate towards him, the mate received his +meat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little +started if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed +it noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like +the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor +profoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals +were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old +Ahab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief +it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold +below. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy +of this weary family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; +his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help +himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the +first degree. Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never +more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world; +nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask +helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it. +Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he +thought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on account of its +clotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so +long a voyage in such marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and +therefore was not for him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! +was a butterless man! + +Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask +is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask’s dinner was badly +jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him; +and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb +even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small +appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask +must bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that +day; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the +deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever +since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he +had never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. +For what he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal +in him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed +from my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of +old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before +the mast. There’s the fruits of promotion now; there’s the vanity of +glory: there’s the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any +mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask’s +official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample +vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask +through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before +awful Ahab. + +Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table +in the Pequod’s cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted +order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was +restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the +three harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary +legatees. They made a sort of temporary servants’ hall of the high and +mighty cabin. + +In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless +invisible domineerings of the captain’s table, was the entire care-free +license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior +fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid +of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed +their food with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined +like lords; they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading +with spices. Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that +to fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale +Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly +quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he +did not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an +ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, +harpoon-wise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted +Dough-Boy’s memory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head +into a great empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, +began laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was +naturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this +bread-faced steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital +nurse. And what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, +and the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages, +Dough-Boy’s whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after +seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he +would escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and +fearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all was +over. + +It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing +his filed teeth to the Indian’s: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on +the floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the +low carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low +cabin framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in +a ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, +not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively +small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so +broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage +fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through +his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by +beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a +mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating—an ugly sound enough—so +much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any +marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear +Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might +be picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery +hanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor +did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for +their lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, +they would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did +not at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget +that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been +guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! Dough-Boy! +hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin +should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his +great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to +his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling +in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards. + +But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived +there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were +scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time, +when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters. + +In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale +captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights +the ship’s cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that +anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth, +the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to +have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it +was something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards for a +moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing, +residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin +was no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally +included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He +lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled +Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan +of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the +winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old +age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed +upon the sullen paws of its gloom! + + +CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head. + +It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the +other seamen my first mast-head came round. + +In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost +simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; even though she may +have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper +cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years’ voyage she +is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her—say, an empty vial +even—then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her +skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether +relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more. + +Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a +very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate +here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old +Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. +For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by +their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia, +or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great +stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the +dread gale of God’s wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel +builders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a +nation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general +belief among archæologists, that the first pyramids were founded for +astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar +stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with +prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were +wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the +look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing +in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, +who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole +latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the +ground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a +dauntless stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his +place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing +everything out to the last, literally died at his post. Of modern +standers-of-mast-heads we have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, +and bronze men; who, though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, +are still entirely incompetent to the business of singing out upon +discovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of +the column of Vendome, stands with arms folded, some one hundred and +fifty feet in the air; careless, now, who rules the decks below; +whether Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great +Washington, too, stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in +Baltimore, and like one of Hercules’ pillars, his column marks that +point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral +Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in +Trafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that London smoke, +token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for where there is +smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor +Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to +befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze; +however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the +thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be +shunned. + +It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head +standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is not +so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole +historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us, +that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly +launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected +lofty spars along the sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascended by +means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. +A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New +Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned +boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we +then to the one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The +three mast-heads are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen +taking their regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other +every two hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly +pleasant the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is +delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, +striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while +beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters +of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous +Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of +the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship +indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you +into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime +uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras +with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into +unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt +securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what +you shall have for dinner—for all your meals for three years and more +are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable. + +In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years’ +voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the +mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be +deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion +of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of +anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a +comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, +a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small +and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your +most usual point of perch is the head of the t’ gallant-mast, where you +stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) +called the t’ gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the +beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull’s horns. To +be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in +the shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest +watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul +is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about +in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing +(like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a +watch-coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or +additional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of +drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenient closet of +your watch-coat. + +Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a +southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or +pulpits, called _crow’s-nests_, in which the look-outs of a Greenland +whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In +the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled “A Voyage among the +Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the +re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;” in this +admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a +charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented +_crow’s-nest_ of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet’s +good craft. He called it the _Sleet’s crow’s-nest_, in honor of +himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all +ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children +after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and +patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other +apparatus we may beget. In shape, the Sleet’s crow’s-nest is something +like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is +furnished with a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head +in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into +it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or +side next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker +underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather +rack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and +other nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his +mast-head in this crow’s-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a +rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask +and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or +vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot +successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the +water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it +was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, +all the little detailed conveniences of his crow’s-nest; but though he +so enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very +scientific account of his experiments in this crow’s-nest, with a small +compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors +resulting from what is called the “local attraction” of all binnacle +magnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in +the ship’s planks, and in the Glacier’s case, perhaps, to there having +been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though +the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his +learned “binnacle deviations,” “azimuth compass observations,” and +“approximate errors,” he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was +not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail +being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little +case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow’s nest, within +easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and +even love the brave, the honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it +very ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle, +seeing what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while +with mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the mathematics +aloft there in that bird’s nest within three or four perches of the +pole. + +But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as +Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is +greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those +seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used +to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a +chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there; +then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the +top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so +at last mount to my ultimate destination. + +Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept +but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how +could I—being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering +altitude—how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all +whale-ships’ standing orders, “Keep your weather eye open, and sing out +every time.” + +And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of +Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with +lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who +offers to ship with the Phædon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware +of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be +killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes +round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor +are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery +furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded +young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking +sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches +himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, +and in moody phrase ejaculates:— + + +“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand +blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.” + + + +Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young +philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient +“interest” in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost +to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would +rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young +Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are +short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have +left their opera-glasses at home. + +“Why, thou monkey,” said a harpooneer to one of these lads, “we’ve been +cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale +yet. Whales are scarce as hen’s teeth whenever thou art up here.” +Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in +the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of +vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending +cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; +takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, +blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, +half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every +dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him +the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by +continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit +ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; +like Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of +every shore the round globe over. + +There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a +gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from +the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on +ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your +identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And +perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled +shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no +more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists! + + +CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck. + +(_Enter Ahab: Then, all._) + +It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning +shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the +cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that +hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in +the garden. + +Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old +rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over +dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did +you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, +you would see still stranger foot-prints—the foot-prints of his one +unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. + +But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his +nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his +thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the +main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought +turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely +possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of +every outer movement. + +“D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him pecks +the shell. ’Twill soon be out.” + +The hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the +deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect. + +It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the +bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and +with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody +aft. + +“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on +ship-board except in some extraordinary case. + +“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast-heads, there! come down!” + +When the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious and not +wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike +the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly +glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, +started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him +resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched +hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among +the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have +summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. +But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:— + +“What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?” + +“Sing out for him!” was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed +voices. + +“Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the +hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically +thrown them. + +“And what do ye next, men?” + +“Lower away, and after him!” + +“And what tune is it ye pull to, men?” + +“A dead whale or a stove boat!” + +More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the +countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to +gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they +themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. + +But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his +pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, +almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:— + +“All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white +whale. Look ye! d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding up a +broad bright coin to the sun—“it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D’ye +see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul.” + +While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was +slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if +to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly +humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and +inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his +vitality in him. + +Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast +with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the +other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises +me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; +whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes +punctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me +that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!” + +“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they +hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. + +“It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the +topmaul: “a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for +white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.” + +All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even +more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of +the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was +separately touched by some specific recollection. + +“Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same that +some call Moby Dick.” + +“Moby Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?” + +“Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?” said the +Gay-Header deliberately. + +“And has he a curious spout, too,” said Daggoo, “very bushy, even for a +parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?” + +“And he have one, two, three—oh! good many iron in him hide, too, +Captain,” cried Queequeg disjointedly, “all twiske-tee be-twisk, like +him—him—” faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and +round as though uncorking a bottle—“like him—him—” + +“Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted +and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole +shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the +great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a +split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have +seen—Moby Dick—Moby Dick!” + +“Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far +been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed +struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. “Captain +Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick—but it was not Moby Dick that took off +thy leg?” + +“Who told thee that?” cried Ahab; then pausing, “Aye, Starbuck; aye, my +hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that +brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye,” he shouted +with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; +“Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razed me; made a poor +pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!” Then tossing both arms, with +measureless imprecations he shouted out: “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him +round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, +and round perdition’s flames before I give him up. And this is what ye +have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, +and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin +out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do +look brave.” + +“Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the +excited old man: “A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for +Moby Dick!” + +“God bless ye,” he seemed to half sob and half shout. “God bless ye, +men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what’s this long +face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not +game for Moby Dick?” + +“I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain +Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I +came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. How many +barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain +Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.” + +“Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a +little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the +accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by +girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, +let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium _here!_” + +“He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for? methinks it +rings most vast, but hollow.” + +“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee +from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, +Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.” + +“Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, +are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the +undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth +the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man +will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach +outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is +that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. +But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous +strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable +thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the +white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me +of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the +sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of +fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my +master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no +confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is +a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted +thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that +thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small +indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder +Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by +the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping things, +that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! +The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this +matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he +snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one +tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ’Tis but to +help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From +this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely +he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a +whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! +Speak, but speak!—Aye, aye! thy silence, then, _that_ voices thee. +(_Aside_) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in +his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without +rebellion.” + +“God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly. + +But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab +did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the +hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; nor +yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment +their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up +with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the +winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as +before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? +But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so +much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things +within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost +necessities in our being, these still drive us on. + +“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab. + +Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he +ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him +near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three +mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s +company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant +searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, +as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their +leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, +alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian. + +“Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the +nearest seaman. “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short +draughts—long swallows, men; ’tis hot as Satan’s hoof. So, so; it goes +round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the +serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this +way it comes. Hand it me—here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so +brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill! + +“Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and +ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there +with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some +sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, +you will yet see that—Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. +Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wer’t not +thou St. Vitus’ imp—away, thou ague! + +“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me +touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three +level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, +suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from +Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some +nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the +same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own +magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, +and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest +eye of Starbuck fell downright. + +“In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three but +once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, _that_ +had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped +ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do +appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there—yon three +most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain +the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using +his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, +_that_ shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your +seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!” + +Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the +detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs +up, before him. + +“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye +not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, +advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” Forthwith, +slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon +sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter. + +“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow +them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! +Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon +it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the +deathful whaleboat’s bow—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do +not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were +lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the +spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, +and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished +pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; when, waving his free +hand to them, they all dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin. + + +CHAPTER 37. Sunset. + +_The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out_. + +I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I +sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; +but first I pass. + +Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. +The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes +down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, +the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it +bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but +darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. ’Tis iron—that +I know—not gold. ’Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me +so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, +mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! + +Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred +me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not +me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy. Gifted +with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most +subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good +night—good night! (_waving his hand, he moves from the window_.) + +’Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; +but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they +revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all +stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the +match itself must needs be wasting! What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and +what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m +demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to +comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; +and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my +dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s +more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye +cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I +will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own +size; don’t pommel _me!_ No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; +but _ye_ have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! +I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come +and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye +swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed +purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. +Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under +torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an +angle to the iron way! + + +CHAPTER 38. Dusk. + +_By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it_. + +My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a madman! +Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But +he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I +see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill +I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have +no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he +would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! +Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse +yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe +would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow +wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the +small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God +may wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole +clock’s run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to +lift again. + +[_A burst of revelry from the forecastle_.] + +Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of +human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white +whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is +forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. +Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, +bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods +within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, +and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills +me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! ’tis in +an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,—as wild, +untutored things are forced to feed—Oh, life! ’tis now that I do feel +the latent horror in thee! but ’tis not me! that horror’s out of me! +and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight +ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye +blessed influences! + + +CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch. + +Fore-Top. + +(_Stubb solus, and mending a brace_.) + +Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!—I’ve been thinking over it ever +since, and that ha, ha’s the final consequence. Why so? Because a +laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what +will, one comfort’s always left—that unfailing comfort is, it’s all +predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor +eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure +the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the +gift, might readily have prophesied it—for when I clapped my eye upon +his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, _wise_ Stubb—that’s my title—well, +Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here’s a carcase. I know not all that may be +coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Such a waggish +leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, +skirra! What’s my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes +out?—Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as +a frigate’s pennant, and so am I—fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh— + + +We’ll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting +As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim, And break on the lips while +meeting. + + + +A brave stave that—who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir—(_Aside_) +he’s my superior, he has his too, if I’m not mistaken.—Aye, aye, sir, +just through with this job—coming. + + +CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle. + +HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS. + +(_Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, +and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus_.) + + + Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you, + ladies of Spain! Our captain’s commanded.— + + + +1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don’t be sentimental; it’s bad for the +digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! + +(_Sings, and all follow._) + + + Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of + those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your + boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we’ll have one of those + fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads! may your + hearts never fail! While the bold harpooner is striking the whale! + + + +MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there, forward! + +2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d’ye hear, +bell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me +call the watch. I’ve the sort of mouth for that—the hogshead mouth. So, +so, (_thrusts his head down the scuttle_,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y! +Eight bells there below! Tumble up! + +DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark +this in our old Mogul’s wine; it’s quite as deadening to some as +filliping to others. We sing; they sleep—aye, lie down there, like +ground-tier butts. At ’em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail +’em through it. Tell ’em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell ’em +it’s the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment. +That’s the way—_that’s_ it; thy throat ain’t spoiled with eating +Amsterdam butter. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let’s have a jig or two before we ride to +anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand +by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine! + +PIP. (_Sulky and sleepy._) Don’t know where it is. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I +say; merry’s the word; hurrah! Damn me, won’t you dance? Form, now, +Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves! +Legs! legs! + +ICELAND SAILOR. I don’t like your floor, maty; it’s too springy to my +taste. I’m used to ice-floors. I’m sorry to throw cold water on the +subject; but excuse me. + +MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where’s your girls? Who but a fool would take +his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d’ye do? Partners! +I must have partners! + +SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a green!—then I’ll hop with ye; yea, +turn grasshopper! + +LONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there’s plenty more of us. +Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here +comes the music; now for it! + +AZORE SAILOR. (_Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the +scuttle_.) Here you are, Pip; and there’s the windlass-bitts; up you +mount! Now, boys! (_The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go +below; some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty_.) + +AZORE SAILOR. (_Dancing_) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig +it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers! + +PIP. Jinglers, you say?—there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so. + +CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of +thyself. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through +it! Split jibs! tear yourselves! + +TASHTEGO. (_Quietly smoking._) That’s a white man; he calls that fun: +humph! I save my sweat. + +OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what +they are dancing over. I’ll dance over your grave, I will—that’s the +bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round +corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled +crews! Well, well; belike the whole world’s a ball, as you scholars +have it; and so ’tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, +you’re young; I was once. + +3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!—whew! this is worse than pulling after +whales in a calm—give us a whiff, Tash. + +(_They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky +darkens—the wind rises_.) + +LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it’ll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, +high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva! + +MALTESE SAILOR. (_Reclining and shaking his cap_.) It’s the waves—the +snow’s caps turn to jig it now. They’ll shake their tassels soon. Now +would all the waves were women, then I’d go drown, and chassee with +them evermore! There’s naught so sweet on earth—heaven may not match +it!—as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the +over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes. + +SICILIAN SAILOR. (_Reclining_.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad—fleet +interlacings of the limbs—lithe swayings—coyings—flutterings! lip! +heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, +else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (_Nudging_.) + +TAHITAN SAILOR. (_Reclining on a mat_.) Hail, holy nakedness of our +dancing girls!—the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I +still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven +in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn +and wilted quite. Ah me!—not thou nor I can bear the change! How then, +if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from +Pirohitee’s peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the +villages?—The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (_Leaps to his +feet_.) + +PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing ’gainst the side! Stand +by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell +they’ll go lunging presently. + +DANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou +holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He’s no more +afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic +with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes! + +4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab +tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a +waterspout with a pistol—fire your ship right into it! + +ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man’s a grand old cove! We are the +lads to hunt him up his whale! + +ALL. Aye! aye! + +OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort +of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there’s none +but the crew’s cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort +of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at +sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there’s another +in the sky—lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black. + +DAGGOO. What of that? Who’s afraid of black’s afraid of me! I’m +quarried out of it! + +SPANISH SAILOR. (_Aside_.) He wants to bully, ah!—the old grudge makes +me touchy (_Advancing_.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable +dark side of mankind—devilish dark at that. No offence. + +DAGGOO (_grimly_). None. + +ST. JAGO’S SAILOR. That Spaniard’s mad or drunk. But that can’t be, or +else in his one case our old Mogul’s fire-waters are somewhat long in +working. + +5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What’s that I saw—lightning? Yes. + +SPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing his teeth. + +DAGGOO (_springing_). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver! + +SPANISH SAILOR (_meeting him_). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small +spirit! + +ALL. A row! a row! a row! + +TASHTEGO (_with a whiff_). A row a’low, and a row aloft—Gods and +men—both brawlers! Humph! + +BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! +Plunge in with ye! + +ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard’s knife! A ring, a ring! + +OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring +Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad’st +thou the ring? + +MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the halyards! in +top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails! + +ALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (_They scatter_.) + +PIP (_shrinking under the windlass_). Jollies? Lord help such jollies! +Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, +Pip, here comes the royal yard! It’s worse than being in the whirled +woods, the last day of the year! Who’d go climbing after chestnuts now? +But there they go, all cursing, and here I don’t. Fine prospects to +’em; they’re on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a +squall! But those chaps there are worse yet—they are your white +squalls, they. White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I +heard all their chat just now, and the white whale—shirr! shirr!—but +spoken of once! and only this evening—it makes me jingle all over like +my tambourine—that anaconda of an old man swore ’em in to hunt him! Oh, +thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on +this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no +bowels to feel fear! + + +CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick. + +I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; +my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more +did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A +wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud +seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous +monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of +violence and revenge. + +For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied, +secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly +frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of +his existence; only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen +him; while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given +battle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of +whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire +watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest +along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth +or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any +sort; the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity +of the times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, +direct and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole +world-wide whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings +concerning Moby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels +reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or +such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, +which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had +completely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfair +presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no other +than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked +by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and +malice in the monster attacked; therefore it was, that those who by +accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, +for the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, +more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, +than to the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous +encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly +regarded. + +And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance +caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one +of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any +other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue +in these assaults—not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken +limbs, or devouring amputations—but fatal to the last degree of +fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and +piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake +the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White +Whale had eventually come. + +Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more +horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do +fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising +terrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in +maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors +abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to. +And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery +surpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and +fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only +are whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and +superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they +are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is +appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its +greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such +remotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a +thousand shores, you would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or +aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; in such latitudes and +longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is +wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many +a mighty birth. + +No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over +the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in +the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and +half-formed fœtal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which +eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything +that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally +strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White +Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his +jaw. + +But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. +Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm +Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the +leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are +those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous +enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would +perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or +timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there +are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not +sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered +the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is +restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; +seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish +fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern +whaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale +anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows +which stem him. + +And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former legendary +times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book +naturalists—Olassen and Povelson—declaring the Sperm Whale not only to +be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be +so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. +Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier’s, were these or almost +similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron +himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks +included) are “struck with the most lively terrors,” and “often in the +precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with +such violence as to cause instantaneous death.” And however the general +experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in +their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the +superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their +vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters. + +So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few +of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days +of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long +practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring +warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be +hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition +as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be +inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are +some remarkable documents that may be consulted. + +Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things +were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who, +chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the +specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious +accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if +offered. + +One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked +with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was +the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had +actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same +instant of time. + +Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit +altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as +the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, +even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm +Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to +his pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious +and contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning +the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he +transports himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant +points. + +It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and +as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, +that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose +bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland +seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has +been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could +not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been +believed by some whalemen, that the Nor’ West Passage, so long a +problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the +real living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old +times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there +was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the +surface); and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain +near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy +Land by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost +fully equalled by the realities of the whalemen. + +Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and +knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had +escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen +should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not +only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in +time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he +would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to +spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for +again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied +jet would once more be seen. + +But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in +the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike +the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his +uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, +but, as was elsewhere thrown out—a peculiar snow-white wrinkled +forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent +features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he +revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him. + +The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the +same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive +appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by +his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue +sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden +gleamings. + +Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his +deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural +terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to +specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. +More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than +perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, +with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known +to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their +boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship. + +Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar +disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in +the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale’s +infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death +that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an +unintelligent agent. + +Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of +his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed +boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the +white curds of the whale’s direful wrath into the serene, exasperating +sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal. + +His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the +eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had +dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly +seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the +whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping +his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away +Ahab’s leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, +no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming +malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that +almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness +against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness +he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but +all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam +before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious +agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left +living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity +which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern +Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of +the east reverenced in their statue devil;—Ahab did not fall down and +worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the +abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All +that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; +all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the +brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy +Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby +Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general +rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if +his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it. + +It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at +the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the +monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, +corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he +probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. +Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long +months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in +one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian +Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one +another; and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on +the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania +seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals +during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a +leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was +moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to +lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a +strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when +running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails +spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, +the old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn +swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and +air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, +and issued his calm orders once again; and his mates thanked God the +direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, +raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. +When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some +still subtler form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly +contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows +narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge. But, as in his +narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been +left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural +intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living +instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy +stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its +concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost +his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold +more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one +reasonable object. + +This is much; yet Ahab’s larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted. +But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding +far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where +we here stand—however grand and wonderful, now quit it;—and take your +way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; +where far beneath the fantastic towers of man’s upper earth, his root +of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique +buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken +throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he +patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of +ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that +proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young +exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old +State-secret come. + +Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means +are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or +change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long +dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling +was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. +Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when +with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him +otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the +terrible casualty which had overtaken him. + +The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly +ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which +always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the +present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely, +that far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on +account of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent +isle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons +he was all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full +of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and +scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable +idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart +his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes. +Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, +yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on +his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, +that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in +him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one +only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one +of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking +in him then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have +wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on +profitable cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the +mint. He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural +revenge. + +Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses +a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made +up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled +also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in +Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in +Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so +officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality +to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so +aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire—by what evil magic their +souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the +White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to +be—what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious +understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have +seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,—all this to +explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean +miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by +the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the +irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand +still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the +place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see +naught in that brute but the deadliest ill. + + +CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of the Whale. + +What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he +was to me, as yet remains unsaid. + +Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which +could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul some alarm, there +was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, +which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; +and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost +despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of +the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to +explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I +must, else all these chapters might be naught. + +Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, +as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, +japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way +recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, +grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” +above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the +modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the +royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a +snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Cæsarian, heir to +overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue; +and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, +giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and +though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of +gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and +though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is +made the emblem of many touching, noble things—the innocence of brides, +the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of +the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in +many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of +the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn +by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most +august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness +and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame +being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, +Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and +though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred +White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that +spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send +to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and +though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests +derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, +worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish +faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of +our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to +the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white +before the great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there +white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with +whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an +elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more +of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood. + +This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when +divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object +terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. +Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the +tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the +transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which +imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, +to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged +tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded +bear or shark.* + +*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who +would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the +whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable +hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, +it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the +irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the +fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together +two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us +with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; +yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified +terror. + +As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that +creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the +same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly +hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish +mass for the dead begins with “Requiem eternam” (eternal rest), whence +_Requiem_ denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music. +Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, +and the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him _Requin_. + +Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual +wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all +imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God’s great, +unflattering laureate, Nature.* + +*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged +gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch +below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the +main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and +with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its +vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous +flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered +cries, as some king’s ghost in supernatural distress. Through its +inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took +hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white +thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled +waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of +towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only +hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and +turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! +never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious +thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I +learned that goney was some seaman’s name for albatross. So that by no +possibility could Coleridge’s wild Rhyme have had aught to do with +those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon +our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to +be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a +little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet. + +I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird +chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in +this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey +albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such +emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl. + +But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will +tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea. +At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern +tally round its neck, with the ship’s time and place; and then letting +it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was +taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding, +the invoking, and adoring cherubim! + +Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the +White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, +large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a +thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the +elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those +days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At +their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which +every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his +mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more +resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A +most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western +world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the +glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, +bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid +his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly +streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his +circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White +Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through +his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to +the bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe. +Nor can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this +noble horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so +clothed him with divineness; and that this divineness had that in it +which, though commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain +nameless terror. + +But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that +accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and +Albatross. + +What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks +the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is +that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he +bears. The Albino is as well made as other men—has no substantive +deformity—and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him +more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be +so? + +Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but not +the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces this +crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the +gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White +Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice +omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of +that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their +faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the +market-place! + +Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all +mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It +cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of +the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering +there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of +consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And +from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the +shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail +to throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in +a milk-white fog—Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that +even the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on +his pallid horse. + +Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious +thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest +idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul. + +But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to +account for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by +the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of +whiteness—though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped +of all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful, +but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however +modified;—can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us +to the hidden cause we seek? + +Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety, +and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And +though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about +to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were +entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able +to recall them now. + +Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely +acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare +mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary, +speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded +with new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of +the Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White +Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul? + +Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and +kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White Tower +of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of an +untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its +neighbors—the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer +towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar +moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare +mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia’s Blue Ridge is +full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all +latitudes and longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a +spectralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with +mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves, +followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a +wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in +reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does “the tall pale man” +of the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides +through the green of the groves—why is this phantom more terrible than +all the whooping imps of the Blocksburg? + +Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling +earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the +tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide +field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop +(like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of +house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;—it +is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, +saddest city thou can’st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and +there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, +this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful +greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid +pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions. + +I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness +is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of +objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there +aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind +almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when +exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or +universality. What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be +respectively elucidated by the following examples. + +First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if +by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels +just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under +precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to +view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness—as if +from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming +round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded +phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in +vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm +they both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again. +Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, “Sir, it was not so much +the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous +whiteness that so stirred me?” + +Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the +snow-howdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the +mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast +altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be to +lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes. Much the same is it with the +backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an +unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig +to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding +the scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal +trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and +half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his +misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with +its lean ice monuments and splintered crosses. + +But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is +but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a +hypo, Ishmael. + +Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of +Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey—why is it that upon the +sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that +he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskiness—why +will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in +phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of +wild creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange +muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the +experience of former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, +of the black bisons of distant Oregon? + +No: but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the +knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from +Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring +bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the +prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into dust. + +Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings of +the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the +windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking +of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt! + +Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic +sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere +those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible +world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in +fright. + +But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and +learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange +and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most +meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the +Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent +in things the most appalling to mankind. + +Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids +and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the +thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky +way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as +the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all +colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, +full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour +of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory +of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately +or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, +and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of +young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent +in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified +Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover +nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and +consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her +hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless +in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all +objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—pondering all +this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful +travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring +glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at +the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And +of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at +the fiery hunt? + + +CHAPTER 43. Hark! + +“HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?” + +It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in +a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to +the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the +buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the +hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak +or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the +deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the +steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel. + +It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, +whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a +Cholo, the words above. + +“Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?” + +“Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d’ye mean?” + +“There it is again—under the hatches—don’t you hear it—a cough—it +sounded like a cough.” + +“Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket.” + +“There again—there it is!—it sounds like two or three sleepers turning +over, now!” + +“Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It’s the three soaked biscuits +ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye—nothing else. Look to the +bucket!” + +“Say what ye will, shipmate; I’ve sharp ears.” + +“Aye, you are the chap, ain’t ye, that heard the hum of the old +Quakeress’s knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you’re +the chap.” + +“Grin away; we’ll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody +down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I +suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell +Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the +wind.” + +“Tish! the bucket!” + + +CHAPTER 44. The Chart. + +Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that +took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his +purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the +transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea +charts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating +himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various +lines and shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady +pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At +intervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein +were set down the seasons and places in which, on various former +voyages of various ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen. + +While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his +head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever +threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till +it almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and +courses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing +lines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead. + +But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his +cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were +brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and +others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before +him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to +the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul. + +Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans, +it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary +creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it seem +to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby +calculating the driftings of the sperm whale’s food; and, also, calling +to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular +latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to +certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that +ground in search of his prey. + +So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the +sperm whale’s resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe +that, could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world; +were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully +collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to +correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the +flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made to construct +elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.* + + + *Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by + an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National + Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it + appears that precisely such a chart is in course of completion; and + portions of it are presented in the circular. “This chart divides the + ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of + longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve + columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of which + districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that have + been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to + show the number of days in which whales, sperm or right, have been + seen.” + + + + +Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the +sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct—say, rather, secret +intelligence from the Deity—mostly swim in _veins_, as they are called; +continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating +exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one +tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the +direction taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor’s parallel, +and though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own +unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary _vein_ in which at these +times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width +(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but +never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship’s mast-heads, when +circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at +particular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating +whales may with great confidence be looked for. + +And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate +feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing +the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his +art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be +wholly without prospect of a meeting. + +There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his +delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality, +perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons +for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the +herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year, +say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were +found there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and +unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In +general, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the +solitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that +though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what +is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on +the Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to +visit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she +would infallibly encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding +grounds, where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed +only his casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his +places of prolonged abode. And where Ahab’s chances of accomplishing +his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to +whatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a +particular set time or place were attained, when all possibilities +would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every +possibility the next thing to a certainty. That particular set time and +place were conjoined in the one technical phrase—the +Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, for several consecutive years, +Moby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for +awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted +interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of +the deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place; there the +waves were storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot +where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his +vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering +vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering +hunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one +crowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those +hopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his +unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest. + +Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the +Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her +commander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and +then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial +Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next +ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod’s sailing had, +perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very +complexion of things. Because, an interval of three hundred and +sixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval which, instead +of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt; +if by chance the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote +from his periodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow +off the Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any +other waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, +Nor’-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, +might blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the +Pequod’s circumnavigating wake. + +But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it +not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one +solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of +individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti +in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar +snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be +unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to +himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he +would throw himself back in reveries—tallied him, and shall he escape? +His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep’s ear! +And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a +weariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air +of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what +trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one +unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes +with his own bloody nails in his palms. + +Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid +dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through +the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them +round and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing +of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was +sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up +from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked +flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap +down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild +cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would +burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on +fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms +of some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the +plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the +scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab +that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to +burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living +principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated +from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its +outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the +scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it +was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless +leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab’s +case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme +purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced +itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent +being of its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common +vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the +unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that +glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, +was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, +a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to colour, and +therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts +have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus +makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that +vulture the very creature he creates. + + +CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit. + +So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, +as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious +particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in +its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this +volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and +more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, +and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of +the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity +of the main points of this affair. + +I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be +content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of +items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from +these citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally +follow of itself. + +First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after +receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an +interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the +same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same +private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where +three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I +think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted +them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to +Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far +into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, +often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with +all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of +unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been +on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, +brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. +This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the +other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; +that is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second +attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, +afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so +fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the +last time distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the +whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say +three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three +instances, then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard +of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there +is no good ground to impeach. + +Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant +the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable +historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at +distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became +thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily +peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar +in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his +peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly +valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences +of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about +such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most +fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their +tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, +without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some +poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they +make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they +pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump +for their presumption. + +But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual +celebrity—Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he +famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, +but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions +of a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Cæsar. Was it not +so, O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so +long did’st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was +oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand +Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the +vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, +whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white +cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, +marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In +plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of +Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar. + +But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various +times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were +finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed +by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that +express object as much in view, as in setting out through the +Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture +that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the +Indian King Philip. + +I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make +mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in +printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the +whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For +this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full +as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of +the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some +hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the +fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still +worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. + +First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general +perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid +conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. +One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters +and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at +home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you +suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by +the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to +the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan—do you suppose that +that poor fellow’s name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will +read to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very +irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what +might be called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I +tell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, +among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which +had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that +had each lost a boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical with your +lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of +man’s blood was spilled for it. + +Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale +is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that +when narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold +enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my +facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of +being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues of +Egypt. + +But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon +testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm +Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously +malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, +and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale _has_ done it. + +First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, +was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her +boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of +the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping +from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the +ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that +in less than “ten minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a +surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest +exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being +returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific +in command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon +unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly +lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. +At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen +Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; +I have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his +son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.* + +*The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed +to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which +directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at +a short interval between them, both of which, according to their +direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made +ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the +shock; to effect which, the exact manœuvres which he made were +necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated +resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just +before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as +if fired with revenge for their sufferings.” Again: “At all events, the +whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes, +and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided, +calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which +impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am +correct in my opinion.” + +Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a +black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any +hospitable shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the +fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon +hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful +contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the +dismal looking wreck, and _the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale_, +wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.” + +In another place—p. 45,—he speaks of “_the mysterious and mortal attack +of the animal_.” + +Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 +totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic +particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, +though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual +allusions to it. + +Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J——, then +commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be +dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in +the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, +the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength +ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily +denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout +sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very +good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set +sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on +the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’ +confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the +Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made +straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not +superstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s interview with that whale +as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a +similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense. + +I will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little circumstance +in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you +must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s +famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. +Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter: + +“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day +we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was +very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to +keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was +not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. +An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship +itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived +by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full +sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its +striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, +as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three +feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell +altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, +concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw +the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain +D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the +vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very +happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.” + +Now, the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in +question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual +adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of +Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I +have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. +He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large +one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my +uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home. + +In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, +too, of honest wonders—the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient +Dampier’s old chums—I found a little matter set down so like that just +quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a +corroborative example, if such be needed. + +Lionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Ferdinando,” as he calls the +modern Juan Fernandes. “In our way thither,” he says, “about four +o’clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty +leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which +put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where +they were or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. +And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for +granted the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was +a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground. * * +* * * The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their +carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. +Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his +cabin!” Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and +seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great +earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief +along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the +darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all +caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath. + +I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to +me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more +than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing +boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long +withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship +Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let +me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a +running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and +secured there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a +horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if +the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, +not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of +destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent +indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will +frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for +several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more +and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, +by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous +event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but +that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; +so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon—Verily there is +nothing new under the sun. + +In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate +of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and +Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own +times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he +has always been considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating +historian, except in some one or two particulars, not at all affecting +the matter presently to be mentioned. + +Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term +of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured +in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed +vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty +years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be +gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species +this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as +well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly +inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long +time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the +Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am +certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the +present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious +resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in +modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the +sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on +the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the +skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes +through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, +pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis. + +In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar +substance called _brit_ is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. +But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm +whale—squid or cuttle-fish—lurks at the bottom of that sea, because +large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been +found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements +together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, +according to all human reasoning, Procopius’s sea-monster, that for +half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all +probability have been a sperm whale. + + +CHAPTER 46. Surmises. + +Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his +thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby +Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that +one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and +long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether +to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if +this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more +influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even +considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the +White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all +sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he +multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would +prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be +indeed exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, +though not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling +passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him. + +To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in +the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, +for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was +over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual +man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual +mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in +a sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s coerced +will were Ahab’s, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck’s brain; +still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred +his captain’s quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself +from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would +elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck +would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his +captain’s leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial +influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle +insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly +manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing +that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that +strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the +full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure +background (for few men’s courage is proof against protracted +meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night +watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of +than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had +hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are +more or less capricious and unreliable—they live in the varying outer +weather, and they inhale its fickleness—and when retained for any +object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and +passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary +interests and employments should intervene and hold them healthily +suspended for the final dash. + +Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion +mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. +The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought +Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the +hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even +breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for +the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food +for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and +chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two +thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without +committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious +perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final +and romantic object—that final and romantic object, too many would have +turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of +all hopes of cash—aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some +months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this +same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would +soon cashier Ahab. + +Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related +to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps +somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the +Pequod’s voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he +had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of +usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew +if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further +obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From +even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible +consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must +of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection +could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand, +backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute +atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be +subjected to. + +For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be +verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good +degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s +voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force +himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general +pursuit of his profession. + +Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three +mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit +reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward. + + +CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker. + +It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging +about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters. +Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, +for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet +somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie +lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own +invisible self. + +I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I +kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the +long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as +Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword +between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly +and unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess +did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only +broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as +if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically +weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of +the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging +vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise +interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed +necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle +and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, +Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof +slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; +and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding +contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s +sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and +woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance—aye, chance, free +will, and necessity—nowise incompatible—all interweavingly working +together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its +ultimate course—its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending +to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; +and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of +necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though +thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the +last featuring blow at events. + +Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so +strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of +free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds +whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees +was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly +forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden +intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that +very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of +whalemen’s look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those +lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous +cadence as from Tashtego the Indian’s. + +As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and +eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some +prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries +announcing their coming. + +“There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!” + +“Where-away?” + +“On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!” + +Instantly all was commotion. + +The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and +reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from +other tribes of his genus. + +“There go flukes!” was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales +disappeared. + +“Quick, steward!” cried Ahab. “Time! time!” + +Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact +minute to Ahab. + +The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling +before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to +leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of +our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale +when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while +concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in +the opposite quarter—this deceitfulness of his could not now be in +action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by +Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our +vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers—that is, those not +appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the +main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the +line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the +mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three +samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager +crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly +poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war’s men about +to throw themselves on board an enemy’s ship. + +But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took +every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was +surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air. + + +CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering. + +The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side +of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the +tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always +been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the +captain’s, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The +figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white +tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese +jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black +trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness +was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and +coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the +companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion +peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;—a race +notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white +mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents +on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose +to be elsewhere. + +While yet the wondering ship’s company were gazing upon these +strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head, +“All ready there, Fedallah?” + +“Ready,” was the half-hissed reply. + +“Lower away then; d’ye hear?” shouting across the deck. “Lower away +there, I say.” + +Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the +men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with +a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a +dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the +sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship’s side into the tossed +boats below. + +Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship’s lee, when a fourth +keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and +showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the +stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves +widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their +eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of +the other boats obeyed not the command. + +“Captain Ahab?—” said Starbuck. + +“Spread yourselves,” cried Ahab; “give way, all four boats. Thou, +Flask, pull out more to leeward!” + +“Aye, aye, sir,” cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round his +great steering oar. “Lay back!” addressing his crew. +“There!—there!—there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!—lay +back!” + +“Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy.” + +“Oh, I don’t mind ’em, sir,” said Archy; “I knew it all before now. +Didn’t I hear ’em in the hold? And didn’t I tell Cabaco here of it? +What say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask.” + +“Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little +ones,” drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom +still showed signs of uneasiness. “Why don’t you break your backbones, +my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They +are only five more hands come to help us—never mind from where—the more +the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone—devils are +good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that’s the stroke for a +thousand pounds; that’s the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the +gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men—all hearts alive! +Easy, easy; don’t be in a hurry—don’t be in a hurry. Why don’t you snap +your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, +then:—softly, softly! That’s it—that’s it! long and strong. Give way +there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are +all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, +can’t ye? pull, won’t ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes +don’t ye pull?—pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out! +Here!” whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; “every mother’s +son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. +That’s it—that’s it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my +steel-bits. Start her—start her, my silver-spoons! Start her, +marling-spikes!” + +Stubb’s exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had +rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in +inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this +specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions +with his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief +peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a +tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so +calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear +such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling +for the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy +and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so +broadly gaped—open-mouthed at times—that the mere sight of such a +yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon +the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, +whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all +inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them. + +In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely +across Stubb’s bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were +pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. + +“Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye +please!” + +“Halloa!” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he +spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set +like a flint from Stubb’s. + +“What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!” + +“Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong, +boys!)” in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: “A sad +business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, +Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what +will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. +Stubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the +play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.” + +“Aye, aye, I thought as much,” soliloquized Stubb, when the boats +diverged, “as soon as I clapt eye on ’em, I thought so. Aye, and that’s +what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long +suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale’s at the bottom +of it. Well, well, so be it! Can’t be helped! All right! Give way, men! +It ain’t the White Whale to-day! Give way!” + +Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant +as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably +awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship’s +company; but Archy’s fancied discovery having some time previous got +abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some +small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge +of their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb’s confident way of +accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from +superstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room +for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab’s precise agency in +the matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the +mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the +dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the +unaccountable Elijah. + +Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the +furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a +circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger +yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five +trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which +periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst +boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen +pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and +displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the +gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery +horizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a +fencer’s, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance +any tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar +as in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All +at once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained +fixed, while the boat’s five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat +and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in +the rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily +down into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the +movement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it. + +“Every man look out along his oars!” cried Starbuck. “Thou, Queequeg, +stand up!” + +Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage +stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the +spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme +stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with +the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing +himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently +eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. + +Not very far distant Flask’s boat was also lying breathlessly still; +its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a +stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above +the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the +whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man’s hand, +and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the +mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little +King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post +was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead +stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post. + +“I can’t see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to +that.” + +Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way, +swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty +shoulders for a pedestal. + +“Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?” + +“That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you +fifty feet taller.” + +Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the +boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to +Flask’s foot, and then putting Flask’s hand on his hearse-plumed head +and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous +fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was +Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a +breastband to lean against and steady himself by. + +At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous +habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect +posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously +perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily +perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the +sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more +curious; for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, +unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the +sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired +Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. +Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now +and then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby +give to the negro’s lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity +stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her +tides and her seasons for that. + +Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing +solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings, +not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case, +Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the +languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, +where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed +home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his +match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his +harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed +stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, +crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, “Down, down all, and give +way!—there they are!” + +To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been +visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white +water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and +suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white +rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it +were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this +atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of +water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other +indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their forerunning +couriers and detached flying outriders. + +All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled +water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, as +a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the +hills. + +“Pull, pull, my good boys,” said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but +intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance +from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two +visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much +to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the +silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his +peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty. + +How different the loud little King-Post. “Sing out and say something, +my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on +their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I’ll sign over to you +my Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children, +boys. Lay me on—lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring +mad! See! see that white water!” And so shouting, he pulled his hat +from his head, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, +flirted it far off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and +plunging in the boat’s stern like a crazed colt from the prairie. + +“Look at that chap now,” philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his +unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a +short distance, followed after—“He’s got fits, that Flask has. Fits? +yes, give him fits—that’s the very word—pitch fits into ’em. Merrily, +merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;—merry’s the word. +Pull, babes—pull, sucklings—pull, all. But what the devil are you +hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and +keep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your +knives in two—that’s all. Take it easy—why don’t ye take it easy, I +say, and burst all your livers and lungs!” + +But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of +his—these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed +light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious +seas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of +red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey. + +Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of +Flask to “that whale,” as he called the fictitious monster which he +declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat’s bow with its +tail—these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that +they would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look +over the shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must +put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage +pronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but +arms, in these critical moments. + +It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the +omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled +along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless +bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip +for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost +seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the +watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the +top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other +side;—all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and +the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the +ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like +a wild hen after her screaming brood;—all this was thrilling. + +Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever +heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the +first unknown phantom in the other world;—neither of these can feel +stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first +time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the +hunted sperm whale. + +The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and +more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows +flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted +everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. +The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales +running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still +rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through +the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to +escape being torn from the row-locks. + +Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither +ship nor boat to be seen. + +“Give way, men,” whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the +sheet of his sail; “there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall +comes. There’s white water again!—close to! Spring!” + +Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted +that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when +with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: “Stand up!” and +Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet. + +Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril +so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance +of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent +instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of +fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still +booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like +the erected crests of enraged serpents. + +“That’s his hump. _There_, _there_, give it to him!” whispered +Starbuck. + +A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of +Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from +astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail +collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapor shot up near by; +something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole +crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the +white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all +blended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. + +Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round +it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale, +tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, +the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing +eyes the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the +bottom of the ocean. + +The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together; +the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white +fire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we were burning; immortal +in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats; as well roar +to the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those +boats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew +darker with the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen. +The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were +useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. +So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many +failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then +stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the +standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up +that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, +then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly +holding up hope in the midst of despair. + +Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat, +we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over +the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat. +Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear. +We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled +by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were +dimly parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the +sea as the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us +within a distance of not much more than its length. + +Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it +tossed and gaped beneath the ship’s bows like a chip at the base of a +cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no +more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were +dashed against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely +landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut +loose from their fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship +had given us up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon +some token of our perishing,—an oar or a lance pole. + + +CHAPTER 49. The Hyena. + +There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed +affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast +practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more +than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. +However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He +bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all +hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich +of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for +small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril +of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, +good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen +and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am +speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; +it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before +might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part +of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to +breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with +it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White +Whale its object. + +“Queequeg,” said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the +deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the +water; “Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often +happen?” Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he +gave me to understand that such things did often happen. + +“Mr. Stubb,” said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his +oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; “Mr. Stubb, I +think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief +mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose +then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy +squall is the height of a whaleman’s discretion?” + +“Certain. I’ve lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off +Cape Horn.” + +“Mr. Flask,” said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing +close by; “you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you +tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, +for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into +death’s jaws?” + +“Can’t you twist that smaller?” said Flask. “Yes, that’s the law. I +should like to see a boat’s crew backing water up to a whale face +foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind +that!” + +Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement +of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings +in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters of +common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the +superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign +my life into the hands of him who steered the boat—oftentimes a fellow +who at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of +scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that +the particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be +imputed to Starbuck’s driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a +squall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for +his great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to +this uncommonly prudent Starbuck’s boat; and finally considering in +what a devil’s chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking +all things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make +a rough draft of my will. “Queequeg,” said I, “come along, you shall be +my lawyer, executor, and legatee.” + +It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at +their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world +more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical +life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded +upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled +away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as +good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a +supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might +be. I survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. +I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a +clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. + +Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, +here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the +devil fetch the hindmost. + + +CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah. + +“Who would have thought it, Flask!” cried Stubb; “if I had but one leg +you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole +with my timber toe. Oh! he’s a wonderful old man!” + +“I don’t think it so strange, after all, on that account,” said Flask. +“If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. +That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other +left, you know.” + +“I don’t know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel.” + +Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering +the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it +is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active +perils of the chase. So Tamerlane’s soldiers often argued with tears in +their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried +into the thickest of the fight. + +But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that +with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger; +considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and +extraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then +comprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any maimed +man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the +joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not. + +Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of +his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of +the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving +his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually +apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt—above all for +Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat’s +crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads +of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat’s +crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. +Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all that +matter. Until Cabaco’s published discovery, the sailors had little +foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out of +port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the +whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then +found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his +own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even +solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is +running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was +observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra +coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better +withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety +he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it +is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat’s bow for bracing +the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was +observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee +fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the +carpenter’s chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a +little there; all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and +curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this +particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to +the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his +intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition +did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat’s crew +being assigned to that boat. + +Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned +away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such +unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown +nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of +whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway +creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, +oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that +Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin +to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable +excitement in the forecastle. + +But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate +phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were +somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a +muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like +this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be +linked with Ahab’s peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort +of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even +authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain an +indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as +civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their +dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide +among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles +to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable +countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the +ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the memory +of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his +descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real +phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and +to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed +consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the +uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours. + + +CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout. + +Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly +swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off +the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of +the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery +locality, southerly from St. Helena. + +It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and +moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; +and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery +silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen +far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it +looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from +the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight +nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a +look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, +though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a +hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what +emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at +such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But +when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive +nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, +his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, +every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit +had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. “There she +blows!” Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered +more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was +a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously +exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a +lowering. + +Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the +t’gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The +best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head +manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, +upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows +of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air +beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic +influences were struggling in her—one to mount direct to heaven, the +other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched +Ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two +different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively +echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a +coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship +so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager +glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every +sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time. + +This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days +after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it +was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it +disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after +night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted +into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; +disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and +somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still +further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever +alluring us on. + +Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance +with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested +the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that +whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however +far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by +one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there +reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as +if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the +monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest +and most savage seas. + +These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a +wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in +which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a +devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so +wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful +errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow. + +But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began +howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas +that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the +blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of +silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this +desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more +dismal than before. + +Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither +before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And +every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and +spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, +as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a +thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for +their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved +the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great +mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering +it had bred. + +Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoso, as called +of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had +attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where +guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed +condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat +that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and +unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still +beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be +descried. + +During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for +the time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous +deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever +addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything +above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but +passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become +practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its +accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for +hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an +occasional squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very +eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of +the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows, +stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist; and the better to +guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself into a +sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he swung as in a loosened +belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by +painted sailors in wax, day after day tore on through all the swift +madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness +of humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in silence +the men swung in the bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood up to the +blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not +seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old +man’s aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the +barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his +floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from +which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the +unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him lay unrolled one of +those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken +of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body +was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were +pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in +the ceiling.* + +*The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to +the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself +of the course of the ship. + +Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this +gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose. + + +CHAPTER 52. The Albatross. + +South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising +ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) +by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the +fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro +in the far ocean fisheries—a whaler at sea, and long absent from home. + +As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the +skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral +appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all +her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred +over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it +was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They +seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment +that had survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops +nailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and +though, when the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men +in the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped +from the mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those +forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not +one word to our own look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being +heard from below. + +“Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?” + +But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in +the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his +hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to +make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing +the distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the +Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the +first mere mention of the White Whale’s name to another ship, Ahab for +a moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a +boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But +taking advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, +and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer +and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed—“Ahoy there! This is the +Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters +to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, +tell them to address them to ——” + +At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then, +in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish, +that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, +darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves +fore and aft with the stranger’s flanks. Though in the course of his +continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar +sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously +carry meanings. + +“Swim away from me, do ye?” murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. +There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of +deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. +But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in +the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion +voice,—“Up helm! Keep her off round the world!” + +Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; +but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through +numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that +we left behind secure, were all the time before us. + +Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for +ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange +than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise +in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in +tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims +before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they +either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. + + +CHAPTER 53. The Gam. + +The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had +spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this +not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded +her—judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions—if so it had +been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer +to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not +to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except he +could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly sought. But +all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not something said +here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other +in foreign seas, and especially on a common cruising-ground. + +If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the +equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering +each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of +them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment +to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while and +resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the +illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling +vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth—off lone +Fanning’s Island, or the far away King’s Mills; how much more natural, +I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only +interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and +sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of +course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose +captains, officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to +each other; and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to +talk about. + +For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on +board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a +date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and +thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound +ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence from the +cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost +importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold true concerning +whaling vessels crossing each other’s track on the cruising-ground +itself, even though they are equally long absent from home. For one of +them may have received a transfer of letters from some third, and now +far remote vessel; and some of those letters may be for the people of +the ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange the whaling news, +and have an agreeable chat. For not only would they meet with all the +sympathies of sailors, but likewise with all the peculiar +congenialities arising from a common pursuit and mutually shared +privations and perils. + +Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference; +that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case +with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number +of English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when +they do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; +for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not +fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English +whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the +American whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his +nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this +superiority in the English whalemen does really consist, it would be +hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill +more whales than all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this +is a harmless little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the +Nantucketer does not take much to heart; probably, because he knows +that he has a few foibles himself. + +So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the +whalers have most reason to be sociable—and they are so. Whereas, some +merchant ships crossing each other’s wake in the mid-Atlantic, will +oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition, +mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies +in Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism +upon each other’s rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at +sea, they first go through such a string of silly bowings and +scrapings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be +much right-down hearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As +touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, +they run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, +when they chance to cross each other’s cross-bones, the first hail +is—“How many skulls?”—the same way that whalers hail—“How many +barrels?” And that question once answered, pirates straightway steer +apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and don’t like to +see overmuch of each other’s villanous likenesses. + +But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, +free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another +whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a “_Gam_,” a thing so +utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name +even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, +and repeat gamesome stuff about “spouters” and “blubber-boilers,” and +such like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and +also all Pirates and Man-of-War’s men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish +such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it +would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should +like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory +about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at +the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, +he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I +conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, +in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on. + +But what is a _Gam?_ You might wear out your index-finger running up +and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr. +Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster’s ark does not +hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years +been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. +Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the +Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it. + +GAM. NOUN—_A social meeting of two_ (_or more_) _Whaleships, generally +on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange +visits by boats’ crews: the two captains remaining, for the time, on +board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other._ + +There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten +here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so +has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when the +captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern +sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often +steers himself with a pretty little milliner’s tiller decorated with +gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa +of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if +whaling captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old +aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never +admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete +boat’s crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or +harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the +occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to +his visit all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that +being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him +from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to +the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor +is this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting +steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the +after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus +completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself +sideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent +pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of +foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a +spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, +it would never do in plain sight of the world’s riveted eyes, it would +never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying +himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his +hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he +generally carries his hands in his trowsers’ pockets; but perhaps being +generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. +Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones +too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment +or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman’s +hair, and hold on there like grim death. + + +CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho’s Story. + +(_As told at the Golden Inn._) + +The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is +much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet +more travellers than in any other part. + +It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another +homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned +almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us +strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White +Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho’s +story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain +wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of +God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter +circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may +be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never +reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of +the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the +private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of +whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of +secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and +revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could +not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did +this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full +knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were +they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among +themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod’s main-mast. +Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as +publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now +proceed to put on lasting record. + +*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, +still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin. + +For my humor’s sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once +narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one +saint’s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden +Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were +on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they +occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time. + +“Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about +rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, +was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days’ sail eastward +from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the +northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according +to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold +than common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But +the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good +luck awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to +quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, +though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low +down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued +her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy +intervals; but no good luck came; more days went by, and not only was +the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that +now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the +nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and +repaired. + +“Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance +favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the +way, because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically +relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the +ship free; never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well +nigh the whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous +breezes, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at +her port without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been +for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the +bitterly provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from +Buffalo. + +“‘Lakeman!—Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?’ +said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass. + +“On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but—I crave your +courtesy—may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, +gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as +large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far +Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet +been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly +connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, +those grand fresh-water seas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and +Superior, and Michigan,—possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many +of the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of +races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic +isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by +two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long +maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, +dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by +batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they +have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they +yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash +from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by +ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried +lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild +Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give +robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and +Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the +full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, +and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as +direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks +are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full +many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, +though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean +nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, +though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket +beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long +followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was +he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods +seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buck-horn handled Bowie-knives. Yet +was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this +Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by +inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human +recognition which is the meanest slave’s right; thus treated, this +Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he +had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and +Steelkilt—but, gentlemen, you shall hear. + +“It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing her +prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho’s leak seemed again +increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps +every day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our +Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their +whole way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the +officer of the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the +probability would be that he and his shipmates would never again +remember it, on account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. +Nor in the solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, +gentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their +pump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length; +that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other +reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is +in some very out of the way part of those waters, some really landless +latitude, that her captain begins to feel a little anxious. + +“Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found +gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by +several of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded the +upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way +expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a +coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness +touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or +on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when he +betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the +seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner +in her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was +on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they +stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear +water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen—that bubbling from the +pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at +the lee scupper-holes. + +“Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional +world of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command +over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his +superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he +conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a +chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make +a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may, +gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a +head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled +housings of your last viceroy’s snorting charger; and a brain, and a +heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt +Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne’s father. But Radney, +the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. +He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it. + +“Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the +rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with +his gay banterings. + +“‘Aye, aye, my merry lads, it’s a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, +one of ye, and let’s have a taste. By the Lord, it’s worth bottling! I +tell ye what, men, old Rad’s investment must go for it! he had best cut +away his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that +sword-fish only began the job; he’s come back again with a gang of +ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole +posse of ’em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom; +making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I’d tell him +to jump overboard and scatter ’em. They’re playing the devil with his +estate, I can tell him. But he’s a simple old soul,—Rad, and a beauty +too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in +looking-glasses. I wonder if he’d give a poor devil like me the model +of his nose.’ + +“‘Damn your eyes! what’s that pump stopping for?’ roared Radney, +pretending not to have heard the sailors’ talk. ‘Thunder away at it!’ + +“‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. ‘Lively, boys, +lively, now!’ And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines; +the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping +of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life’s +utmost energies. + +“Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went +forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face +fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his +brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney +to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know +not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate +commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a +shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a +pig to run at large. + +“Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship’s deck at sea is a piece of household +work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every +evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually +foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of +sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom +would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all +vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys, +if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the +Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; +and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been +regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should +have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly +nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all +these particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair +stood between the two men. + +“But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as +plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat +in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will +understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman +fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat +still for a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate’s +malignant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him +and the slow-match silently burning along towards them; as he +instinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness +to stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful being—a +repugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when +aggrieved—this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over +Steelkilt. + +“Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily +exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping +the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, +without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the +customary sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done +little or nothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a +most domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his +command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an +uplifted cooper’s club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near +by. + +“Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for +all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt +could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still +smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained +doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the +hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do +his bidding. + +“Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily +followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated +his intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had +not the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with +his twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it +was to no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the +windlass; when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him +that he had now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the +Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer: + +“‘Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to +yourself.’ But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where +the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of +his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions. +Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye +with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his +right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his +persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would +murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter +by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant +the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch +spouting blood like a whale. + +“Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays +leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their +mastheads. They were both Canallers. + +“‘Canallers!’ cried Don Pedro. ‘We have seen many whale-ships in our +harbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are +they?’ + +“‘Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. +You must have heard of it.’ + +“‘Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary +land, we know but little of your vigorous North.’ + +“‘Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha’s very fine; and ere +proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such +information may throw side-light upon my story.’ + +“For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire +breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and +most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and +affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room +and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman +arches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or +broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk +counties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires +stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly +corrupt and often lawless life. There’s your true Ashantee, gentlemen; +there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you; +under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches. +For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan +freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so +sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities. + +“‘Is that a friar passing?’ said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the +crowded plazza, with humorous concern. + +“‘Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wanes in +Lima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’ + +“‘A moment! Pardon!’ cried another of the company. ‘In the name of all +us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by +no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for +distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look +surprised; you know the proverb all along this coast—“Corrupt as Lima.” +It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than +billiard-tables, and for ever open—and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too, +Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. +Mark!—St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you +pour out again.’ + +“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would +make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is +he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery +Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked +Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, +all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller +so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his +grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages +through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not +unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received +good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would +fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming +qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm +to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In +sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is +emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so +many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of +mankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling +captains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter, +that to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its +line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole +transition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and +recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas. + +“‘I see! I see!’ impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha +upon his silvery ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The world’s one Lima. I +had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were +cold and holy as the hills.—But the story.’ + +“I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly +had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and +the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down +the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the +uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. +Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted +turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm’s way, the valiant captain +danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to +manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the +quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving border of +the confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to +prick out the object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his +desperadoes were too much for them all; they succeeded in gaining the +forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks +in a line with the windlass, these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves +behind the barricade. + +“‘Come out of that, ye pirates!’ roared the captain, now menacing them +with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. ‘Come +out of that, ye cut-throats!’ + +“Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there, +defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to +understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt’s) death would be the signal +for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart +lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but +still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty. + +“‘Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?’ demanded their +ringleader. + +“‘Turn to! turn to!—I make no promise;—to your duty! Do you want to +sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!’ and he +once more raised a pistol. + +“‘Sink the ship?’ cried Steelkilt. ‘Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us +turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What +say ye, men?’ turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their +response. + +“The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye +on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:—‘It’s not our +fault; we didn’t want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was +boy’s business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to +prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his +cursed jaw; ain’t those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, +men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to +yourself; say the word; don’t be a fool; forget it all; we are ready to +turn to; treat us decently, and we’re your men; but we won’t be +flogged.’ + +“‘Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!’ + +“‘Look ye, now,’ cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him, +‘there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped for +the cruise, d’ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our +discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don’t want a row; it’s +not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we +won’t be flogged.’ + +“‘Turn to!’ roared the Captain. + +“Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:—‘I tell you what +it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby +rascal, we won’t lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till +you say the word about not flogging us, we don’t do a hand’s turn.’ + +“‘Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I’ll keep ye there till +ye’re sick of it. Down ye go.’ + +“‘Shall we?’ cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against +it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down +into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave. + +“As the Lakeman’s bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain +and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide +of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called +for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the +companionway. Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered +something down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them—ten +in number—leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had +remained neutral. + +“All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and +aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at +which last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after +breaking through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed +in peace; the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the +pumps, whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary +night dismally resounded through the ship. + +“At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck, +summoned the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water was +then lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were +tossed after it; when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it, +the Captain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every day for three +days this was repeated; but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, +and then a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered; +and suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were +ready to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, +united perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained +them to surrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain +reiterated his demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a +terrific hint to stop his babbling and betake himself where he +belonged. On the fifth morning three others of the mutineers bolted up +into the air from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain +them. Only three were left. + +“‘Better turn to, now?’ said the Captain with a heartless jeer. + +“‘Shut us up again, will ye!’ cried Steelkilt. + +“‘Oh certainly,’ said the Captain, and the key clicked. + +“It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of +seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had +last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as +black as the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed to +the two Canallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst +out of their hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed with +their keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a +handle at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if +by any devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For +himself, he would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. +That was the last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met +with no opposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were +ready for that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a +surrender. And what was more, they each insisted upon being the first +man on deck, when the time to make the rush should come. But to this +their leader as fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself; +particularly as his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, +in the matter; and both of them could not be first, for the ladder +would but admit one man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play +of these miscreants must come out. + +“Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own +separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece +of treachery, namely: to be foremost in breaking out, in order to be +the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender; and +thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might +merit. But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead +them to the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of +villany, mixed their before secret treacheries together; and when their +leader fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in +three sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with +cords; and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight. + +“Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he +and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a +few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still +struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious +allies, who at once claimed the honor of securing a man who had been +fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along +the deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the +mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till +morning. ‘Damn ye,’ cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, +‘the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!’ + +“At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had +rebelled from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the +former that he had a good mind to flog them all round—thought, upon the +whole, he would do so—he ought to—justice demanded it; but for the +present, considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with +a reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular. + +“‘But as for you, ye carrion rogues,’ turning to the three men in the +rigging—‘for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;’ and, seizing +a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the two +traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads +sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn. + +“‘My wrist is sprained with ye!’ he cried, at last; ‘but there is still +rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn’t give up. Take +that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.’ + +“For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his +cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a +sort of hiss, ‘What I say is this—and mind it well—if you flog me, I +murder you!’ + +“‘Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me’—and the Captain drew off with +the rope to strike. + +“‘Best not,’ hissed the Lakeman. + +“‘But I must,’—and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke. + +“Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain; +who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck +rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope, +said, ‘I won’t do it—let him go—cut him down: d’ye hear?’ + +“But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale +man, with a bandaged head, arrested them—Radney the chief mate. Ever +since the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning, hearing the +tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the +whole scene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly +speak; but mumbling something about _his_ being willing and able to do +what the captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced +to his pinioned foe. + +“‘You are a coward!’ hissed the Lakeman. + +“‘So I am, but take that.’ The mate was in the very act of striking, +when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausing +no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt’s threat, whatever that +might have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were +turned to, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps +clanged as before. + +“Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor +was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors running up, +besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew. +Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own +instance they were put down in the ship’s run for salvation. Still, no +sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, +that mainly at Steelkilt’s instigation, they had resolved to maintain +the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the +ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the +speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing—namely, +not to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For, +spite of her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still +maintained her mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to lower +for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the +cruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his +berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the +vital jaw of the whale. + +“But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of +passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till +all was over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the +man who had stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney +the chief mate’s watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more +than half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he +insisted, against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the +head of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other +circumstances, Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge. + +“During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting on the +bulwarks of the quarter-deck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of +the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship’s side. In +this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a +considerable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between +this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his +next trick at the helm would come round at two o’clock, in the morning +of the third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his +leisure, he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully +in his watches below. + +“‘What are you making there?’ said a shipmate. + +“‘What do you think? what does it look like?’ + +“‘Like a lanyard for your bag; but it’s an odd one, seems to me.’ + +“‘Yes, rather oddish,’ said the Lakeman, holding it at arm’s length +before him; ‘but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven’t enough +twine,—have you any?’ + +“But there was none in the forecastle. + +“‘Then I must get some from old Rad;’ and he rose to go aft. + +“‘You don’t mean to go a begging to _him!_’ said a sailor. + +“‘Why not? Do you think he won’t do me a turn, when it’s to help +himself in the end, shipmate?’ and going to the mate, he looked at him +quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given +him—neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the next night an +iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the +Lakeman’s monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock +for a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent +helm—nigh to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready +dug to the seaman’s hand—that fatal hour was then to come; and in the +fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and +stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in. + +“But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody +deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the +avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in +to take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have +done. + +“It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second +day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe +man, drawing water in the main-chains, all at once shouted out, ‘There +she rolls! there she rolls!’ Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick. + +“‘Moby Dick!’ cried Don Sebastian; ‘St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do +whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?’ + +“‘A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Don;—but +that would be too long a story.’ + +“‘How? how?’ cried all the young Spaniards, crowding. + +“‘Nay, Dons, Dons—nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more +into the air, Sirs.’ + +“‘The chicha! the chicha!’ cried Don Pedro; ‘our vigorous friend looks +faint;—fill up his empty glass!’ + +“No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed.—Now, gentlemen, so +suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the +ship—forgetful of the compact among the crew—in the excitement of the +moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted +his voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been +plainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy. +‘The White Whale—the White Whale!’ was the cry from captain, mates, and +harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to +capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed +askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, +that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a +living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality +pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out +before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of +the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, +while Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or +slacken the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats +were lowered, the mate’s got the start; and none howled more fiercely +with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a +stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney +sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. +And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale’s topmost back. +Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding +foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat +struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the +standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the whale’s slippery back, +the boat righted, and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was +tossed over into the sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck +out through the spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that +veil, wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But +the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer +between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again, +and went down. + +“Meantime, at the first tap of the boat’s bottom, the Lakeman had +slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly +looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific, +downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He +cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose +again, with some tatters of Radney’s red woollen shirt, caught in the +teeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the +whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared. + +“In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port—a savage, solitary +place—where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the +Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted +among the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double +war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor. + +“The ship’s company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called +upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving +down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over +their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both +by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, +that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a +weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so +heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the +ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon +from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the +Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with +him, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight +before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a +reinforcement to his crew. + +“On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which +seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from +it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of +Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The +captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked +war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the +pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and +foam. + +“‘What do you want of me?’ cried the captain. + +“‘Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?’ demanded Steelkilt; +‘no lies.’ + +“‘I am bound to Tahiti for more men.’ + +“‘Very good. Let me board you a moment—I come in peace.’ With that he +leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale, +stood face to face with the captain. + +“‘Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. As +soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder +island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightnings strike +me!’ + +“‘A pretty scholar,’ laughed the Lakeman. ‘Adios, Senor!’ and leaping +into the sea, he swam back to his comrades. + +“Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the +roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due +time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck +befriended him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were +providentially in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor +headed. They embarked; and so for ever got the start of their former +captain, had he been at all minded to work them legal retribution. + +“Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived, +and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized +Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small +native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all +right there, again resumed his cruisings. + +“Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of +Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to +give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that +destroyed him. * * * * + +“‘Are you through?’ said Don Sebastian, quietly. + +“‘I am, Don.’ + +“‘Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, +this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing +wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me +if I seem to press.’ + +“‘Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don +Sebastian’s suit,’ cried the company, with exceeding interest. + +“‘Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, +gentlemen?’ + +“‘Nay,’ said Don Sebastian; ‘but I know a worthy priest near by, who +will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? +this may grow too serious.’ + +“‘Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?’ + +“‘Though there are no Auto-da-Fés in Lima now,’ said one of the company +to another; ‘I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. +Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.’ + +“‘Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg +that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists +you can.’ + +* * * * * * + +“‘This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,’ said Don +Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure. + +“‘Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, +and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it. + +“‘So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye, +gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be +true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I +have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.’” + + +CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. + +I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, +something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the +eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored +alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. +It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious +imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day +confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the +world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all +wrong. + +It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will +be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For +ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble +panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields, +medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of +chain-armor like Saladin’s, and a helmeted head like St. George’s; ever +since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not +only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific +presentations of him. + +Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting +to be the whale’s, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of +Elephanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless +sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, +every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of +them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our +noble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The +Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, +depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly +known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and +half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small +section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an +anaconda, than the broad palms of the true whale’s majestic flukes. + +But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian +painter’s portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the +antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido’s picture of Perseus rescuing +Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model +of such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the +same scene in his own “Perseus Descending,” make out one whit better. +The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the +surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on +its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows are +rolling, might be taken for the Traitors’ Gate leading from the Thames +by water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old +Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah’s whale, as depicted in the prints of old +Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for +the book-binder’s whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a +descending anchor—as stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of +many books both old and new—that is a very picturesque but purely +fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on +antique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless +call this book-binder’s fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so +intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an +old Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the +Revival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a +comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a +species of the Leviathan. + +In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you +will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all +manner of spouts, jets d’eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and +Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the +title-page of the original edition of the “Advancement of Learning” you +will find some curious whales. + +But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those +pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, +by those who know. In old Harris’s collection of voyages there are some +plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671, +entitled “A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the +Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master.” In one of those plates the +whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among +ice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another +plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with +perpendicular flukes. + +Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain +Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled “A Voyage round +Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the +Spermaceti Whale Fisheries.” In this book is an outline purporting to +be a “Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from +one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck.” +I doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the +benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me say +that it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale, +to a full grown sperm whale, would make the eye of that whale a +bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not +give us Jonah looking out of that eye! + +Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the +benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of +mistake. Look at that popular work “Goldsmith’s Animated Nature.” In +the abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged +“whale” and a “narwhale.” I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this +unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the +narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this +nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon +any intelligent public of schoolboys. + +Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacépède, a great +naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are +several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these +are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland +whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long +experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its +counterpart in nature. + +But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was +reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous +Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he +gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that +picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary +retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is +not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of +a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that +picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor +in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that +is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the +pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us. + +As for the sign-painters’ whales seen in the streets hanging over the +shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally +Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; +breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of +mariners: their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue +paint. + +But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very +surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have +been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a +drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent +the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. +Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living +Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The +living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen +at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out +of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element +it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily +into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. +And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour +between a young sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; +yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a +ship’s deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying +shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not +catch. + +But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded +whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at +all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, +that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though +Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of +one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed +utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy’s other leading personal +characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any +leviathan’s articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the +mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully +invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so +roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the +head, as in some part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is +also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which +almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the +thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, +and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy +covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. “However +recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us,” said humorous Stubb one +day, “he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens.” + +For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs +conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world +which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the +mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very +considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding +out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in +which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by +going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of +being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you +had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this +Leviathan. + + +CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True +Pictures of Whaling Scenes. + +In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly +tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them +which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, +especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass +that matter by. + +I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; +Colnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. In the previous +chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins’s is far +better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale’s is the best. All +Beale’s drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in +the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second +chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no +doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is +admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the +Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; +but they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though. + +Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they +are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has +but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, +because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you +can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by +his living hunters. + +But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details +not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be +anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, and +taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent +attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble +Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath +the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the +air upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of +the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the +monster’s spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single +incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the +incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if +from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and +true. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden +poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the +swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions +of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing +down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical +details of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I +could not draw so good a one. + +In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside +the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his +black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the +Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so +that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there +must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are +pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and +maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent +back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through +the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and +causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh +the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all +raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the +glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the +powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered +fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole +inserted into his spout-hole. + +Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he +was either practically conversant with his subject, or else +marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the +lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, +and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing +commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the +beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great +battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern +Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a +charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that +gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery. + +The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of +things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings +they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England’s +experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the +Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only +finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the +whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale +draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical +outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so +far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to +sketching the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned +Right whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland +whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and +porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, +chopping knives, and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a +Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six +fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement +to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so +important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured +for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of +the Peace. + +In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other +French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself +“H. Durand.” One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present +purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet +noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored, +inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened +sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, +both drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, +when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen +under one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving +is quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in +the very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; +the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to +a quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, +is about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and +lances lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in +its hole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands +half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the +smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke +over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up +with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the +excited seamen. + + +CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in +Stone; in Mountains; in Stars. + +On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a +crippled beggar (or _kedger_, as the sailors say) holding a painted +board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his +leg. There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats +(presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is +being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten +years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited +that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification +has now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever +published in Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a +stump as any you will find in the western clearings. But, though for +ever mounted on that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman +make; but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own +amputation. + +Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag +Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and +whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm +Whale-teeth, or ladies’ busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and +other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous +little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough +material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little +boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the +skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their +jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, +they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner’s +fancy. + +Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man +to that condition in which God placed him, _i.e._ what is called +savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I +myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the +Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him. + +Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic +hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian +war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of +carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. +For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark’s tooth, that +miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has +cost steady years of steady application. + +As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the +same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark’s tooth, of +his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not +quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as +the Greek savage, Achilles’s shield; and full of barbaric spirit and +suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert +Durer. + +Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of +the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the +forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with much +accuracy. + +At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung +by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is +sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking whales +are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some +old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for +weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all +intents and purposes so labelled with “_Hands off!_” you cannot examine +them closely enough to decide upon their merit. + +In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken +cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, +you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the +Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against +them in a surf of green surges. + +Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is +continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from +some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the +profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be +a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you +wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the +exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, +else so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your +precise, previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; +like the Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once +high-ruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them. + +Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out +great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as +when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies +locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased +Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright +points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent +Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase +against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and +the Flying Fish. + +With a frigate’s anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for +spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to +see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really +lie encamped beyond my mortal sight! + + +CHAPTER 58. Brit. + +Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows +of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale +largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that +we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden +wheat. + +On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from +the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly +swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that +wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated +from the water that escaped at the lip. + +As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their +scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these +monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving +behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.* + +*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the “Brazil Banks” does +not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there +being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable +meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually +floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased. + +But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at +all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when +they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms +looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in +the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will +sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them +to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; +even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species +of the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their +immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such +bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with +the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse. + +Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the +deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though +some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are +of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the +thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for +example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to +the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any +generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him. + +But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas +have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and +repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, +so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his +one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of +all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen +tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; +though but a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man +may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering +future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, +to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize +the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the +continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense +of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. + +The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese +vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. +That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships +of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided; +two thirds of the fair world it yet covers. + +Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a +miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, +when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and +swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in +precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews. + +But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it +is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who +murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath +spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her +own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the +rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of +ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting +like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean +overruns the globe. + +Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures +glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously +hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish +brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the +dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once +more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey +upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. + +Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile +earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a +strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean +surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one +insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the +horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that +isle, thou canst never return! + + +CHAPTER 59. Squid. + +Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her +way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling +her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering +masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a +plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, +alluring jet would be seen. + +But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural +spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when +the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid +across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered +together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible +sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head. + +In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and +higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before +our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening +for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, +and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? +thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once +more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, +the negro yelled out—“There! there again! there she breaches! right +ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!” + +Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the +bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on +the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave +his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction +indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo. + +Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had +gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the +ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular +whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed +him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly +perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave +orders for lowering. + +The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab’s in advance, and all +swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with +oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot +where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the +moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous +phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A +vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing +cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms +radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of +anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. +No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of +either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an +unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life. + +As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still +gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice +exclaimed—“Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to +have seen thee, thou white ghost!” + +“What was it, Sir?” said Flask. + +“The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, +and returned to their ports to tell of it.” + +But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; +the rest as silently following. + +Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected +with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it +being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with +portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them +declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few +of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature +and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm +whale his only food. For though other species of whales find their food +above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the +spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the +surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what, +precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will +disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some +of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They +fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings +by them to the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other +species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it. + +There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop +Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in +which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with +some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. But +much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he +assigns it. + +By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious +creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of +cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would +seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe. + + +CHAPTER 60. The Line. + +With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as +for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, +I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line. + +The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly +vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary +ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable +to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to +the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary +quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which +it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in +general by no means adds to the rope’s durability or strength, however +much it may give it compactness and gloss. + +Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost +entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not +so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and +I will add (since there is an æsthetics in all things), is much more +handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark +fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian +to behold. + +The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first +sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment +its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and +twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal +to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures +something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is +spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still +though, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely +bedded “sheaves,” or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any +hollow but the “heart,” or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of +the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in +running out, infallibly take somebody’s arm, leg, or entire body off, +the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some +harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business, +carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a +block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all +possible wrinkles and twists. + +In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line +being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in +this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into +the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub, +nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a +rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in +thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which +will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a +concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the +American line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a +prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales. + +Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an +eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the +tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. +This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: +In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a +neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to +threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the +harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug +of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first +boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This +arrangement is indispensable for common safety’s sake; for were the +lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the +whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking +minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed +boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of +the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again. + +Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is +taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is +again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise +upon the loom or handle of every man’s oar, so that it jogs against his +wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately +sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the +extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size +of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it +hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the +boat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being +coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale +still a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp—the +rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to +that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too +tedious to detail. + +Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, +twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the +oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid +eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest +snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal +woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, +and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any +unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible +contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus +circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones +to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit—strange thing! what +cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, +and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you +will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus +hung in hangman’s nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before +King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of +death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say. + +Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those +repeated whaling disasters—some few of which are casually chronicled—of +this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost. +For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is +like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a +steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and +wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in +the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, +and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest +warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and +simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a +Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could +never pierce you out. + +Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and +prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; +for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and +contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal +powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the +line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought +into actual play—this is a thing which carries more of true terror than +any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men +live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their +necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, +that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. +And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would +not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before +your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. + + +CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale. + +If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to +Queequeg it was quite a different object. + +“When you see him ’quid,” said the savage, honing his harpoon in the +bow of his hoisted boat, “then you quick see him ’parm whale.” + +The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special +to engage them, the Pequod’s crew could hardly resist the spell of +sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean +through which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively +ground; that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, +flying-fish, and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than +those off the Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru. + +It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders +leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed +in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in +that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of +my body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, +long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn. + +Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the +seamen at the main and mizzen-mast-heads were already drowsy. So that +at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every +swing that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering +helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the +wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all. + +Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my +hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved +me; with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not +forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like +the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian +hue, glistening in the sun’s rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating +in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his +vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of +a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck +by some enchanter’s wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all +at once started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from +all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from +aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and +regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the air. + +“Clear away the boats! Luff!” cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he +dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes. + +The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and +ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the +leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples +as he swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, +Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak +but in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the +boats, we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of +the noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, +the monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, +and then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up. + +“There go flukes!” was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by +Stubb’s producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite +was granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the +whale rose again, and being now in advance of the smoker’s boat, and +much nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the +honor of the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length +become aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore +no longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. +And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the +assault. + +Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, +he was going “head out”; that part obliquely projecting from the mad +yeast which he brewed.* + +*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the +entire interior of the sperm whale’s enormous head consists. Though +apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about +him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does +so when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the +upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water +formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he +thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish +galliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat. + +“Start her, start her, my men! Don’t hurry yourselves; take plenty of +time—but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that’s all,” cried +Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. “Start her, now; give ’em +the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy—start +her, all; but keep cool, keep cool—cucumbers is the word—easy, +easy—only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the +buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys—that’s all. Start +her!” + +“Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!” screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some old +war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat +involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke +which the eager Indian gave. + +But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. “Kee-hee! +Kee-hee!” yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat, +like a pacing tiger in his cage. + +“Ka-la! Koo-loo!” howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a +mouthful of Grenadier’s steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels +cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still +encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from +his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the +welcome cry was heard—“Stand up, Tashtego!—give it to him!” The harpoon +was hurled. “Stern all!” The oarsmen backed water; the same moment +something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. It was +the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two +additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its +increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and +mingled with the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round +and round the loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it +blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb’s hands, from +which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at +these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy’s +sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time +striving to wrest it out of your clutch. + +“Wet the line! wet the line!” cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him +seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into +it.* More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. +The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. +Stubb and Tashtego here changed places—stem for stern—a staggering +business truly in that rocking commotion. + +*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be +stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the +running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or +bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most +convenient. + +From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part +of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you +would have thought the craft had two keels—one cleaving the water, the +other the air—as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at +once. A continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy +in her wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a +little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic +gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main +clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall +form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order +to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics +seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale +somewhat slackened his flight. + +“Haul in—haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round +towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while +yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, +firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart +into the flying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately +sterning out of the way of the whale’s horrible wallow, and then +ranging up for another fling. + +The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down +a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which +bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun +playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection +into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men. +And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot +from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the +mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his +crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again +and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and +again sent it into the whale. + +“Pull up—pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale +relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up!—close to!” and the boat ranged along +the fish’s flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned +his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully +churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold +watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of +breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was +the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting +from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his “flurry,” the +monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in +impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, +instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from +that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day. + +And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into +view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting +his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, +gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees +of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran +dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! + +“He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,” said Daggoo. + +“Yes; both pipes smoked out!” and withdrawing his own from his mouth, +Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood +thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. + + +CHAPTER 62. The Dart. + +A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. + +According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes +off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary +steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost +oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong, +nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what +is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the +distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting +the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the +uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman +activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated +loud and intrepid exclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the +top of one’s compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half +started—what that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I +cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same +time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the +fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting +cry—“Stand up, and give it to him!” He now has to drop and secure his +oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the +crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it +somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen +in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are +successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed +and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst their +blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are +absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship +owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that +makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can +you expect to find it there when most wanted! + +Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant, +that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer +likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of +themselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and the +headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper +station in the bows of the boat. + +Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both +foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from +first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no +rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances +obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a +slight loss of speed in the chase; but long experience in various +whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast +majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so +much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the +harpooneer that has caused them. + +To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this +world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out +of toil. + + +CHAPTER 63. The Crotch. + +Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in +productive subjects, grow the chapters. + +The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. +It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, +which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the +bow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of +the harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the +prow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who +snatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his +rifle from the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in +the crotch, respectively called the first and second irons. + +But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with +the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one +instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the +coming drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It +is a doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to +the instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon +receiving the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, +however lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into +him. Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the +line, and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, +be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else +the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the +water, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line +(mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, +prudently practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended +with the saddest and most fatal casualties. + +Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown +overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, +skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, +or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. +Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is +fairly captured and a corpse. + +Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging +one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these +qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of +such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be +simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is +supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first +one be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are +faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several +most important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be +painted. + + +CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper. + +Stubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a +calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow +business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen +men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and +fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse +in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long +intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of +the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever +they call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will +draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this +grand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead +in bulk. + +Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’s +main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab +dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly +eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for +securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, +went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until +morning. + +Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had +evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the +creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or +despair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body +reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand +other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot +advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought +from the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing to +cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the +deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking +links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by +the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies +with its black hull close to the vessel’s and seen through the darkness +of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two—ship +and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one +reclines while the other remains standing.* + +*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most +reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, +is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is +relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its +flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; +so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to +put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a +small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, +and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. +By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side +of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily +made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last +locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of +junction with its broad flukes or lobes. + +If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known +on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an +unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was +he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned +to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping +cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely +manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of +the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate. + +“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut +me one from his small!” + +Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general +thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray +the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds +of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers +who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale +designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body. + +About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two +lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper +at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb +the only banqueter on whale’s flesh that night. Mingling their +mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, +swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. +The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp +slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the +sleepers’ hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as +before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and +turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of +the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the +shark seems all but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable +surface, they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains +a part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave +on the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in +countersinking for a screw. + +Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks +will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs +round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every +killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant +butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’s +live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, +also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away +under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the +whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, +that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; +and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships +crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy +in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be +decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be +set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do +most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no +conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless +numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm +whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never seen +that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of +devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil. + +But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was +going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of +his own epicurean lips. + +“Cook, cook!—where’s that old Fleece?” he cried at length, widening his +legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper; +and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing +with his lance; “cook, you cook!—sail this way, cook!” + +The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously +roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came +shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was +something the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well +scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came +shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, +after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old +Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, came +to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb’s sideboard; when, with +both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he +bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways +inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play. + +“Cook,” said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his +mouth, “don’t you think this steak is rather overdone? You’ve been +beating this steak too much, cook; it’s too tender. Don’t I always say +that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks +now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a +shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ’em; tell ’em they are +welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must +keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and +deliver my message. Here, take this lantern,” snatching one from his +sideboard; “now then, go and preach to ’em!” + +Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck +to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over +the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other +hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in +a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly +crawling behind, overheard all that was said. + +“Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam +noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lip! Massa Stubb say +dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you +must stop dat dam racket!” + +“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap +on the shoulder,—“Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn’t swear that way +when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, cook!” + +“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go. + +“No, cook; go on, go on.” + +“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:”— + +“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ’em to it; try that,” and +Fleece continued. + +“Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, +fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness—’top dat dam slappin’ ob de +tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin’ and +bitin’ dare?” + +“Cook,” cried Stubb, collaring him, “I won’t have that swearing. Talk +to ’em gentlemanly.” + +Once more the sermon proceeded. + +“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; dat +is natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is +de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why +den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well +goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a +helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your +neighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat +whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale +belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout, +brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small +bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to +bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de +scrouge to help demselves.” + +“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, “that’s Christianity; go on.” + +“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scougin’ and slappin’ +each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preachin’ to +such dam g’uttons as you call ’em, till dare bellies is full, and dare +bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get ’em full, dey wont hear you +den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and +can’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.” + +“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, +Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.” + +Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his +shrill voice, and cried— + +“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill +your dam’ bellies ’till dey bust—and den die.” + +“Now, cook,” said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; “stand +just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular +attention.” + +“All dention,” said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the +desired position. + +“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go +back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, +cook?” + +“What dat do wid de ’teak,” said the old black, testily. + +“Silence! How old are you, cook?” + +“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered. + +“And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, +and don’t know yet how to cook a whale-steak?” rapidly bolting another +mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the +question. “Where were you born, cook?” + +“’Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin’ ober de Roanoke.” + +“Born in a ferry-boat! That’s queer, too. But I want to know what +country you were born in, cook!” + +“Didn’t I say de Roanoke country?” he cried sharply. + +“No, you didn’t, cook; but I’ll tell you what I’m coming to, cook. You +must go home and be born over again; you don’t know how to cook a +whale-steak yet.” + +“Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,” he growled, angrily, turning +round to depart. + +“Come back, cook;—here, hand me those tongs;—now take that bit of steak +there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take +it, I say”—holding the tongs towards him—“take it, and taste it.” + +Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro +muttered, “Best cooked ’teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.” + +“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to the +church?” + +“Passed one once in Cape-Down,” said the old man sullenly. + +“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, +where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as +his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, +and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb. +“Where do you expect to go to, cook?” + +“Go to bed berry soon,” he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke. + +“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question. +Now what’s your answer?” + +“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing his +whole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressed +angel will come and fetch him.” + +“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch +him where?” + +“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and +keeping it there very solemnly. + +“So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when +you are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it +gets? Main-top, eh?” + +“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks. + +“You said up there, didn’t you? and now look yourself, and see where +your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by +crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t +get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a +ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us +are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye +hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart, +when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that’s +your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that’s it—now you have it. Hold it there +now, and pay attention.” + +“All ’dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, +vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at +one and the same time. + +“Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, +that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, +don’t you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for +my private table here, the capstan, I’ll tell you what to do so as not +to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live +coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear? And now +to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by +to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends +of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go.” + +But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled. + +“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. +D’ye hear? away you sail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow before you +go.—Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast—don’t forget.” + +“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ’stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed if +he ain’t more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man, +limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock. + + +CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish. + +That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, +like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so +outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and +philosophy of it. + +It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right +Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large +prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of the +court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be +eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of +whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The +meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being +well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls. +The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great +porpoise grant from the crown. + +The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all +hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but +when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet +long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men +like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are +not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare +old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous +doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly +juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who +long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel—that +these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of +whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among +the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called “fritters”; which, indeed, +they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something +like old Amsterdam housewives’ dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. +They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can +hardly keep his hands off. + +But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his +exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be +delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the +buffalo’s (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid +pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that +is; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the +third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for +butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into +some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches +of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their +ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many +a good supper have I thus made. + +In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine +dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two +plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large +puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most +delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves’ head, which is +quite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some young +bucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves’ brains, by +and by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to +tell a calf’s head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires +uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with +an intelligent looking calf’s head before him, is somehow one of the +saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at +him, with an “Et tu Brute!” expression. + +It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively +unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with +abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration +before mentioned: _i.e._ that a man should eat a newly murdered thing +of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man +that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was +hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would +have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the +meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds +staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight +take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a +cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that +salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it +will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of +judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who +nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy +paté-de-foie-gras. + +But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is +adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my +civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is +that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox +you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring +that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill +did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to +Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month +or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but +steel pens. + + +CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre. + +When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and +weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general +thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting +him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very +soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the +common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a’lee; and then send +every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation +that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and +two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck +to see that all goes well. + +But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will +not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather +round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a +stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In +most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so +largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably +diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a +procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to +tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the +present case with the Pequod’s sharks; though, to be sure, any man +unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, +would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and +those sharks the maggots in it. + +Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was +concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came +on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for +immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering +three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid +sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an +incessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep +into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy +confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not +always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the +incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at +each other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and +bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again +by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was +this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these +creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in +their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual +life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, +one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he tried +to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw. + +*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; +is about the bigness of a man’s spread hand; and in general shape, +corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its +sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than +the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when +being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a +stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle. + +“Queequeg no care what god made him shark,” said the savage, +agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; “wedder Fejee god or +Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.” + + +CHAPTER 67. Cutting In. + +It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio +professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was +turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would +have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods. + +In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous +things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and +which no single man can possibly lift—this vast bunch of grapes was +swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the +strongest point anywhere above a ship’s deck. The end of the +hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted +to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over +the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one +hundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in stages over the +side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades, +began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook just +above the nearest of the two side-fins. This done, a broad, +semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and the +main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving +in one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship +careens over on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads +of an old house in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her +frighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the +whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a +helping heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snap +is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from +the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it +the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as +the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange, +so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes +stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the +windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the +water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the +line called the “scarf,” simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck +and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and +indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher +and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at the +windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious +blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and +every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else +it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard. + +One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon +called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices +out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into +this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then +hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for +what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands +to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a +few sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in +twain; so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper +strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for +lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one +tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other +is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the +main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the +blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep +coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of +plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting +and lowering simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the +heavers singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates +scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by +way of assuaging the general friction. + + +CHAPTER 68. The Blanket. + +I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin +of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced +whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion +remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion. + +The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you +know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence +of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and +ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. + +Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any +creature’s skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet +in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; +because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the +whale’s body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer +of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? +True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with +your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat +resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as +flexible and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it +not only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I +have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books. +It is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed +page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a +magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales +through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at +here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I +admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be +regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to +speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of +the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a +new-born child. But no more of this. + +Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, +as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one +hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, +or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three +fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence +be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose +mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten +barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three +quarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin. + +In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among +the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over +obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in +thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line +engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the +isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as +if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some +instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a +veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. +These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers +on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to +use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the +hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck +with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the +famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi. +Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains +undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another +thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm +Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially +his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by +reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random +aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast, +which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact +with vast floating icebergs—I should say, that those rocks must not a +little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me +that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact +with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large, +full-grown bulls of the species. + +A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the +whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long +pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very +happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber +as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho +slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of +this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep +himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. +What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy +seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other +fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but +these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very +bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the +lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn +fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his +blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then—except after +explanation—that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as +indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at +home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when +seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, +perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is +found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been +proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than +that of a Borneo negro in summer. + +It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong +individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare +virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself +after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, +live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep +thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and +like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of +thine own. + +But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, +how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the +whale! + + +CHAPTER 69. The Funeral. + +“Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!” + +The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the +beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, +it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. +Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and +splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with +rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many +insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats +further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, +what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the +murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that +hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon +the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that +great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite +perspectives. + +There’s a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all +in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or +speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, +if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral +they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from +which not the mightiest whale is free. + +Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost +survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war +or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring +the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in +the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the +whale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the +log—_shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware!_ And for years +afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly +sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there +when a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your +utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of +old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in +the air! There’s orthodoxy! + +Thus, while in life the great whale’s body may have been a real terror +to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a +world. + +Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than +the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe +in them. + + +CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx. + +It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping +the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the +Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced +whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason. + +Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; +on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that +very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the +surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening +between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a +discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear +in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut +many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without +so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus +made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, +and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion +into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb’s boast, that he +demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale? + +When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a +cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small +whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a +full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale’s head +embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend +such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this +were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers’ +scales. + +The Pequod’s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head +was hoisted against the ship’s side—about half way out of the sea, so +that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And +there with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of +the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm +on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that +blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod’s waist like the giant +Holofernes’s from the girdle of Judith. + +When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went +below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but +now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow +lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves +upon the sea. + +A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone +from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to +gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took +Stubb’s long spade—still remaining there after the whale’s +decapitation—and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended +mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood +leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head. + +It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so +intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast +and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a +beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty +head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou +hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, +has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and +navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous +hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the +drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar +home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many +a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay +them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their +flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true +to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the +murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours +he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his +murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the +neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to +outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the +planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!” + +“Sail ho!” cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head. + +“Aye? Well, now, that’s cheering,” cried Ahab, suddenly erecting +himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. “That +lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better +man.—Where away?” + +“Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze +to us! + +“Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, +and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! +how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the +smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate +in mind.” + + +CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story. + +Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than +the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock. + +By and by, through the glass the stranger’s boats and manned mast-heads +proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and +shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the +Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what +response would be made. + +Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships +of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which +signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective +vessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale +commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at +considerable distances and with no small facility. + +The Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting +her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. +Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod’s lee, +and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was +being rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain, +the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token +of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the +Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her +captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod’s company. For, though +himself and boat’s crew remained untainted, and though his ship was +half a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and +flowing between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine +of the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with +the Pequod. + +But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an +interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam’s +boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to +the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it +blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times +by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed +some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper +bearings again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now +and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at +intervals not without still another interruption of a very different +sort. + +Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s boat, was a man of a singular +appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual +notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish +man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant +yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut +tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on +his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes. + +So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had +exclaimed—“That’s he! that’s he!—the long-togged scaramouch the +Town-Ho’s company told us of!” Stubb here alluded to a strange story +told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time +previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account +and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in +question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the +Jeroboam. His story was this: + +He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna +Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret +meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a +trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he +carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing +gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, +apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, +where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, +common-sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate +for the Jeroboam’s whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway +upon the ship’s getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in +a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded +the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he +set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and +vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which +he declared these things;—the dark, daring play of his sleepless, +excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real +delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of +the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they +were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical +use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he +pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him; but +apprised that that individual’s intention was to land him in the first +convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his seals and +vials—devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in +case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his +disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the +captain and told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of +them would remain. He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor +would they permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he +would; so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of +the ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared +little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had +broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the +plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be +stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor +devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience to +his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god. +Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true. +Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the +measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless +power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to +return to the Pequod. + +“I fear not thy epidemic, man,” said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain +Mayhew, who stood in the boat’s stern; “come on board.” + +But now Gabriel started to his feet. + +“Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible +plague!” + +“Gabriel! Gabriel!” cried Captain Mayhew; “thou must either—” But that +instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings +drowned all speech. + +“Hast thou seen the White Whale?” demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted +back. + +“Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the +horrible tail!” + +“I tell thee again, Gabriel, that—” But again the boat tore ahead as if +dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a +succession of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional +caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the +hoisted sperm whale’s head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was +seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel +nature seemed to warrant. + +When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story +concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from +Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed +leagued with him. + +It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking +a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of +Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this +intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the +White Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering +insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the +Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some +year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the +mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him; +and the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the +opportunity, despite all the archangel’s denunciations and +forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat. +With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many +perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron +fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was +tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of +speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while +Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat’s bow, and with all the +reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the +whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a +broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, +temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next +instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily +into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea +at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was +harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman’s head; but the mate for ever sank. + +It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the +Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. +Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; +oftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the +headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But +strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, +when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is +discernible; the man being stark dead. + +The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly +descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek—“The vial! the vial!” +Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of +the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added +influence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had +specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general +prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one +of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror +to the ship. + +Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him, +that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he +intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which +Ahab answered—“Aye.” Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to +his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with +downward pointed finger—“Think, think of the blasphemer—dead, and down +there!—beware of the blasphemer’s end!” + +Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, “Captain, I have just +bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy +officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.” + +Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various +ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, +depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. +Thus, most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received +after attaining an age of two or three years or more. + +Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely +tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in +consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a +letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy. + +“Can’st not read it?” cried Ahab. “Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it’s but +a dim scrawl;—what’s this?” As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a +long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to +insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without +its coming any closer to the ship. + +Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, “Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a +woman’s pinny hand,—the man’s wife, I’ll wager)—Aye—Mr. Harry Macey, +Ship Jeroboam;—why it’s Macey, and he’s dead!” + +“Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,” sighed Mayhew; “but let +me have it.” + +“Nay, keep it thyself,” cried Gabriel to Ahab; “thou art soon going +that way.” + +“Curses throttle thee!” yelled Ahab. “Captain Mayhew, stand by now to +receive it”; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck’s hands, he +caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the +boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; +the boat drifted a little towards the ship’s stern; so that, as if by +magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel’s eager hand. He +clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the +letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab’s +feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their +oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the +Pequod. + +As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket +of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild +affair. + + +CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope. + +In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, +there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands +are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no +staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has +to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the +description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was +mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the +blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the +spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that +same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my +particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to +descend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to. +But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall +remain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is +concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, +excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten +feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, +half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like +a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured +in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at +least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better +chance to observe him, as will presently be seen. + +Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar +in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to +attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead +whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by +a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg +down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a +monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his +waist. + +It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we +proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both +ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow +leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, +were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both +usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should +drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature +united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I +any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond +entailed. + +So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, +that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to +perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock +company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that +another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited +disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of +interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have +so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked +him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten +to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of +mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in +most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a +plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your +apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, +you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these +and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s +monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I +came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do +what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.* + +*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod +that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This +improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man +than Stubb, in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest +possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his +monkey-rope holder. + +I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the +whale and the ship—where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant +rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy +he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the +night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before +pent blood which began to flow from the carcass—the rabid creatures +swarmed round it like bees in a beehive. + +And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them +aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were it +not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise +miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man. + +Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a +ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to +them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then +jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what +seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark—he was provided with still another +protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and +Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen +whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could +reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and +benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg’s best happiness, I admit; but +in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that +both he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled +water, those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a +leg than a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping +there with that great iron hook—poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed +to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods. + +Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in +and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea—what matters +it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men +in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those +sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks +and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad. + +But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, +as with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last +climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily +trembling over the side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent, +consolatory glance hands him—what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye +gods! hands him a cup of tepid ginger and water! + +“Ginger? Do I smell ginger?” suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. +“Yes, this must be ginger,” peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then +standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the +astonished steward slowly saying, “Ginger? ginger? and will you have +the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of +ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to +kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!—what the devil is +ginger? Sea-coal? firewood?—lucifer matches?—tinder?—gunpowder?—what +the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor +Queequeg here.” + +“There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this +business,” he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just +come from forward. “Will you look at that kannakin, sir: smell of it, +if you please.” Then watching the mate’s countenance, he added, “The +steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to +Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an +apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by +which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?” + +“I trust not,” said Starbuck, “it is poor stuff enough.” + +“Aye, aye, steward,” cried Stubb, “we’ll teach you to drug a +harpooneer; none of your apothecary’s medicine here; you want to poison +us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder +us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?” + +“It was not me,” cried Dough-Boy, “it was Aunt Charity that brought the +ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, +but only this ginger-jub—so she called it.” + +“Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to +the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. +Starbuck. It is the captain’s orders—grog for the harpooneer on a +whale.” + +“Enough,” replied Starbuck, “only don’t hit him again, but—” + +“Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of +that sort; and this fellow’s a weazel. What were you about saying, +sir?” + +“Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself.” + +When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a +sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and +was handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity’s gift, and that +was freely given to the waves. + + +CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk +over Him. + +It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale’s +prodigious head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But we must let it +continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to +it. For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for +the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold. + +Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually +drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, +gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the +Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking +anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of +those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to +cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near +the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had +been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the +announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, +if opportunity offered. + +Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two +boats, Stubb’s and Flask’s, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further +and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at +the mast-head. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of +tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or +both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in +plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the +towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at first +it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a +maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from +view, as if diving under the keel. “Cut, cut!” was the cry from the +ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being +brought with a deadly dash against the vessel’s side. But having plenty +of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they +paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their +might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle +was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened +line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the +contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few +feet advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did +gain it; when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning +along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, +suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so +flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken +glass on the water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once +more the boats were free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, +and blindly altering his course, went round the stern of the ship +towing the two boats after him, so that they performed a complete +circuit. + +Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close +flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance; +and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the +multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale’s body, +rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every +new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains +that poured from the smitten rock. + +At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he +turned upon his back a corpse. + +While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, +and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some +conversation ensued between them. + +“I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,” said +Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so +ignoble a leviathan. + +“Wants with it?” said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat’s bow, +“did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale’s +head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right +Whale’s on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can +never afterwards capsize?” + +“Why not? + +“I don’t know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, +and he seems to know all about ships’ charms. But I sometimes think +he’ll charm the ship to no good at last. I don’t half like that chap, +Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved +into a snake’s head, Stubb?” + +“Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a +dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look +down there, Flask”—pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of both +hands—“Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in +disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been +stowed away on board ship? He’s the devil, I say. The reason why you +don’t see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries +it coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of +it, he’s always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots.” + +“He sleeps in his boots, don’t he? He hasn’t got any hammock; but I’ve +seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging.” + +“No doubt, and it’s because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye +see, in the eye of the rigging.” + +“What’s the old man have so much to do with him for?” + +“Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose.” + +“Bargain?—about what?” + +“Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and +the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away +his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then +he’ll surrender Moby Dick.” + +“Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?” + +“I don’t know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked +one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the old +flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and +gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he +was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching +his hoofs, up and says, ‘I want John.’ ‘What for?’ says the old +governor. ‘What business is that of yours,’ says the devil, getting +mad,—‘I want to use him.’ ‘Take him,’ says the governor—and by the +Lord, Flask, if the devil didn’t give John the Asiatic cholera before +he got through with him, I’ll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look +sharp—ain’t you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let’s get +the whale alongside.” + +“I think I remember some such story as you were telling,” said Flask, +when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden +towards the ship, “but I can’t remember where.” + +“Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soldadoes? +Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?” + +“No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me, +Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was +the same you say is now on board the Pequod?” + +“Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn’t the devil live +for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any +parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a +latch-key to get into the admiral’s cabin, don’t you suppose he can +crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?” + +“How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?” + +“Do you see that mainmast there?” pointing to the ship; “well, that’s +the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod’s hold, and string +along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that +wouldn’t begin to be Fedallah’s age. Nor all the coopers in creation +couldn’t show hoops enough to make oughts enough.” + +“But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you +meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if +he’s so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going to +live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard—tell me +that? + +“Give him a good ducking, anyhow.” + +“But he’d crawl back.” + +“Duck him again; and keep ducking him.” + +“Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though—yes, and +drown you—what then?” + +“I should like to see him try it; I’d give him such a pair of black +eyes that he wouldn’t dare to show his face in the admiral’s cabin +again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he +lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn +the devil, Flask; so you suppose I’m afraid of the devil? Who’s afraid +of him, except the old governor who daresn’t catch him and put him in +double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping +people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil +kidnapped, he’d roast for him? There’s a governor!” + +“Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?” + +“Do I suppose it? You’ll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now +to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious +going on, I’ll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say—Look +here, Beelzebub, you don’t do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord +I’ll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, +and give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come +short off at the stump—do you see; and then, I rather guess when he +finds himself docked in that queer fashion, he’ll sneak off without the +poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs.” + +“And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?” + +“Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;—what else?” + +“Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?” + +“Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.” + +The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side, +where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for +securing him. + +“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Flask; “yes, you’ll soon see this right +whale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti’s.” + +In good time, Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply +leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of +both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may +well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go +over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come +back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep +trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, +and then you will float light and right. + +In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the +ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the +case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut +off whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed +and hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to +what is called the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present +case, had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern; +and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair +of overburdening panniers. + +Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale’s head, and ever +and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own +hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his +shadow; while, if the Parsee’s shadow was there at all it seemed only +to blend with, and lengthen Ahab’s. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish +speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing +things. + + +CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View. + +Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us +join them, and lay together our own. + +Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right +Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales +regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two +extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external +difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a +head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod’s side; and as we +may freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the +deck:—where, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to +study practical cetology than here? + +In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between +these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a +certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale’s which the Right +Whale’s sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale’s head. +As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to +him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this +dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the +summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he +is what the fishermen technically call a “grey-headed whale.” + +Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads—namely, the two +most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of the +head, and low down, near the angle of either whale’s jaw, if you +narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would +fancy to be a young colt’s eye; so out of all proportion is it to the +magnitude of the head. + +Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale’s eyes, it is +plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more +than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale’s +eyes corresponds to that of a man’s ears; and you may fancy, for +yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects +through your ears. You would find that you could only command some +thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight; +and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking +straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not +be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from +behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the +same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes +the front of a man—what, indeed, but his eyes? + +Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes +are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to +produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of +the whale’s eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of +solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating +two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the +impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, +must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct +picture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and +nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the +world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with +the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two +distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the +whale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and +to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes. + +A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this +visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a +hint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing +is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing +whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one’s experience +will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of +things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and +completely, to examine any two things—however large or however small—at +one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side +and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two +objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in +order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to +bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary +consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in +themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more +comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man’s, that he can at the +same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on +one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he +can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able +simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct +problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any +incongruity in this comparison. + +It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the +extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when +beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer +frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly +proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their +divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them. + +But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an +entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads for +hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf +whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so +wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With +respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed +between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has +an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered +over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without. + +Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the +world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear +which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens +of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of +cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of +hearing? Not at all.—Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind? +Subtilize it. + +Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant +over the sperm whale’s head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending +by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not +that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we +might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But +let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What +a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, +lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as +bridal satins. + +But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems +like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one +end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, +and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, +alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these +spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, +when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there +suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging +straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world like a +ship’s jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of +sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his +jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a +reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon +him. + +In most cases this lower jaw—being easily unhinged by a practised +artist—is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting +the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone +with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles, +including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips. + +With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an +anchor; and when the proper time comes—some few days after the other +work—Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, +are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances +the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being +rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag +stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally +forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed; +nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn +into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses. + + +CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View. + +Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right +Whale’s head. + +As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale’s head may be compared to a +Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly +rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale’s head bears a rather +inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred +years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a +shoemaker’s last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the +nursery tale, with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be +lodged, she and all her progeny. + +But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different +aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit +and look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole +head for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in +its sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, +crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass—this green, +barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the “crown,” and the +Southern fishers the “bonnet” of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes +solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak, +with a bird’s nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those +live crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost +sure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the +technical term “crown” also bestowed upon it; in which case you will +take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a +diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for +him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a +very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower +lip! what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by +carpenter’s measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a +sulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more. + +A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped. +The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an +important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when +earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery +threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at +Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good +Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet +high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular +ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us +with those wondrous, half vertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone, +say three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part of the +head or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere +been cursorily mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with +hairy fibres, through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in +whose intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes +through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of +bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious +marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the +creature’s age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the +certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the +savor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we +must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance +will seem reasonable. + +In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies +concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous +“whiskers” inside of the whale’s mouth;* another, “hogs’ bristles”; a +third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: +“There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his +upper _chop_, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.” + +*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or +rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the +upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts +impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn +countenance. + +As every one knows, these same “hogs’ bristles,” “fins,” “whiskers,” +“blinds,” or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and +other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has +long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne’s time that the bone was +in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those +ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as +you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we +nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a +tent spread over the same bone. + +But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, +standing in the Right Whale’s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all +these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not +think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its +thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest +Turkey—the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the +mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting +it on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I +should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that +amount of oil. + +Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started +with—that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely +different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale’s there is no +great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible +of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale’s. Nor in the Sperm Whale are +there any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely +anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external +spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one. + +Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet +lie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other +will not be very long in following. + +Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same +he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now +faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like +placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the +other head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by +accident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. +Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical +resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a +Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in +his latter years. + + +CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram. + +Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale’s head, I would have you, +as a sensible physiologist, simply—particularly remark its front +aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you +investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some +unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may +be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must either +satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an +infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events, +perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history. + +You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, +the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the +water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes +considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long +socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the +mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as +though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you +observe that the whale has no external nose; and that what nose he +has—his spout hole—is on the top of his head; you observe that his eyes +and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one third of his entire +length from the front. Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the +front of the Sperm Whale’s head is a dead, blind wall, without a single +organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are +now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part +of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and +not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the +full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is +as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents +partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised +of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that +apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have described to you how +the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. +Just so with the head; but with this difference: about the head this +envelope, though not so thick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable +by any man who has not handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the +sharpest lance darted by the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds +from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved +with horses’ hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it. + +Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen +chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the +sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming +contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold +there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and +toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which +would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By +itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But +supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as +ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, +capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, +as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the +otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head +altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated +out of the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its +envelope; considering the unique interior of his head; it has +hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled +honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and +unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to +atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the +irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and +destructive of all elements contributes. + +Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable +wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a +mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood +is—by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest +insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the +specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this +expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more +inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all +ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the +Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed +the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your +eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and +sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander +giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials +then? What befell the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess’s veil +at Lais? + + +CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun. + +Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must +know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated +upon. + +Regarding the Sperm Whale’s head as a solid oblong, you may, on an +inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower +is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an +unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the +expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the +forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two +almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal +wall of a thick tendinous substance. + +*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical +mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a +solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the +steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both +sides. + +The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of +oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand +infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole +extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great +Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is +mystically carved in front, so the whale’s vast plaited forehead forms +innumerable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his +wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished +with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun +of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily +vintages; namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, +limpid, and odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found +unalloyed in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains +perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon +begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when +the first thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale’s +case generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from +unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and +dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish +business of securing what you can. + +I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun was +coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not +possibly have compared with the silken pearl-coloured membrane, like +the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm +Whale’s case. + +It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale +embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since—as +has been elsewhere set forth—the head embraces one third of the whole +length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet +for a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the +depth of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a +ship’s side. + +As in decapitating the whale, the operator’s instrument is brought +close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the +spermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest +a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly +let out its invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the +head, also, which is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in +that position by the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen +combinations, on one side, make quite a wilderness of ropes in that +quarter. + +Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and—in +this particular instance—almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm +Whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped. + + +CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets. + +Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect +posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the +part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried +with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, +travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that +it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it +is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down +the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he +lands on the summit of the head. There—still high elevated above the +rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries—he seems some Turkish +Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A +short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches +for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business +he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, +sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time +this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like +a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the +other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or +three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the +Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. +Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the +bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the word +to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like +a dairy-maid’s pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the +full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly +emptied into a large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through +the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the +end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper +and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone +down. + +Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; +several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once +a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild +Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his +one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or +whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or +whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without +stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling +now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came +suckingly up—my God! poor Tashtego—like the twin reciprocating bucket +in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of +Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of +sight! + +“Man overboard!” cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first +came to his senses. “Swing the bucket this way!” and putting one foot +into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip +itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost +before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there +was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before +lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, +as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only +the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous +depth to which he had sunk. + +At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing +the whip—which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles—a +sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, +one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a +vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship +reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, +upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be +on the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent +motions of the head. + +“Come down, come down!” yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand +holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he +would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line, +rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the +buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out. + +“In heaven’s name, man,” cried Stubb, “are you ramming home a cartridge +there?—Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on +top of his head? Avast, will ye!” + +“Stand clear of the tackle!” cried a voice like the bursting of a +rocket. + +Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass +dropped into the sea, like Niagara’s Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the +suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering +copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging—now over the +sailors’ heads, and now over the water—Daggoo, through a thick mist of +spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, +buried-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the +sea! But hardly had the blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked +figure with a boarding-sword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen +hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my +brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the +side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, +and no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands +now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the +ship. + +“Ha! ha!” cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch +overhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust +upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust +forth from the grass over a grave. + +“Both! both!—it is both!”—cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and +soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and +with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the +waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was +long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk. + +Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the +slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side +lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then +dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, +and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first +thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that +was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;—he had +thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a +somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in +the good old way—head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was +doing as well as could be expected. + +And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of +Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was +successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and +apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be +forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing +and boxing, riding and rowing. + +I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header’s will be sure to +seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have +either seen or heard of some one’s falling into a cistern ashore; an +accident which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than +the Indian’s, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the +Sperm Whale’s well. + +But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought +the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and +most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of +a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at +all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had +been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the +dense tendinous wall of the well—a double welded, hammered substance, +as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of +which sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking +in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted +by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it +sank very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair +chance for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. +Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was. + +Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious +perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant +spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber +and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be +recalled—the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey +in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that +leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How +many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato’s honey head, and +sweetly perished there? + + +CHAPTER 79. The Prairie. + +To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this +Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has +as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as +for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, +or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the +Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats of +the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces of +horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the +modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and his +disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the +phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, +though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of +these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all +things; I achieve what I can. + +Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature. He +has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most +conspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most modifies and +finally controls their combined expression; hence it would seem that +its entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect +the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire, +cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable +to the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in +keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the +nose from Phidias’s marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! +Nevertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his +proportions are so stately, that the same deficiency which in the +sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is +an added grandeur. A nose to the whale would have been impertinent. As +on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your +jolly-boat, your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the +reflection that he has a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which +so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest +royal beadle on his throne. + +In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to +be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This +aspect is sublime. + +In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the +morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has +a touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, +the elephant’s brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is +as that great golden seal affixed by the German emperors to their +decrees. It signifies—“God: done this day by my hand.” But in most +creatures, nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip +of alpine land lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which +like Shakespeare’s or Melancthon’s rise so high, and descend so low, +that the eyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; +and all above them in the forehead’s wrinkles, you seem to track the +antlered thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters +track the snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this +high and mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely +amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the +Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other +object in living nature. For you see no one point precisely; not one +distinct feature is revealed; no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth; no face; +he has none, proper; nothing but that one broad firmament of a +forehead, pleated with riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, +and ships, and men. Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; +though that way viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In +profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic +depression in the forehead’s middle, which, in man, is Lavater’s mark +of genius. + +But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written a +book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his doing +nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his +pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale +been known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by +their child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile, +because the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, +or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of +protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall +lure back to their birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and +livingly enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now +unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove’s high seat, the great +Sperm Whale shall lord it. + +Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is +no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man’s and every being’s +face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing +fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could +not read the simplest peasant’s face in its profounder and more subtle +meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of +the Sperm Whale’s brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you +can. + + +CHAPTER 80. The Nut. + +If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist +his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to +square. + +In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet +in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as +the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level +base. But in life—as we have elsewhere seen—this inclined plane is +angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent +mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to +bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater—in +another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in +depth—reposes the mere handful of this monster’s brain. The brain is at +least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away +behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the +amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it +secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny +that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance +of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in +strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it +seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that +mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence. + +It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in +the creature’s living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his +true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The +whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the +common world. + +If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view +of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its +resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from +the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down +to the human magnitude) among a plate of men’s skulls, and you would +involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on +one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say—This man +had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, +considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and +power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most +exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. + +But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale’s proper brain, you +deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea +for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped’s spine, you +will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebræ to a strung +necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the +skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebræ are absolutely +undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the +Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once +pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with +the vertebræ of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the +beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have +omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the +cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man’s +character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel +your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine +never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in +the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the +world. + +Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial +cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra +the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being +eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As +it passes through the remaining vertebræ the canal tapers in size, but +for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, +this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance—the +spinal cord—as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And +what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain’s +cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal +to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be +unreasonable to survey and map out the whale’s spine phrenologically? +For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his +brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative +magnitude of his spinal cord. + +But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I +would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the +Sperm Whale’s hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one +of the larger vertebræ, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer +convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call +this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm +Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have +reason to know. + + +CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin. + +The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, +Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen. + +At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and +Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide +intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with +their flag in the Pacific. + +For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects. +While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a +boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the +bows instead of the stern. + +“What has he in his hand there?” cried Starbuck, pointing to something +wavingly held by the German. “Impossible!—a lamp-feeder!” + +“Not that,” said Stubb, “no, no, it’s a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he’s +coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don’t you see that big +tin can there alongside of him?—that’s his boiling water. Oh! he’s all +right, is the Yarman.” + +“Go along with you,” cried Flask, “it’s a lamp-feeder and an oil-can. +He’s out of oil, and has come a-begging.” + +However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the +whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old +proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing +really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did +indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare. + +As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all +heeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the German +soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale; immediately +turning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with some +remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in +profound darkness—his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a +single flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency; concluding by +hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically +called a _clean_ one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name +of Jungfrau or the Virgin. + +His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his +ship’s side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the +mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that +without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed +round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders. + +Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German +boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the +Pequod’s keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their +danger, they were going all abreast with great speed straight before +the wind, rubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in +harness. They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling +a great wide parchment upon the sea. + +Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge, +humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as +by the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed +afflicted with the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this +whale belonged to the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is +not customary for such venerable leviathans to be at all social. +Nevertheless, he stuck to their wake, though indeed their back water +must have retarded him, because the white-bone or swell at his broad +muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell formed when two hostile +currents meet. His spout was short, slow, and laborious; coming forth +with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself in torn shreds, +followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which seemed to +have egress at his other buried extremity, causing the waters behind +him to upbubble. + +“Who’s got some paregoric?” said Stubb, “he has the stomach-ache, I’m +afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse +winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It’s the first foul wind +I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so +before? it must be, he’s lost his tiller.” + +As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck +load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her +way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly +turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious +wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost +that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say. + +“Only wait a bit, old chap, and I’ll give ye a sling for that wounded +arm,” cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him. + +“Mind he don’t sling thee with it,” cried Starbuck. “Give way, or the +German will have him.” + +With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this one +fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most +valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were +going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit for +the time. At this juncture the Pequod’s keels had shot by the three +German boats last lowered; but from the great start he had had, +Derick’s boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his +foreign rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being +already so nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron +before they could completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he +seemed quite confident that this would be the case, and occasionally +with a deriding gesture shook his lamp-feeder at the other boats. + +“The ungracious and ungrateful dog!” cried Starbuck; “he mocks and +dares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes +ago!”—then in his old intense whisper—“Give way, greyhounds! Dog to +it!” + +“I tell ye what it is, men”—cried Stubb to his crew—“it’s against my +religion to get mad; but I’d like to eat that villainous +Yarman—Pull—won’t ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do ye +love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, why +don’t some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who’s that been dropping an +anchor overboard—we don’t budge an inch—we’re becalmed. Halloo, here’s +grass growing in the boat’s bottom—and by the Lord, the mast there’s +budding. This won’t do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long +of it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?” + +“Oh! see the suds he makes!” cried Flask, dancing up and down—“What a +hump—Oh, _do_ pile on the beef—lays like a log! Oh! my lads, _do_ +spring—slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads—baked clams +and muffins—oh, _do_, _do_, spring,—he’s a hundred barreller—don’t lose +him now—don’t oh, _don’t!_—see that Yarman—Oh, won’t ye pull for your +duff, my lads—such a sog! such a sogger! Don’t ye love sperm? There +goes three thousand dollars, men!—a bank!—a whole bank! The bank of +England!—Oh, _do_, _do_, _do!_—What’s that Yarman about now?” + +At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the +advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view of +retarding his rivals’ way, and at the same time economically +accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss. + +“The unmannerly Dutch dogger!” cried Stubb. “Pull now, men, like fifty +thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d’ye say, +Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces +for the honor of old Gayhead? What d’ye say?” + +“I say, pull like god-dam,”—cried the Indian. + +Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod’s +three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed, +momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of the +headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up +proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating +cry of, “There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down +with the Yarman! Sail over him!” + +But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all +their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not +a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the +blade of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to +free his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick’s boat was nigh +to capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;—that +was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took +a mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German’s +quarter. An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the +whale’s immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was +the foaming swell that he made. + +It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was +now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual +tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of +fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering +flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank +in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So +have I seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles +in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird +has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the +fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted +in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his +spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while +still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there +was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied. + +Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod’s +boats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick +chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long +dart, ere the last chance would for ever escape. + +But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all +three tigers—Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo—instinctively sprang to their +feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their +barbs; and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three +Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding vapors of foam and +white-fire! The three boats, in the first fury of the whale’s headlong +rush, bumped the German’s aside with such force, that both Derick and +his baffled harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three +flying keels. + +“Don’t be afraid, my butter-boxes,” cried Stubb, casting a passing +glance upon them as he shot by; “ye’ll be picked up presently—all +right—I saw some sharks astern—St. Bernard’s dogs, you know—relieve +distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel +a sunbeam! Hurrah!—Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a +mad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a +tilbury on a plain—makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to +him that way; and there’s danger of being pitched out too, when you +strike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he’s going +to Davy Jones—all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this +whale carries the everlasting mail!” + +But the monster’s run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he +tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round +the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; +while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would +soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they +caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at +last—owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of +the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue—the +gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three +sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for +some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more +line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have +been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this “holding on,” as +it is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from +the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising +again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the +peril of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always +the best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the +stricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, +owing to the enormous surface of him—in a full grown sperm whale +something less than 2000 square feet—the pressure of the water is +immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we +ourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how +vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two +hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty +atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty +line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on +board. + +As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down +into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any +sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; +what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and +placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in +agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. +Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan +was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and +to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was +once so triumphantly said—“Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? +or his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him +cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron +as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble; +he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the creature? this he? Oh! +that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of +a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the +mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s fish-spears! + +In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats +sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad +enough to shade half Xerxes’ army. Who can tell how appalling to the +wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head! + +“Stand by, men; he stirs,” cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly +vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by +magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every +oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part +from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce +upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are +scared from it into the sea. + +“Haul in! Haul in!” cried Starbuck again; “he’s rising.” + +The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand’s breadth +could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all +dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two +ship’s lengths of the hunters. + +His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land +animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins, +whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly +shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose +peculiarities it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the +blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a +harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial +system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of +water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to +pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of +blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that +he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even +as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-springs +of far-off and undiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled +upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the +lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the +new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural +spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending +its affrighted moisture into the air. From this last vent no blood yet +came, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life, +as they significantly call it, was untouched. + +As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of +his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly +revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were +beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the +noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes +had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. +But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his +blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light +the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate +the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to +all. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a +strangely discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low +down on the flank. + +“A nice spot,” cried Flask; “just let me prick him there once.” + +“Avast!” cried Starbuck, “there’s no need of that!” + +But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an +ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more +than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift +fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying +crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s boat and marring +the bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he +by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had +made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin, +then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the +white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most +piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is +gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled +melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the +ground—so the last long dying spout of the whale. + +Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body +showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. +Immediately, by Starbuck’s orders, lines were secured to it at +different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken +whale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the cords. By very +heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred +to her side, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest +fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld, the +body would at once sink to the bottom. + +It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade, +the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his +flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the +stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured +whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence +of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have +been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for +the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a +lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, +the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And +when? It might have been darted by some Nor’ West Indian long before +America was discovered. + +What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous +cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further +discoveries, by the ship’s being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways +to the sea, owing to the body’s immensely increasing tendency to sink. +However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to +the last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the +ship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with +the body; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such +was the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the +fluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast +them off. Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the +other side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a +house. The ship groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her +bulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural +dislocation. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the +immovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so +low had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at +all approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed +added to the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going +over. + +“Hold on, hold on, won’t ye?” cried Stubb to the body, “don’t be in +such a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something +or go for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes, +and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big +chains.” + +“Knife? Aye, aye,” cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter’s heavy +hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing +at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were +given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific +snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank. + +Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm +Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately +accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great +buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the +surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and +broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their +bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that +this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so +sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it +is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with +noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of +life, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny, +buoyant heroes do sometimes sink. + +Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this +accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty +Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable +in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; +his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this +incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances +where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale +again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this is +obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious +magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship +could hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, +among the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of +sinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when +the body has gone down, they know where to look for it when it shall +have ascended again. + +It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from +the Pequod’s mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again +lowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a +Fin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of +its incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back’s spout is +so similar to the Sperm Whale’s, that by unskilful fishermen it is +often mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were +now in valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all +sail, made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared +far to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase. + +Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend. + + +CHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling. + +There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the +true method. + +The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up +to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its +great honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many +great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other +have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection +that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a +fraternity. + +The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to +the eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first whale +attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. +Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms +to succor the distressed, and not to fill men’s lamp-feeders. Every one +knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely +Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast, +and as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the +prince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and +delivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit, +rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as +this Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt +this Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian +coast, in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast +skeleton of a whale, which the city’s legends and all the inhabitants +asserted to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew. +When the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in +triumph. What seems most singular and suggestively important in this +story, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail. + +Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda—indeed, by some supposed +to be indirectly derived from it—is that famous story of St. George and +the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many +old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and +often stand for each other. “Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a +dragon of the sea,” saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in +truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it +would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but +encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle +with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only +a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march +boldly up to a whale. + +Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the +creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely +represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted +on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance +of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; +and considering that as in Perseus’ case, St. George’s whale might have +crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal +ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; +bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible +with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to +hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. +In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story +will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, +Dagon by name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse’s +head and both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the +stump or fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble +stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by +good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most +noble order of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that +honorable company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do +with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer +with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we +are much better entitled to St. George’s decoration than they. + +Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long +remained dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that +antique Crockett and Kit Carson—that brawny doer of rejoicing good +deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether that +strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere +appears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from +the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary +whaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I +claim him for one of our clan. + +But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of +Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more +ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versâ; certainly +they are very similar. If I claim the demi-god then, why not the +prophet? + +Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole +roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like +royal kings of old times, we find the head waters of our fraternity in +nothing short of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental +story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread +Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives +us this divine Vishnoo himself for our Lord;—Vishnoo, who, by the first +of his ten earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified +the whale. When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved +to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave +birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical +books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo +before beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained +something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these +Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became +incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths, +rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even +as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman? + +Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there’s a +member-roll for you! What club but the whaleman’s can head off like +that? + + +CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded. + +Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in +the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this +historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some +sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans +of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, +and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did +not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that. + +One old Sag-Harbor whaleman’s chief reason for questioning the Hebrew +story was this:—He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles, +embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented +Jonah’s whale with two spouts in his head—a peculiarity only true with +respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the +varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this +saying, “A penny roll would choke him”; his swallow is so very small. +But, to this, Bishop Jebb’s anticipative answer is ready. It is not +necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the +whale’s belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And +this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right +Whale’s mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and +comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have +ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right +Whale is toothless. + +Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his +want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in +reference to his incarcerated body and the whale’s gastric juices. But +this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist +supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a +_dead_ whale—even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned +their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has +been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was +thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his +escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a +figure-head; and, I would add, possibly called “The Whale,” as some +craft are nowadays christened the “Shark,” the “Gull,” the “Eagle.” Nor +have there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the +whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver—an +inflated bag of wind—which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was +saved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all +round. But he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was +this, if I remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the +Mediterranean Sea, and after three days he was vomited up somewhere +within three days’ journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much +more than three days’ journey across from the nearest point of the +Mediterranean coast. How is that? + +But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within +that short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by +the way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage +through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up +the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the +complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of +the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any +whale to swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah’s weathering the Cape of +Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of +that great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and +so make modern history a liar. + +But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his +foolish pride of reason—a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing +that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the +sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and +abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a +Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah’s going to Nineveh +via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the +general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly +enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. +And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris’s +Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which +Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil. + + +CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling. + +To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are +anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an +analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it +to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly +be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are +hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to +make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing +his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau +disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation; +crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in +the unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair +from the craft’s bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to +some particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the +event. + +Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to +them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered +flight, as of Cleopatra’s barges from Actium. + +Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb’s was foremost. By great +exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the +stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal +flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the +planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became +imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But to +haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and +furious. What then remained? + +Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and +countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced, +none exceed that fine manœuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small +sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It +is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand fact +and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is +accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme +headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or +twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the +harpoon, and also of a lighter material—pine. It is furnished with a +small rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be +hauled back to the hand after darting. + +But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though +the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it is +seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, on +account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as +compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a +general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before +any pitchpoling comes into play. + +Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and +equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel +in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the +flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet +ahead. Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along +its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers +up the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in +his grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full +before his waistband’s middle, he levels it at the whale; when, +covering him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, +thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon +his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler, +balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless +impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming +distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of +sparkling water, he now spouts red blood. + +“That drove the spigot out of him!” cried Stubb. “’Tis July’s immortal +Fourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old +Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then, +Tashtego, lad, I’d have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we’d drink +round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we’d brew choice punch in the +spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the +living stuff.” + +Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated, +the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful +leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is +slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and +mutely watches the monster die. + + +CHAPTER 85. The Fountain. + +That for six thousand years—and no one knows how many millions of ages +before—the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and +sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many +sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, +thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the +whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings—that all this should +be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter +minutes past one o’clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. +1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, +after all, really water, or nothing but vapor—this is surely a +noteworthy thing. + +Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items +contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their +gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times +is combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a +cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the +surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him +regular lungs, like a human being’s, the whale can only live by +inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the +necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot +in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, +the Sperm Whale’s mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the +surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his +mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the +top of his head. + +If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function +indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a +certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the +blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I +shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. +Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be +aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not +fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then +live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the +case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full +hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or +so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has +no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine +he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of +vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are +completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or +more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of +vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert +carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four +supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is +indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable +and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise +inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in _having his spoutings out_, +as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon +rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period +of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he +stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy +breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his +seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few +breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging up +again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those +seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full +term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates +are different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale +thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish +his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious is it, too, +that this necessity for the whale’s rising exposes him to all the fatal +hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast +leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the +sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great +necessities that strike the victory to thee! + +In man, breathing is incessantly going on—one breath only serving for +two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to +attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the +Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time. + +It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole; +if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, +then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of +smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at +all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so +clogged with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power +of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout—whether it be water +or whether it be vapor—no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at +on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no +proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no +violets, no Cologne-water in the sea. + +Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting +canal, and as that long canal—like the grand Erie Canal—is furnished +with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of +air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; +unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he +talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? +Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this +world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a +living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener! + +Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is +for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, +horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little +to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down +in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether +this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout +of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether +that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and +discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth +indirectly communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be +proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water through the +spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, +when in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale’s +food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he +would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your +watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating +rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of +respiration. + +But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! +You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not +tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to +settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the +knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand +in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely. + +The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping +it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, +when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view +of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all +around him. And if at such times you should think that you really +perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are +not merely condensed from its vapor; or how do you know that they are +not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole +fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale’s head? For +even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with +his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary’s in the desert; even then, +the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a +blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with +rain. + +Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the +precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering +into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to +this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into +slight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will +often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of +the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer +contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or +otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. +Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to +evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt +it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind +you. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is +to let this deadly spout alone. + +Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My +hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides +other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations +touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I +account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed +fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other +whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am +convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as +Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes +up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep +thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the +curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected +there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over +my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep +thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an +August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above +supposition. + +And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to +behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild +head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable +contemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified +by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. +For, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate +vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my +mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a +heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; +but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of +all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this +combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who +regards them both with equal eye. + + +CHAPTER 86. The Tail. + +Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, +and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial, +I celebrate a tail. + +Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale’s tail to begin at that point +of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises +upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. +The compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat +palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in +thickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, +then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy +between. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely +defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost +expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed +twenty feet across. + +The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut +into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:—upper, +middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long +and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running +crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as +anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman +walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin +course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful +relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the +great strength of the masonry. + +But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, +the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of +muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins +and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and +largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent +measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point. +Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it. + +Nor does this—its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful +flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a +Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most +appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or +harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly +beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied +tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved +Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the +linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with +the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. +When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what +robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in +the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which +his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so +destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but +the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on +all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his +teachings. + +Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether +wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it +be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein +no fairy’s arm can transcend it. + +Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for +progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping; +Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes. + +First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan’s tail acts in a +different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never +wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the +whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled +forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is +this which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster +when furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by. + +Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only +fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his +conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In +striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the +blow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed +air, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply +irresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only +salvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the +opposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the +whale-boat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a +dashed plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the +most serious result. These submerged side blows are so often received +in the fishery, that they are accounted mere child’s play. Some one +strips off a frock, and the hole is stopped. + +Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale +the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect +there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the +elephant’s trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of +sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft +slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of +the sea; and if he feel but a sailor’s whisker, woe to that sailor, +whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! +Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of +Darmonodes’ elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low +salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their +zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not +possess this prehensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yet +another elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his +trunk and extracted the dart. + +Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the +middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence +of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a +hearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of his +tail are flirted high into the air; then smiting the surface, the +thunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a +great gun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of +vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that +that was the smoke from the touch-hole. + +Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes +lie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely +out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into +the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are +tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they +downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime _breach_—somewhere +else to be described—this peaking of the whale’s flukes is perhaps the +grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless +profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the +highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting +forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in +gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the +Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the +archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that +crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, +all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with +peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment +of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of +the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African +elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most +devout of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military +elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks +uplifted in the profoundest silence. + +The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the +elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk +of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite +organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they +respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to +Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan’s tail, his trunk is but the +stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant’s trunk were +as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and +crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes, which in repeated +instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their +oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his +balls.* + +*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and +the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the +elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does +to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of +curious similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the +elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then +elevating it, jet it forth in a stream. + +The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my +inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, +though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly +inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are +these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them +akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these +methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting +other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, +and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I +may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I +know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much +more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my +back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. +But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will +about his face, I say again he has no face. + + +CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada. + +The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from +the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia. +In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of +Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a vast +mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, and +dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded +oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports +for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are +the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, +vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas. + +Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing +midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green +promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond +to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and +considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, +and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental +sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such +treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the +appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping +western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with +those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the +Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these +Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from +the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries +past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra +and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while +they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce +their claim to more solid tribute. + +Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the +low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the +vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the +point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they +have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these +corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present +day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in +those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged. + +With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these +straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and +thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here +and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, +and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season +there. By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost +all the known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to +descending upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere +else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby +Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he +might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it. + +But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his +crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, +now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs +no sustenance but what’s in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the +whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be +transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries +no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a +whole lake’s contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with +utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She +carries years’ water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, +when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to +drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, +from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other +ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at +a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have +sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating +seamen like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that +another flood had come; they would only answer—“Well, boys, here’s the +ark!” + +Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of +Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of +the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an +excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and +more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and +admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the +land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the +fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was +descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game +hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the +customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle +of singular magnificence saluted us. + +But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with +which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm +Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached +companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in extensive +herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost +seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and +covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To this aggregation of +the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the +circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may now +sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by +a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems +thousands on thousands. + +Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and +forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a +continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the +noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right +Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the +cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of +the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually +rising and falling away to leeward. + +Seen from the Pequod’s deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of +the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the +air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed +like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried +of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height. + +As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, +accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in +their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the +plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward +through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their +semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre. + +Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers +handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet +suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that +chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy +into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their +number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby +Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped +white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with +stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans +before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly +directing attention to something in our wake. + +Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our +rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling +something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so +completely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally +disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved +in his pivot-hole, crying, “Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to +wet the sails;—Malays, sir, and after us!” + +As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should +fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in +hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the +swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how +very kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on +to her own chosen pursuit,—mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that +they were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in +his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one +the bloodthirsty pirates chasing _him_; some such fancy as the above +seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery +defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that +through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that +through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his +deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates +and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with +their curses;—when all these conceits had passed through his brain, +Ahab’s brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after +some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the +firm thing from its place. + +But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and +when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the +Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra +side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the +harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been +gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so +victoriously gained upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake +of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the +ship neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to +spring to the boats. But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed +wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three +keels that were after them,—though as yet a mile in their rear,—than +they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions, so that +their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved +on with redoubled velocity. + +Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and +after several hours’ pulling were almost disposed to renounce the +chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating +token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange +perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it +in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in +which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now +broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus’ elephants in +the Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with +consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, +and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick +spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was +still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely +paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled +ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple +sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not +possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional +timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though +banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the +West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human +beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre’s pit, +they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the +outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each +other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the +strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beasts +of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men. + +Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion, +yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor +retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in +those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone +whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes’ time, +Queequeg’s harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray +in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered +straight for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part +of the whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise +unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; +yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the +fishery. For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the +frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a +delirious throb. + +As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of +speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we +thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by +the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was +like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer +through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what +moment it may be locked in and crushed. + +But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off +from this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away +from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the +time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our +way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no +time to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their +wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to +the shouting part of the business. “Out of the way, Commodore!” cried +one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, +and for an instant threatened to swamp us. “Hard down with your tail, +there!” cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed +calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity. + +All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented +by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood of +equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each +other’s grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then +attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line +being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is +chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more +whales are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But +sperm whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you +must kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you +must wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. +Hence it is, that at times like these the drugg, comes into +requisition. Our boat was furnished with three of them. The first and +second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly +running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing +drugg. They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball. But +upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy +wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an +instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the +boat’s bottom as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the sea +came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and +shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time. + +It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were it +not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale’s way greatly +diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from +the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So +that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale +sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting +momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the +shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene +valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost +whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea +presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by +the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. +Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the +heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we +beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive +pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, +like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to +shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched the +middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the +density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding +the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at +present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that +hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us +up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by +small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host. + +Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving +outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in +any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by +the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square +miles. At any rate—though indeed such a test at such a time might be +deceptive—spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that seemed +playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this +circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely +locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of the herd +had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its +stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way +innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller +whales—now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the +lake—evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still +becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like +household dogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, +and touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly +domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched +their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the +time refrained from darting it. + +But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still +stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended +in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the +whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become +mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth +exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will +calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two +different lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, +be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;—even so +did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at +us, as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight. +Floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One +of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a +day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six +feet in girth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed +scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately +occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready +for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar’s bow. +The delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly +retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby’s ears newly arrived +from foreign parts. + +“Line! line!” cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; “him fast! him +fast!—Who line him! Who struck?—Two whale; one big, one little!” + +“What ails ye, man?” cried Starbuck. + +“Look-e here,” said Queequeg, pointing down. + +As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds +of fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and +shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling +towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord +of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to +its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this +natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the +hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest +secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We +saw young Leviathan amours in the deep.* + +*The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but +unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a +gestation which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but +one at a time; though in some few known instances giving birth to an +Esau and Jacob:—a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, +curiously situated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts +themselves extend upwards from that. When by chance these precious +parts in a nursing whale are cut by the hunter’s lance, the mother’s +pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolour the sea for rods. The milk +is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well +with strawberries. When overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales +salute _more hominum_. + +And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and +affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and +fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled +in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of +my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; +and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down +and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. + +Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic +spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats, +still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or +possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance +of room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight +of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro +across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is +sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful +and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or +maiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by darting a short-handled +cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again. A +whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not +effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying +along with him half of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony +of the wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the +lone mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying +dismay wherever he went. + +But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling +spectacle enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed +to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first +the intervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived +that by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale +had become entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he had also run +away with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free end of the rope +attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the +harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked loose +from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning +through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and +tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own +comrades. + +This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their +stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake +began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by +half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to +heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; +in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central +circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was +departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the +tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in +Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner +centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly +Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern. + +“Oars! Oars!” he intensely whispered, seizing the helm—“gripe your +oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off, +you Queequeg—the whale there!—prick him!—hit him! Stand up—stand up, +and stay so! Spring, men—pull, men; never mind their backs—scrape +them!—scrape away!” + +The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a +narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate +endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way +rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet. +After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into +what had just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random +whales, all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was +cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg’s hat, who, while standing in +the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his +head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad +flukes close by. + +Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon +resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having +clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their +onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; +but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged +whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask +had killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of +which are carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at +hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both +to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, +should the boats of any other ship draw near. + +The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious +saying in the Fishery,—the more whales the less fish. Of all the +drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for +the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some +other craft than the Pequod. + + +CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. + +The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm +Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those +vast aggregations. + +Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must +have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are +occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each. +Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those +composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young +vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated. + +In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a +male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces +his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his +ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about +over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and +endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his +concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest +leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more +than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are +comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen +yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the +whole they are hereditarily entitled to _en bon point_. + +It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent +ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in +leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the +full flower of the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned, +perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating +summer of all unpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have +lounged up and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for +the Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so +evade the other excessive temperature of the year. + +When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange +suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his +interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan +coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the +ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases +him away! High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are +to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do +what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of +his bed; for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often +cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with +the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They +fence with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and +so striving for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their +antlers. Not a few are captured having the deep scars of these +encounters,—furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some +instances, wrenched and dislocated mouths. + +But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at +the first rush of the harem’s lord, then is it very diverting to watch +that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and +revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, +like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines. +Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give +chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish +of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the +sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must +take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For +like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my +Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; +and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all +over the world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as +the ardour of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as +reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude +overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the +love for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, +admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to +an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians +and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from +his amorous errors. + +Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so is +the lord and master of that school technically known as the +schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however +admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then +go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. +His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the +name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the +man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read +the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a +country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and +what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of +his pupils. + +The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale +betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm +Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale—as a solitary Leviathan is +called—proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, +he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to +wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though +she keeps so many moody secrets. + +The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously +mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while +those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or +forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious +of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; +excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, +and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout. + +The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a +mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, +tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no +prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous +lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, +and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about +in quest of settlements, that is, harems. + +Another point of difference between the male and female schools is +still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a +Forty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a +member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with +every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as +themselves to fall a prey. + + +CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish. + +The allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one, +necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale +fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge. + +It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company, +a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed +and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised +many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For +example,—after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the +body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and +drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a +calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the +most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the +fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, +undisputed law applicable to all cases. + +Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative +enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in +A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling +law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and +lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse +comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian’s Pandects and the By-laws of the +Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s +Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne’s farthing, +or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. + +I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. + +II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. + +But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable +brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to +expound it. + +First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, +when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at +all controllable by the occupant or occupants,—a mast, an oar, a +nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the +same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any +other recognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it +plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well +as their intention so to do. + +These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen +themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks—the +Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and +honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where +it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim +possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But +others are by no means so scrupulous. + +Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated +in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of +a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had +succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of +their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat +itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up +with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it +before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were +remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs’ +teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had +done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had +remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore +the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, +line, harpoons, and boat. + +Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the +judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to +illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case, +wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife’s +viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in +the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to +recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he then +supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally +harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of +the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned +her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and +therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then +became that subsequent gentleman’s property, along with whatever +harpoon might have been found sticking in her. + +Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the +whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other. + +These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very +learned judge in set terms decided, to wit,—That as for the boat, he +awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to +save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, +harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because +it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons +and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) +acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards +took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took +the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs. + +A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might +possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the +matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws +previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in +the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, +I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human +jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of +sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, +has but two props to stand on. + +Is it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law: +that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often +possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of +Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession +is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s +last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble +mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? +What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor +Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family from +starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the +Archbishop of Savesoul’s income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread +and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure +of heaven without any of Savesoul’s help) what is that globular +£100,000 but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary +towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, +John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic +lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all +these, is not Possession the whole of the law? + +But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the +kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is +internationally and universally applicable. + +What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the +Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and +mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What +India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All +Loose-Fish. + +What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but +Loose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is +the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the +ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but +Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what +are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too? + + +CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails. + +“De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.” +_Bracton, l. 3, c. 3._ + +Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the +context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of +that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, +and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division +which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no +intermediate remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to +this day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects a +strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is +here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle +that prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate +car, specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first +place, in curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is +still in force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that +happened within the last two years. + +It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one +of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and +beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from +the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the +jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. +Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal +emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment +his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. +Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his +perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of +them. + +Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their +trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their +fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good £150 from the +precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their +wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their +respective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian and +charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and +laying it upon the whale’s head, he says—“Hands off! this fish, my +masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden’s.” Upon this +the poor mariners in their respectful consternation—so truly +English—knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their +heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the +stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the +hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At +length one of them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made +bold to speak, + +“Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?” + +“The Duke.” + +“But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?” + +“It is his.” + +“We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is all +that to go to the Duke’s benefit; we getting nothing at all for our +pains but our blisters?” + +“It is his.” + +“Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of +getting a livelihood?” + +“It is his.” + +“I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of +this whale.” + +“It is his.” + +“Won’t the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?” + +“It is his.” + +In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of +Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular +lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be +deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman +of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to +take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To +which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published) +that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be +obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend +gentleman) would decline meddling with other people’s business. Is this +the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three +kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars? + +It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the Duke +to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs +inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested +with that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon +gives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs +to the King and Queen, “because of its superior excellence.” And by the +soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such +matters. + +But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason +for that, ye lawyers! + +In his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pinmoney, an old King’s Bench +author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s, +that ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this +was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or +Right whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices. But this same bone is +not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a +sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be +presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here. + +There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers—the whale +and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and +nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown’s ordinary revenue. I +know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by +inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same +way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head +peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be +humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there +seems a reason in all things, even in law. + + +CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud. + +“In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this +Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” _Sir T. Browne, +V.E._ + +It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when +we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the +many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than +the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell +was smelt in the sea. + +“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are +some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they +would keel up before long.” + +Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance +lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must +be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours +from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that +circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the +whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that +is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an +unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor +such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, +when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable +indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to +moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it; +notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of +a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of +attar-of-rose. + +Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman +had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of +a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those +problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of +prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies +almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the +proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up +his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted +whales in general. + +The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he +recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were +knotted round the tail of one of these whales. + +“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the +ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes +of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering +their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, +and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of +tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they +will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all +know these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with +our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too +with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. +Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a +present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get +from that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no, +not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to +get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, +than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of +it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, +ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth +trying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the +quarter-deck. + +By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether +or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope +of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, +Stubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger. +Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the +fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in +the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for +thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole +terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon +her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de +Rose,”—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this +aromatic ship. + +Though Stubb did not understand the _Bouton_ part of the inscription, +yet the word _rose_, and the bulbous figure-head put together, +sufficiently explained the whole to him. + +“A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will +do very well; but how like all creation it smells!” + +Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he +had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close +to the blasted whale; and so talk over it. + +Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he +bawled—“Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that +speak English?” + +“Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be +the chief-mate. + +“Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?” + +“_What_ whale?” + +“The _White_ Whale—a Sperm Whale—Moby Dick, have ye seen him? + +“Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale—no.” + +“Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.” + +Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning +over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two +hands into a trumpet and shouted—“No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab +retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman. + +He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the +chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of +bag. + +“What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?” + +“I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered +the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very +much. “But what are you holding _yours_ for?” + +“Oh, nothing! It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t +it? Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will +ye, Bouton-de-Rose?” + +“What in the devil’s name do you want here?” roared the Guernseyman, +flying into a sudden passion. + +“Oh! keep cool—cool? yes, that’s the word! why don’t you pack those +whales in ice while you’re working at ’em? But joking aside, though; do +you know, Rose-bud, that it’s all nonsense trying to get any oil out of +such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn’t a gill in his +whole carcase.” + +“I know that well enough; but, d’ye see, the Captain here won’t believe +it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But +come aboard, and mayhap he’ll believe you, if he won’t me; and so I’ll +get out of this dirty scrape.” + +“Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,” rejoined Stubb, +and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene +presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were +getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked +rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good +humor. All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many +jib-booms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up +to the mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch +the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their +nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short +off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it +constantly filled their olfactories. + +Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from +the Captain’s round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a +fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from +within. This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain +remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself +to the Captain’s round-house (_cabinet_ he called it) to avoid the +pest; but still, could not help yelling out his entreaties and +indignations at times. + +Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the +Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate +expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who +had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. +Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man +had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore +held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and +confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan +for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all +dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan +of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter’s office, +was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and +as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost +in him during the interview. + +By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a +small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with +large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet +vest with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now +politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put +on the aspect of interpreting between them. + +“What shall I say to him first?” said he. + +“Why,” said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, “you +may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, +though I don’t pretend to be a judge.” + +“He says, Monsieur,” said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his +captain, “that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain +and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a +blasted whale they had brought alongside.” + +Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more. + +“What now?” said the Guernsey-man to Stubb. + +“Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him +carefully, I’m quite certain that he’s no more fit to command a +whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he’s a +baboon.” + +“He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, +is far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures +us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.” + +Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his +crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast +loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. + +“What now?” said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to +them. + +“Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that—that—in fact, +tell him I’ve diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody +else.” + +“He says, Monsieur, that he’s very happy to have been of any service to +us.” + +Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties +(meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into +his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux. + +“He wants you to take a glass of wine with him,” said the interpreter. + +“Thank him heartily; but tell him it’s against my principles to drink +with the man I’ve diddled. In fact, tell him I must go.” + +“He says, Monsieur, that his principles won’t admit of his drinking; +but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur +had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, +for it’s so calm they won’t drift.” + +By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed +the Guernsey-man to this effect,—that having a long tow-line in his +boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the +lighter whale of the two from the ship’s side. While the Frenchman’s +boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb +benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously +slacking out a most unusually long tow-line. + +Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale; +hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while +the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb’s whale. Whereupon Stubb +quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give +notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his +unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an +excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost +have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at +length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up +old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat’s crew +were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking +as anxious as gold-hunters. + +And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and +screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning +to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, +when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a +faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells +without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then +along with another, without at all blending with it for a time. + +“I have it, I have it,” cried Stubb, with delight, striking something +in the subterranean regions, “a purse! a purse!” + +Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of +something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old +cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with +your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, +good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any +druggist. Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably +lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were +it not for impatient Ahab’s loud command to Stubb to desist, and come +on board, else the ship would bid them good bye. + + +CHAPTER 92. Ambergris. + +Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an +article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain +Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that +subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, +the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem +to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound +for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, +though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far +inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. +Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, +used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris +is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely +used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and +pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for +the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome. +Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it. + +Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should +regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a +sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the +cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to +cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering +three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of +harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks. + +I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, +certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be +sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were +nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner. + +Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be +found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that +saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; +how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise +call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the +best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of +ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is +the worst. + +I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but +cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against +whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, +might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said +of the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous +aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is +throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to +rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this +odious stigma originate? + +I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the +Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because +those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea +as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh +blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, +and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those +Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, +forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking +into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the +Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising +from excavating an old city grave-yard, for the foundations of a +Lying-in Hospital. + +I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be +likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former +times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which +latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great +work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports +(smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to +afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried +out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a +collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works +were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But +all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a +voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with +oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling +out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. +The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a +species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be +recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew +in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be +otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high +health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it +is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm +Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented +lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the +Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be +to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, +which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great? + + +CHAPTER 93. The Castaway. + +It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most +significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod’s crew; +an event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes +madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying +prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own. + +Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. +Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is +to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general +thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising +the boats’ crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, +or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a +ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by +nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; +ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so +gloomy-jolly. + +In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and +a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven +in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull +and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at +bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness +peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and +festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, +the year’s calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five +Fourth of Julys and New Year’s Days. Nor smile so, while I write that +this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; +behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king’s cabinets. But Pip loved +life, and all life’s peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking +business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had +most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, +what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be +luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him +off to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland +County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler’s frolic on +the green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned +the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the +clear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the +pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning +jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he +lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, +but by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, +infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest +symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from +the King of Hell. But let us to the story. + +It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb’s after-oarsman +chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; +and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place. + +The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness; +but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and +therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing +him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness +to the utmost, for he might often find it needful. + +Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as +the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which +happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip’s seat. The +involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in +hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale +line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as +to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That +instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly +straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of +the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken +several turns around his chest and neck. + +Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He +hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he +suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, +exclaimed interrogatively, “Cut?” Meantime Pip’s blue, choked face +plainly looked, Do, for God’s sake! All passed in a flash. In less than +half a minute, this entire thing happened. + +“Damn him, cut!” roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was +saved. + +So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by +yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these +irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like, +but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done, +unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never +jump from a boat, Pip, except—but all the rest was indefinite, as the +soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, _Stick to the boat_, is your +true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when _Leap from +the boat_, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if +he should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be +leaving him too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly +dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, “Stick to +the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won’t pick you up if you jump; mind +that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would +sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in +mind, and don’t jump any more.” Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, +that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, +which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. + +But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was +under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this +time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started +to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s +trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, +bounteous, blue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly +stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater’s skin +hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip’s +ebon head showed like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when +he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb’s inexorable back was turned upon him; +and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless +ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor +Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely +castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest. + +Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the +practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful +lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the +middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, +how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea—mark how closely +they hug their ship and only coast along her sides. + +But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; +he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, +and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip +very quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations +towards oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always +manifested by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances +not unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so +called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to +military navies and armies. + +But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly +spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and +Stubb’s boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent +upon his fish, that Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him +miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; +but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, +at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body +up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. +Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of +the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; +and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the +joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, +God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters +heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the +loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So +man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, +man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is +absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, +indifferent as his God. + +For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that +fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what +like abandonment befell myself. + + +CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. + +That whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the +Pequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations +previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of +the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case. + +While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in +dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and +when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated +ere going to the try-works, of which anon. + +It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with +several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I +found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about +in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back +into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this +sperm was such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! +such a softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it +for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it +were, to serpentine and spiralise. + +As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter +exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under +indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands +among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost +within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all +their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that +uncontaminated aroma,—literally and truly, like the smell of spring +violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky +meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible +sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit +the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in +allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely +free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort +whatsoever. + +Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm +till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a +strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly +squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the +gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving +feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually +squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as +much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish +any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; +let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into +each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and +sperm of kindness. + +Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since +by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all +cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of +attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the +fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the +fireside, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready +to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I +saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of +spermaceti. + +Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things +akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the +try-works. + +First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering +part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It +is tough with congealed tendons—a wad of muscle—but still contains some +oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut +into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like +blocks of Berkshire marble. + +Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the +whale’s flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and +often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is +a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name +imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked +snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and +purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, +it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I +stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should +conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have +tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the +venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an +unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne. + +There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in +the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling +adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation +original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance. +It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the +tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I +hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, +coalescing. + +Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but +sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the +dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the +Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those +inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan. + +Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale’s +vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman’s +nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering +part of Leviathan’s tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the +rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along +the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless +blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities. + +But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at +once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its +inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for +the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the +proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a +scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by +a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They +generally go in pairs,—a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The +whaling-pike is similar to a frigate’s boarding-weapon of the same +name. The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the +gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from +slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the +spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into +the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the +spademan’s feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes +irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of +his own toes, or one of his assistants’, would you be very much +astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men. + + +CHAPTER 95. The Cassock. + +Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this +post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the +windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small +curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen +there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous +cistern in the whale’s huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower +jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so +surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,—longer than +a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and +jet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it +is; or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that +found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for +worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the +idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly +set forth in the 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings. + +Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and +assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners +call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a +grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the +forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, +as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt +inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as +almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in +the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some +three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two +slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself +bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full +canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this +investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the +peculiar functions of his office. + +That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the +pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, +planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath +it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt +orator’s desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; +intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a +lad for a Pope were this mincer!* + +*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates +to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as +thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of +boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably +increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality. + + +CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works. + +Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly +distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the +most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the +completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were +transported to her planks. + +The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most +roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, +fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and +mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The +foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly +secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all +sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased +with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened +hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in +number, and each of several barrels’ capacity. When not in use, they +are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone +and sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls. During the +night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil +themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them—one +man in each pot, side by side—many confidential communications are +carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound +mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, +with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first +indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies +gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from +any point in precisely the same time. + +Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare +masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of +the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted +with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented +from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir +extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel +inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as +fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct +from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment. + +It was about nine o’clock at night that the Pequod’s try-works were +first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee +the business. + +“All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the +works.” This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting +his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said +that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed +for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of +quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, +the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still +contains considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed +the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming +misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by +his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is +horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you +must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor +about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells +like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the +pit. + +By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the +carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean +darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce +flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and +illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek +fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to +some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the +bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad +sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and +folded them in conflagrations. + +The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide +hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of +the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship’s stokers. With huge +pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding +pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, +curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled +away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of +the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. +Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden +hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the +watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the +fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny +features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, +and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were +strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they +narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror +told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards +out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their +front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged +forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the +ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further +and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully +champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on +all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden +with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of +darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s +soul. + +So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently +guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that +interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the +madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend +shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at +last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to +that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a +midnight helm. + +But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) +thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was +horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller +smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of +sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were +open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and +mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all +this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed +but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle +lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and +then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, +that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to +any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered +feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the +tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in +some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? +thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was +fronting the ship’s stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In +an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying +up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how +grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and +the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee! + +Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy +hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first +hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its +redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, +the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking +flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the +glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars! + +Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, nor Rome’s +accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of +deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, +which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this +earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow +in him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped. With +books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the +truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered +steel of woe. “All is vanity.” ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold +of unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and +jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of +operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils +all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais +as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fitted to sit +down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably +wondrous Solomon. + +But even Solomon, he says, “the man that wandereth out of the way of +understanding shall remain” (_i.e._, even while living) “in the +congregation of the dead.” Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it +invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom +that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a +Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest +gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny +spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is +in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle +is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. + + +CHAPTER 97. The Lamp. + +Had you descended from the Pequod’s try-works to the Pequod’s +forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single +moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some +illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay +in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a +score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. + +In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of +queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in +darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he +seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an +Aladdin’s lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night +the ship’s black hull still houses an illumination. + +See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of +lamps—often but old bottles and vials, though—to the copper cooler at +the try-works, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He +burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, +unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral +contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He +goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and +genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own +supper of game. + + +CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up. + +Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off +descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, +and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed +alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the +headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his +great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in +due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and +Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the +fire;—but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of +the description by rehearsing—singing, if I may—the romantic proceeding +of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the +hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities, +sliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to +rise and blow. + +While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the +six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling +this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed +round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot +across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last +man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap, +rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, _ex officio_, +every sailor is a cooper. + +At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the +great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, +and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the +hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up. + +In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable +incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream +with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous +masses of the whale’s head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie +about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted +all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the +entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din +is deafening. + +But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this +self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, +you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a +most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil +possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the +decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair of +oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a +potent lye is readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back +of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly +exterminates it. Hands go diligently along the bulwarks, and with +buckets of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot +is brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous implements which +have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and put away. The +great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely +hiding the pots; every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in +unseen nooks; and when by the combined and simultaneous industry of +almost the entire ship’s company, the whole of this conscientious duty +is at last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own +ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the +immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from +out the daintiest Holland. + +Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and +humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; +propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not +to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to +such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short +of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and +bring us napkins! + +But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent +on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again soil +the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot +somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest +uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through +for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their +wrists with all day rowing on the Line,—they only step to the deck to +carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, +yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the +combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; +when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves +to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the +time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, +are startled by the cry of “There she blows!” and away they fly to +fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my +friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we +mortals by long toilings extracted from this world’s vast bulk its +small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed +ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean +tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when—_There she +blows!_—the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other +world, and go through young life’s old routine again. + +Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two +thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with +thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage—and, foolish as I am, taught +thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope! + + +CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon. + +Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck, +taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but in +the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been +added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, +he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely +eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the +binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the +compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of +his purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the +mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted +gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only +dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness. + +But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly +attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as +though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in +some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some +certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little +worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell +by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass +in the Milky Way. + +Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of +the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, +the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst +all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, +yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its +Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour +passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with +thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless +every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it +was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however +wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as +the white whale’s talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary +watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he +would ever live to spend it. + +Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun +and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun’s +disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, +are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems +almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by +passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic. + +It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy +example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, +REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country +planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and +named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the +unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the +likeness of three Andes’ summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; +on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of +the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual +cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at +Libra. + +Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now +pausing. + +“There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and +all other grand and lofty things; look here,—three peaks as proud as +Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the +courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all +are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, +which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man in turn but +mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for +those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks +now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the +sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out +of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born +in throes, ’tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So +be it, then! Here’s stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.” + +“No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil’s claws must +have left their mouldings there since yesterday,” murmured Starbuck to +himself, leaning against the bulwarks. “The old man seems to read +Belshazzar’s awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. +He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, +heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint +earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over +all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a +hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; +but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to +cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we +would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! +This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will +quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.” + +“There now’s the old Mogul,” soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, “he’s +been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with +faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long. +And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on +Negro Hill or in Corlaer’s Hook, I’d not look at it very long ere +spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as +queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons +of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your +doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold +moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What +then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing +wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here’s signs and +wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the +zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I’ll get the almanac and +as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll’s arithmetic, I’ll try +my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the +Massachusetts calendar. Here’s the book. Let’s see now. Signs and +wonders; and the sun, he’s always among ’em. Hem, hem, hem; here they +are—here they go—all alive:—Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull and +Jimimi! here’s Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he wheels +among ’em. Aye, here on the coin he’s just crossing the threshold +between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there; +the fact is, you books must know your places. You’ll do to give us the +bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That’s my +small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch’s +navigator, and Daboll’s arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if +there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! +There’s a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist—hark! By Jove, I have it! +Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round +chapter; and now I’ll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, +Almanack! To begin: there’s Aries, or the Ram—lecherous dog, he begets +us; then, Taurus, or the Bull—he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, +or the Twins—that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! +comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, +Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path—he gives a few fierce bites and +surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that’s +our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes +Libra, or the Scales—happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we +are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the +Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang +come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing +himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here’s the +battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, +and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours +out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the +Fishes, we sleep. There’s a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the +sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and +hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and +so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly’s the word for aye! Adieu, +Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the +try-works, now, and let’s hear what he’ll have to say. There; he’s +before it; he’ll out with something presently. So, so; he’s beginning.” + +“I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises +a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what’s all this +staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that’s true; and at +two cents the cigar, that’s nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won’t +smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here’s nine +hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy ’em out.” + +“Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a +foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of +wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman—the old +hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea. +He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other +side of the mast; why, there’s a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and +now he’s back again; what does that mean? Hark! he’s muttering—voice +like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!” + +“If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when +the sun stands in some one of these signs. I’ve studied signs, and know +their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch +in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe +sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what’s the +horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign—the roaring and +devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee.” + +“There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in +one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg—all +tattooing—looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the +Cannibal? As I live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; +thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I +suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy in the back country. +And by Jove, he’s found something there in the vicinity of his thigh—I +guess it’s Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don’t know what to make +of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king’s +trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail +coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. +What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the +sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin—fire worshipper, +depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip—poor boy! would +he had died, or I; he’s half horrible to me. He too has been watching +all of these interpreters—myself included—and look now, he comes to +read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. +Hark!” + +“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.” + +“Upon my soul, he’s been studying Murray’s Grammar! Improving his mind, +poor fellow! But what’s that he says now—hist!” + +“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.” + +“Why, he’s getting it by heart—hist! again.” + +“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.” + +“Well, that’s funny.” + +“And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a +crow, especially when I stand a’top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! +caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain’t I a crow? And where’s the scare-crow? There +he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more +poked into the sleeves of an old jacket.” + +“Wonder if he means me?—complimentary!—poor lad!—I could go hang +myself. Any way, for the present, I’ll quit Pip’s vicinity. I can stand +the rest, for they have plain wits; but he’s too crazy-witty for my +sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering.” + +“Here’s the ship’s navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire +to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what’s the consequence? +Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught’s +nailed to the mast it’s a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old +Ahab! the White Whale; he’ll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, +in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver +ring grown over in it; some old darkey’s wedding ring. How did it get +there? And so they’ll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish +up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters +for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the +green miser’ll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes ’mong the worlds +blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, +hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!” + + +CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm. + +The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London. + +“Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?” + +So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours, +bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was +standing in his hoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to +the stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat’s +bow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of +sixty or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round +him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket +streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar’s surcoat. + +“Hast seen the White Whale?” + +“See you this?” and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it, +he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden +head like a mallet. + +“Man my boat!” cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near +him—“Stand by to lower!” + +In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his +crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the +stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the +excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his +leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his +own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical +contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and +shipped in any other vessel at a moment’s warning. Now, it is no very +easy matter for anybody—except those who are almost hourly used to it, +like whalemen—to clamber up a ship’s side from a boat on the open sea; +for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, +and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, +deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether +unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly +reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain +changeful height he could hardly hope to attain. + +It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward +circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his +luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And +in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the +two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the +perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a +pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem +to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to +use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, +because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, +cried out, “I see, I see!—avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing +over the cutting-tackle.” + +As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two +previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive +curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. +This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, +slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting +in the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then +giving the word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to +hoist his own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running +parts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high +bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm +frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, +putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two +sword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, “Aye, aye, hearty! let +us shake bones together!—an arm and a leg!—an arm that never can +shrink, d’ye see; and a leg that never can run. Where did’st thou see +the White Whale?—how long ago?” + +“The White Whale,” said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards +the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a +telescope; “there I saw him, on the Line, last season.” + +“And he took that arm off, did he?” asked Ahab, now sliding down from +the capstan, and resting on the Englishman’s shoulder, as he did so. + +“Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?” + +“Spin me the yarn,” said Ahab; “how was it?” + +“It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line,” +began the Englishman. “I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time. +Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat +fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went +milling and milling round so, that my boat’s crew could only trim dish, +by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches +from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white +head and hump, all crows’ feet and wrinkles.” + +“It was he, it was he!” cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended +breath. + +“And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin.” + +“Aye, aye—they were mine—_my_ irons,” cried Ahab, exultingly—“but on!” + +“Give me a chance, then,” said the Englishman, good-humoredly. “Well, +this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all +afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line! + +“Aye, I see!—wanted to part it; free the fast-fish—an old trick—I know +him.” + +“How it was exactly,” continued the one-armed commander, “I do not +know; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there +somehow; but we didn’t know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled +on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other +whale’s; that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters +stood, and what a noble great whale it was—the noblest and biggest I +ever saw, sir, in my life—I resolved to capture him, spite of the +boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would +get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a +devil of a boat’s crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I +say, I jumped into my first mate’s boat—Mr. Mounttop’s here (by the +way, Captain—Mounttop; Mounttop—the captain);—as I was saying, I jumped +into Mounttop’s boat, which, d’ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with +mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old +great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir—hearts and souls +alive, man—the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat—both eyes +out—all befogged and bedeadened with black foam—the whale’s tail +looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble +steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday, +with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after +the second iron, to toss it overboard—down comes the tail like a Lima +tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and, +flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was +all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I +seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung +to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at +the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down +like a flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near +me caught me here” (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); “yes, +caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell’s flames, I was +thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb +ript its way along the flesh—clear along the whole length of my +arm—came out nigh my wrist, and up I floated;—and that gentleman there +will tell you the rest (by the way, captain—Dr. Bunger, ship’s surgeon: +Bunger, my lad,—the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the +yarn.” + +The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all +the time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote +his gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but +sober one; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and +patched trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between +a marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, +occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two +crippled captains. But, at his superior’s introduction of him to Ahab, +he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain’s bidding. + +“It was a shocking bad wound,” began the whale-surgeon; “and, taking my +advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy—” + +“Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship,” interrupted the one-armed +captain, addressing Ahab; “go on, boy.” + +“Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing +hot weather there on the Line. But it was no use—I did all I could; sat +up with him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet—” + +“Oh, very severe!” chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly +altering his voice, “Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till +he couldn’t see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed, half +seas over, about three o’clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up +with me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher, +and very dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh +out! why don’t ye? You know you’re a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave +ahead, boy, I’d rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other +man.” + +“My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir”—said the +imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab—“is apt to +be facetious at times; he spins us many clever things of that sort. But +I may as well say—en passant, as the French remark—that I myself—that +is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy—am a strict total +abstinence man; I never drink—” + +“Water!” cried the captain; “he never drinks it; it’s a sort of fits to +him; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on—go on with +the arm story.” + +“Yes, I may as well,” said the surgeon, coolly. “I was about observing, +sir, before Captain Boomer’s facetious interruption, that spite of my +best and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse; +the truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw; +more than two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead +line. In short, it grew black; I knew what was threatened, and off it +came. But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is +against all rule”—pointing at it with the marlingspike—“that is the +captain’s work, not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had +that club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one’s brains out +with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical +passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir”—removing his hat, and +brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull, +but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever +having been a wound—“Well, the captain there will tell you how that +came here; he knows.” + +“No, I don’t,” said the captain, “but his mother did; he was born with +it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you—you Bunger! was there ever such another +Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in +pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal.” + +“What became of the White Whale?” now cried Ahab, who thus far had been +impatiently listening to this by-play between the two Englishmen. + +“Oh!” cried the one-armed captain, “oh, yes! Well; after he sounded, we +didn’t see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I +didn’t then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, +till some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about +Moby Dick—as some call him—and then I knew it was he.” + +“Did’st thou cross his wake again?” + +“Twice.” + +“But could not fasten?” + +“Didn’t want to try to: ain’t one limb enough? What should I do without +this other arm? And I’m thinking Moby Dick doesn’t bite so much as he +swallows.” + +“Well, then,” interrupted Bunger, “give him your left arm for bait to +get the right. Do you know, gentlemen”—very gravely and mathematically +bowing to each Captain in succession—“Do you know, gentlemen, that the +digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine +Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest +even a man’s arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the +White Whale’s malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to +swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But +sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of +mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a +time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a +twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in +small tacks, d’ye see. No possible way for him to digest that +jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. +Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind +to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial +to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale +have another chance at you shortly, that’s all.” + +“No, thank ye, Bunger,” said the English Captain, “he’s welcome to the +arm he has, since I can’t help it, and didn’t know him then; but not to +another one. No more White Whales for me; I’ve lowered for him once, +and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I +know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark +ye, he’s best let alone; don’t you think so, Captain?”—glancing at the +ivory leg. + +“He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let +alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He’s all a +magnet! How long since thou saw’st him last? Which way heading?” + +“Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend’s,” cried Bunger, stoopingly +walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; “this man’s +blood—bring the thermometer!—it’s at the boiling point!—his pulse makes +these planks beat!—sir!”—taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing +near to Ahab’s arm. + +“Avast!” roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks—“Man the boat! +Which way heading?” + +“Good God!” cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. +“What’s the matter? He was heading east, I think.—Is your Captain +crazy?” whispering Fedallah. + +But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to +take the boat’s steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle +towards him, commanded the ship’s sailors to stand by to lower. + +In a moment he was standing in the boat’s stern, and the Manilla men +were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him. +With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own, +Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod. + + +CHAPTER 101. The Decanter. + +Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that she +hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby, +merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of +Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman’s opinion, comes not +far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point +of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our Lord +1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous +fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted out +the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; +though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant +Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets +pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not +elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were +the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm +Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the +whole globe who so harpooned him. + +In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, +and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape +Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any +sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one; +and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, +the Amelia’s example was soon followed by other ships, English and +American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were +thrown open. But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable +house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons—how many, their +mother only knows—and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I +think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the +sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South +Sea. Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling +voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear. But this +is not all. In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship +of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. +That ship—well called the “Syren”—made a noble experimental cruise; and +it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became +generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a +Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer. + +All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to +the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago +have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world. + +The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast +sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight +somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the +forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps—every +soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine +gam I had—long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his +ivory heel—it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that +ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever +lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it +at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it’s +squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands—visitors and all—were +called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each +other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our +jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the +howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts +did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that +we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting +down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to +my taste. + +The beef was fine—tough, but with body in it. They said it was +bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for +certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial, +symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that +you could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were +swallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their +pitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread—but that couldn’t be +helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread +contained the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very +light, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you +ate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the +dimensions of the cook’s boilers, including his own live parchment +boilers; fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of +good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and +capital from boot heels to hat-band. + +But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other +English whalers I know of—not all though—were such famous, hospitable +ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the +joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? I +will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers is +matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of +historical whale research, when it has seemed needed. + +The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, +Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant +in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching +plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English +merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, +in the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and +natural, but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some +special origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further +elucidated. + +During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an +ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew +must be about whalers. The title was, “Dan Coopman,” wherefore I +concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam +cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was +reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one +“Fitz Swackhammer.” But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, +professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus +and St. Pott’s, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a +box of sperm candles for his trouble—this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as +he spied the book, assured me that “Dan Coopman” did not mean “The +Cooper,” but “The Merchant.” In short, this ancient and learned Low +Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other +subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery. +And in this chapter it was, headed, “Smeer,” or “Fat,” that I found a +long detailed list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of 180 +sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, +I transcribe the following: + +400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock +fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins +of butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese +(probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of +beer. + +Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in +the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole +pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer. + +At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all this +beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were +incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic +application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my +own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by +every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen +whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and +Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their +naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the +nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game +in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux +country where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of +train oil. + +The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those +polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that +climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, +including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not +much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their +fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I +say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks’ +allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. +Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might +fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a +boat’s head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem +somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But +this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with +the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would +be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his +boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. + +But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of +two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English +whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when +cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the +world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the +decanter. + + +CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides. + +Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly +dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail +upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough +sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still +further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, +and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost +bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his +unconditional skeleton. + +But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the +fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the +whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures +on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a +specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a +full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a +roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, +Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; +the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, +ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of +leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and +cheeseries in his bowels. + +I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far +beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed +with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged +to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his +poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the +heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my +boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the +contents of that young cub? + +And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their +gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted +to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. +For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey +of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with +the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side +glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his +capital. + +Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted +with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought +together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his +people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, +chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and +all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the +wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores. + +Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an +unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his +head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings +seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of +its fathom-deep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, +then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where +a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it. + +The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebræ were carved with +Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests +kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again +sent forth its vapory spout; while, suspended from a bough, the +terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung +sword that so affrighted Damocles. + +It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen; +the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the +industrious earth beneath was as a weaver’s loom, with a gorgeous +carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and +woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their +laden branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the +message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the +lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving +the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!—pause!—one +word!—whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all +these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!—stay thy hand!—but one single +word with thee! Nay—the shuttle flies—the figures float from forth the +loom; the freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, +he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal +voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; +and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak +through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken +words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words +are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened +casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be +heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world’s loom, thy +subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar. + +Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the +great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging—a gigantic idler! Yet, +as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around +him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over +with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but +himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim +god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories. + +Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the +skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real +jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an +object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests +should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced +before this skeleton—brushed the vines aside—broke through the ribs—and +with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid its many +winding, shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon my line was out; and +following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. I saw no +living thing within; naught was there but bones. + +Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the +skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me +taking the altitude of the final rib, “How now!” they shouted; “Dar’st +thou measure this our god! That’s for us.” “Aye, priests—well, how long +do ye make him, then?” But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, +concerning feet and inches; they cracked each other’s sconces with +their yard-sticks—the great skull echoed—and seizing that lucky chance, +I quickly concluded my own admeasurements. + +These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be it +recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied +measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can +refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell +me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where +they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, +I have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they +have what the proprietors call “the only perfect specimen of a +Greenland or River Whale in the United States.” Moreover, at a place in +Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford +Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of +moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend +King Tranquo’s. + +In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons +belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar +grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir +Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir +Clifford’s whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a great +chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony +cavities—spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan—and swing all day upon +his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and +shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of +keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep +at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the +echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled +view from his forehead. + +The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied +verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild +wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving +such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished +the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then +composing—at least, what untattooed parts might remain—I did not +trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all +enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale. + + +CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton. + +In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain +statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton +we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here. + +According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base +upon Captain Scoresby’s estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized +Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful +calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between +eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty +feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least +ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would +considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one +thousand one hundred inhabitants. + +Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to +this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman’s imagination? + +Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole, +jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now +simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his +unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large a +proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the +most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it +in this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under +your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion +of the general structure we are about to view. + +In length, the Sperm Whale’s skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two +feet; so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have +been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one +fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two +feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty +feet of plain back-bone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less +than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs +which once enclosed his vitals. + +To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, +extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled +the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some +twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, +for the time, but a long, disconnected timber. + +The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was +nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each +successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one +of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From +that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only +spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore +a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most +arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay +footpath bridges over small streams. + +In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the +circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of +the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of +the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the +fish which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of +the invested body of this particular whale must have been at least +sixteen feet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more +than eight feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion +of the living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I +now saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with +tons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for +the ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of +the weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank! + +How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try +to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his +dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in +the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his +angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully +invested whale be truly and livingly found out. + +But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a +crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now +it’s done, it looks much like Pompey’s Pillar. + +There are forty and odd vertebræ in all, which in the skeleton are not +locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a +Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a +middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth +more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the +tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white +billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they +had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest’s children, +who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the +spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into +simple child’s play. + + +CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale. + +From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon +to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not +compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial +folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and +the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic +involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables +and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a +line-of-battle-ship. + +Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me to +approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not +overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him +out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him +in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now +remains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and +antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the +Leviathan—to an ant or a flea—such portly terms might justly be deemed +unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case +is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest +words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been +convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have +invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased +for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal +bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author +like me. + +One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, +though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of +this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard +capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an +inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my +thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their +outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole +circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and +mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas +of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding +its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and +liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you +must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be +written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it. + +Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my +credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I +have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and +wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by +way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the +earlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now +almost completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are +called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate +intercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose +remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil +Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the +last preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them +precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet +sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking +rank as Cetacean fossils. + +Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones +and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, +been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, +in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. +Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the +year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street +opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones +disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon’s +time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some +utterly unknown Leviathanic species. + +But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost +complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, +on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken +credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the +fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and +bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of +it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned +out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed +species. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again +repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but +little clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen +rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the +London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most +extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted +out of existence. + +When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, +jaws, ribs, and vertebræ, all characterized by partial resemblances to +the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on +the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical +Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to +that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for +time began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I +obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when +wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and +in all the 25,000 miles of this world’s circumference, not an +inhabitable hand’s breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world +was the whale’s; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the +present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree +like Leviathan? Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s. +Methuselah seems a school-boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I +am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the +unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, +must needs exist after all humane ages are over. + +But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the +stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his +ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim +for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable +print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some +fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a +sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, +and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe +of the moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was +there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was +cradled. + +Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity +of the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down by +the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller. + +“Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams +of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are +oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, +that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can +pass it without immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that +on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into +the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon ’em. They keep a +Whale’s Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the +Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which +cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel’s Back. This Rib (says John +Leo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their +Historians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy’d of Mahomet, came from +this Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas +was cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple.” + +In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a +Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there. + + +CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish? + +Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from +the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, +in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the +original bulk of his sires. + +But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the +present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are +found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period +prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those +belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier +ones. + +Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the +Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than +seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, +that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a +large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s authority, +that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the +time of capture. + +But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an +advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may +it not be, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated? + +Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of +such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For +Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and +Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length—Rope +Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and +Solander, Cooke’s naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy +of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or +Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three +hundred and sixty feet. And Lacépède, the French naturalist, in his +elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page +3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and +twenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825. + +But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is +as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. And if ever I go where Pliny +is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so. +Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies +that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not +measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; +and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest +Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they +are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize +cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the +fattest of Pharaoh’s fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not +admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated. + +But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more +recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient +look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even +through Behring’s straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and +lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along +all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long +endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not +at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the +last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final +puff. + +Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, +which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the +prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and +scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous +river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar +an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem +furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy +extinction. + +But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a +period ago—not a good lifetime—the census of the buffalo in Illinois +exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day +not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the +cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far +different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious +an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales +for forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank +God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the +days of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, +when the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness +and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of +months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain +not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need +were, could be statistically stated. + +Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the +gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former +years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in +small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in +consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more +remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, +influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense +caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, +and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but +widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally +fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone +whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with +them, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being +driven from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened +with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been +very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle. + +Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two +firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain +impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty +Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas +and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort +to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers +and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed +circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man. + +But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one +cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this +positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions. +But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than +13,000, have been annually slain on the nor’ west coast by the +Americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this +circumstance of little or no account as an opposing argument in this +matter. + +Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness +of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to +Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the +King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are +numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems +no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted +for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all +the successive monarchs of the East—if they still survive there in +great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since +he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as +all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the +Isles of the sea combined. + +Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of +whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more, +therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations +must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea of, +by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of +creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and +children who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this +countless host to the present human population of the globe. + +Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his +species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas +before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the +Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s flood he +despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like +the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will +still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial +flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies. + + +CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg. + +The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel +Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to +his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his +boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And when +after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so +vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it +was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); +then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and +wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances +lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy. + +And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his +pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the +condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not +been very long prior to the Pequod’s sailing from Nantucket, that he +had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible; +by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his +ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise +smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme +difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured. + +Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all +the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of +a former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most +poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as +the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, +all miserable events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than +equally, thought Ahab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief +go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of +this: that it is an inference from certain canonic teachings, that +while some natural enjoyments here shall have no children born to them +for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the +joy-childlessness of all hell’s despair; whereas, some guilty mortal +miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally +progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to hint of +this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the +thing. For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities +ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at +bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an +archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the +obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal +miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the +gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft +cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that +the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad +birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the +signers. + +Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more +properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other +particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, +why it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the +sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such +Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought +speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of the dead. +Captain Peleg’s bruited reason for this thing appeared by no means +adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab’s deeper part, every +revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory +light. But, in the end, it all came out; this one matter did, at least. +That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness. And +not only this, but to that ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, +who, for any reason, possessed the privilege of a less banned approach +to him; to that timid circle the above hinted casualty—remaining, as it +did, moodily unaccounted for by Ahab—invested itself with terrors, not +entirely underived from the land of spirits and of wails. So that, +through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in them +lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others; and hence it +was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it +transpire upon the Pequod’s decks. + +But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, +or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not +with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took +plain practical procedures;—he called the carpenter. + +And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without +delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him +supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which +had thus far been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful +selection of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured. +This done, the carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that +night; and to provide all the fittings for it, independent of those +pertaining to the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship’s forge was +ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, +to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at +once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed. + + +CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter. + +Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high +abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But +from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they +seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. +But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of +the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod’s carpenter was no duplicate; +hence, he now comes in person on this stage. + +Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging +to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent, +alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his +own; the carpenter’s pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk +of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with +wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of +the generic remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly +efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually +recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years’ voyage, in +uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in +ordinary duties:—repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the +shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull’s eyes in the deck, or new +tree-nails in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more +directly pertaining to his special business; he was moreover +unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both +useful and capricious. + +The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold, +was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several +vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times +except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed +athwartships against the rear of the Try-works. + +A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole: +the carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices, and +straightway files it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange plumage +strays on board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of +right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter +makes a pagoda-looking cage for it. An oarsman sprains his wrist: the +carpenter concocts a soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars +to be painted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his +big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the +constellation. A sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the +carpenter drills his ears. Another has the toothache: the carpenter out +pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; +but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded +operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter +signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth. + +Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent +and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he +deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But +while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with +such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue +some uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For +nothing was this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal +stolidity as it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the +surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general +stolidity discernible in the whole visible world; which while +pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, +and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was +this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an +all-ramifying heartlessness;—yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an +old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked +now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have +served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded +forecastle of Noah’s ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a +life-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had +gathered no moss; but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small +outward clingings might have originally pertained to him? He was a +stript abstract; an unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born +babe; living without premeditated reference to this world or the next. +You might almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him +involved a sort of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did +not seem to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he +had been tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or +uneven; but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal +process. He was a pure manipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one, +must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was +like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful, _multum in +parvo_, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior—though a little +swelled—of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of +various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, +pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted +to use the carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open +that part of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him +up by the legs, and there they were. + +Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, +was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a +common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously +did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few +drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it +had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same +unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept +him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an +unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his +body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking +all the time to keep himself awake. + + +CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter. + +The Deck—First Night Watch. + +(_Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of two +lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is +firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, +and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red +flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work._) + +Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, +and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and +shinbones. Let’s try another. Aye, now, this works better (_sneezes_). +Halloa, this bone dust is (_sneezes_)—why it’s (_sneezes_)—yes it’s +(_sneezes_)—bless my soul, it won’t let me speak! This is what an old +fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you +don’t get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don’t get it +(_sneezes_). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let’s +have that ferule and buckle-screw; I’ll be ready for them presently. +Lucky now (_sneezes_) there’s no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle +a little; but a mere shinbone—why it’s easy as making hop-poles; only I +should like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the +time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (_sneezes_) +scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs +I’ve seen in shop windows wouldn’t compare at all. They soak water, +they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored +(_sneezes_) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There; before +I saw it off, now, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the +length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that’s +the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it’s somebody else, that’s +certain. + +AHAB (_advancing_). (_During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues +sneezing at times._) + +Well, manmaker! + +Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. +Let me measure, sir. + +Measured for a leg! good. Well, it’s not the first time. About it! +There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, +carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some. + +Oh, sir, it will break bones—beware, beware! + +No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery +world that can hold, man. What’s Prometheus about there?—the +blacksmith, I mean—what’s he about? + +He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now. + +Right. It’s a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a +fierce red flame there! + +Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work. + +Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old +Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a +blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what’s made in fire must +properly belong to fire; and so hell’s probable. How the soot flies! +This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, +when he’s through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel +shoulder-blades; there’s a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack. + +Sir? + +Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I’ll order a complete man after a +desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest +modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to ’em, to stay +in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, +brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let +me see—shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on +top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away. + +Now, what’s he speaking about, and who’s he speaking to, I should like +to know? Shall I keep standing here? (_aside_). + +’Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here’s one. No, +no, no; I must have a lantern. + +Ho, ho! That’s it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn. + +What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? +Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols. + +I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter. + +Carpenter? why that’s—but no;—a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely +gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;—or would’st +thou rather work in clay? + +Sir?—Clay? clay, sir? That’s mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir. + +The fellow’s impious! What art thou sneezing about? + +Bone is rather dusty, sir. + +Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under +living people’s noses. + +Sir?—oh! ah!—I guess so;—yes—oh, dear! + +Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good +workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for +thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall +nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that +is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst +thou not drive that old Adam away? + +Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard +something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never +entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still +pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? + +It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once +was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the +soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to +a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle? + +I should humbly call it a poser, sir. + +Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing +may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where +thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most +solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don’t +speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be +now so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the +fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah! + +Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over +again; I think I didn’t carry a small figure, sir. + +Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.—How long before the +leg is done? + +Perhaps an hour, sir. + +Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (_turns to go_). Oh, Life! +Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this +blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal +inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free +as air; and I’m down in the whole world’s books. I am so rich, I could +have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Prætorians at the auction of +the Roman empire (which was the world’s); and yet I owe for the flesh +in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I’ll get a crucible, and into +it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So. + +CARPENTER (_resuming his work_). + +Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says +he’s queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; +he’s queer, says Stubb; he’s queer—queer, queer; and keeps dinning it +into Mr. Starbuck all the time—queer—sir—queer, queer, very queer. And +here’s his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here’s his bedfellow! has +a stick of whale’s jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he’ll +stand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three +places, and all three places standing in one hell—how was that? Oh! I +don’t wonder he looked so scornful at me! I’m a sort of +strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that’s only haphazard-like. +Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade +out into deep waters with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks +you under the chin pretty quick, and there’s a great cry for +life-boats. And here’s the heron’s leg! long and slim, sure enough! +Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be +because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her +roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he’s a hard driver. Look, +driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears +out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there +with those screws, and let’s finish it before the resurrection fellow +comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as +brewery-men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill ’em up again. +What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to +nothing but the core; he’ll be standing on this to-morrow; he’ll be +taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate, +smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so; chisel, file, +and sand-paper, now! + + +CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin. + +According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no +inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have +sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into +the cabin to report this unfavourable affair.* + +*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it +is a regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and +drench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying +intervals, is removed by the ship’s pumps. Hereby the casks are sought +to be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of the +withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the +precious cargo. + +Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and +the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from +the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with a +general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and +another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the +Japanese islands—Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new +ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long +pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with +his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his +old courses again. + +“Who’s there?” hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round +to it. “On deck! Begone!” + +“Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. +We must up Burtons and break out.” + +“Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here +for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?” + +“Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make +good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth +saving, sir.” + +“So it is, so it is; if we get it.” + +“I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir.” + +“And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it +leak! I’m all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky +casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that’s a far +worse plight than the Pequod’s, man. Yet I don’t stop to plug my leak; +for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, +even if found, in this life’s howling gale? Starbuck! I’ll not have the +Burtons hoisted.” + +“What will the owners say, sir?” + +“Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What +cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, +about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But +look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, +my conscience is in this ship’s keel.—On deck!” + +“Captain Ahab,” said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, +with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost +seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward +manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half +distrustful of itself; “A better man than I might well pass over in +thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in +a happier, Captain Ahab.” + +“Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?—On +deck!” + +“Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir—to be forbearing! +Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?” + +Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most +South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, +exclaimed: “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one +Captain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!” + +For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks, +you would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of +the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and +as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: “Thou hast +outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware +of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; +beware of thyself, old man.” + +“He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!” +murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. “What’s that he said—Ahab +beware of Ahab—there’s something there!” Then unconsciously using the +musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little +cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and +returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck. + +“Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck,” he said lowly to the mate; +then raising his voice to the crew: “Furl the t’gallant-sails, and +close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burton, +and break out in the main-hold.” + +It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting +Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him; +or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously +forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, +in the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders +were executed; and the Burtons were hoisted. + + +CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin. + +Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold +were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it +being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the +slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight +sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they +go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost +puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone +cask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted +placards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood. +Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of +staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the +piled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under +foot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and +rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the +ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was +it that the Typhoons did not visit them then. + +Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast +bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh +to his endless end. + +Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown; +dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the +higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as +harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but—as +we have elsewhere seen—mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and +finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all +day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the +clumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, +the harpooneers are the holders, so called. + +Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should +have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where, +stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about +amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom +of a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor +pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he +caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after +some days’ suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill +of the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few +long-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his +frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his +cheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller +and fuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but +deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony +to that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And +like circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his +eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe +that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of +this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any +beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly +wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And +the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all +with a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could +adequately tell. So that—let us say it again—no dying Chaldee or Greek +had higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you +saw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his +swaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his +final rest, and the ocean’s invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and +higher towards his destined heaven. + +Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself, +what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he +asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was +just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he had +chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich +war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all +whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, +and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was +not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead +warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated +away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the +stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own +mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form +the white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the +thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual +sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks. +No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial +to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes +were without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and +much lee-way adown the dim ages. + +Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter +was at once commanded to do Queequeg’s bidding, whatever it might +include. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard, +which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal +groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin +was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the +order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent +promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took +Queequeg’s measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg’s +person as he shifted the rule. + +“Ah! poor fellow! he’ll have to die now,” ejaculated the Long Island +sailor. + +Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general +reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the +coffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two +notches at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his +tools, and to work. + +When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he +lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring +whether they were ready for it yet in that direction. + +Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the people +on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one’s +consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to +him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some +dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will +shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be +indulged. + +Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with an +attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock +drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along +with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also, +biscuits were then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh +water was placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up +in the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for +a pillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that +he might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without +moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring out his +little god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo +between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed +over him. The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay +Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in +view. “Rarmai” (it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and +signed to be replaced in his hammock. + +But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all +this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took +him by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine. + +“Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where +go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where +the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little +errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who’s now been missing long: I think +he’s in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he +must be very sad; for look! he’s left his tambourine behind;—I found +it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I’ll beat ye your +dying march.” + +“I have heard,” murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, “that in +violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; and +that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their +wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken +in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor +Pip, in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers +of all our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?—Hark! he +speaks again: but more wildly now.” + +“Form two and two! Let’s make a General of him! Ho, where’s his +harpoon? Lay it across here.—Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game +cock now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!—mind ye +that; Queequeg dies game!—take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies +game! I say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; +died all a’shiver;—out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the +Antilles he’s a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he +jumped from a whale-boat! I’d never beat my tambourine over base Pip, +and hail him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame +upon all cowards—shame upon them! Let ’em go drown like Pip, that +jumped from a whale-boat. Shame! shame!” + +During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip +was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock. + +But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now +that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon +there seemed no need of the carpenter’s box: and thereupon, when some +expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the +cause of his sudden convalescence was this;—at a critical moment, he +had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; +and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, +he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter +of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a +word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to +live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, +or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort. + +Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized; +that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing, +generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day. +So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after +sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a +vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms +and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then +springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, +pronounced himself fit for a fight. + +With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and +emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there. +Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of +grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was +striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on +his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet +and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written +out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a +mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in +his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one +volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own +live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore +destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon +they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought +it must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, +when one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg—“Oh, +devilish tantalization of the gods!” + + +CHAPTER 111. The Pacific. + +When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great +South Sea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear +Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my +youth was answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a +thousand leagues of blue. + +There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently +awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those +fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. +John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery +prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves should +rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of +mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all +that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing +like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by +their restlessness. + +To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must +ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of +the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same +waves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday +planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still +gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between +float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown +Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine +Pacific zones the world’s whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to +it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal +swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan. + +But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab’s brain, as standing like an iron +statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one +nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles +(in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other +consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in +which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at +length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese +cruising-ground, the old man’s purpose intensified itself. His firm +lips met like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead’s veins +swelled like overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran +through the vaulted hull, “Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick +blood!” + + +CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith. + +Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in +these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active pursuits +shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old +blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after +concluding his contributory work for Ahab’s leg, but still retained it +on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost +incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do +some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their +various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an +eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, +pike-heads, harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every +sooty movement, as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man’s was a +patient hammer wielded by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no +petulance did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over +still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil +were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating +of his heart. And so it was.—Most miserable! + +A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing +yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the +curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted +questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every +one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate. + +Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter’s midnight, on the road +running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt +the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, +dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both +feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four +acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied +fifth act of the grief of his life’s drama. + +He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly +encountered that thing in sorrow’s technicals called ruin. He had been +an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house +and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three +blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, +planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further +concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into +his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to +tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into +his family’s heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of +that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, +for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith’s shop was +in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so +that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no +unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing +of her young-armed old husband’s hammer; whose reverberations, muffled +by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, +in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor’s iron lullaby, the blacksmith’s +infants were rocked to slumber. + +Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? +Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came +upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her +orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after +years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked +down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely +hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than +useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him +easier to harvest. + +Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew +more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the +last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, +glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows +fell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother +dived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed +her thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a +vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to +flaxen curls! + +Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death +is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but +the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the +Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of +such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions +against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean +alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking +terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of +infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them—“Come hither, +broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate +death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come +hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and +abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put +up _thy_ gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till +we marry thee!” + +Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by +fall of eve, the blacksmith’s soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth +went a-whaling. + + +CHAPTER 113. The Forge. + +With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about +mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter +placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the +coals, and with the other at his forge’s lungs, when Captain Ahab came +along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While +yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, +Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the +anvil—the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, +some of which flew close to Ahab. + +“Are these thy Mother Carey’s chickens, Perth? they are always flying +in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;—look here, they +burn; but thou—thou liv’st among them without a scorch.” + +“Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab,” answered Perth, resting +for a moment on his hammer; “I am past scorching; not easily can’st +thou scorch a scar.” + +“Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful +to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others +that is not mad. Thou should’st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou +not go mad? How can’st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens +yet hate thee, that thou can’st not go mad?—What wert thou making +there?” + +“Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it.” + +“And can’st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard +usage as it had?” + +“I think so, sir.” + +“And I suppose thou can’st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never +mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?” + +“Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.” + +“Look ye here, then,” cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning +with both hands on Perth’s shoulders; “look ye here—_here_—can ye +smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,” sweeping one hand across his +ribbed brow; “if thou could’st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my +head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. +Answer! Can’st thou smoothe this seam?” + +“Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?” + +“Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for +though thou only see’st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into +the bone of my skull—_that_ is all wrinkles! But, away with child’s +play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!” jingling the +leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. “I, too, want a harpoon +made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; +something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There’s the +stuff,” flinging the pouch upon the anvil. “Look ye, blacksmith, these +are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses.” + +“Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the +best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.” + +“I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the +melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me +first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer +these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! +I’ll blow the fire.” + +When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by +spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. “A +flaw!” rejecting the last one. “Work that over again, Perth.” + +This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when +Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, +with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to +him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge +shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and +bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or +some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside. + +“What’s that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?” muttered +Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. “That Parsee smells fire like a +fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket’s powder-pan.” + +At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as +Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near +by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab’s bent face. + +“Would’st thou brand me, Perth?” wincing for a moment with the pain; +“have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?” + +“Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this +harpoon for the White Whale?” + +“For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them +thyself, man. Here are my razors—the best of steel; here, and make the +barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.” + +For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would +fain not use them. + +“Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, +nor pray till—but here—to work!” + +Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the +shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the +blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to +tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near. + +“No, no—no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, +there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me +as much blood as will cover this barb?” holding it high up. A cluster +of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen +flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered. + +“Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!” +deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the +baptismal blood. + +Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of +hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the +socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some +fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. +Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, +then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, +“Good! and now for the seizings.” + +At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns +were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole +was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope +was traced half-way along the pole’s length, and firmly secured so, +with intertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope—like the +Three Fates—remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with +the weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory +pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his +cabin, light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was +heard. Oh, Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy +strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the +melancholy ship, and mocked it! + + +CHAPTER 114. The Gilder. + +Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising +ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, +pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on +the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or +sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or +seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small +success for their pains. + +At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow +heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so +sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone +cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy +quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the +ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and +would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a +remorseless fang. + +These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a +certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he +regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing +only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high +rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when +the western emigrants’ horses only show their erected ears, while their +hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. + +The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these +there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied +children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when +the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most +mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, +and form one seamless whole. + +Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as +temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem +to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath +upon them prove but tarnishing. + +Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in +ye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,—in ye, +men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some +few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. +Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling +threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a +storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this +life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one +pause:—through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless +faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then +disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But +once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and +men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor +no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will +never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like +those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of +our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. + +And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat’s side into that +same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:— + +“Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s +eye!—Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping +cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep +down and do believe.” + +And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same +golden light:— + +“I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that +he has always been jolly!” + + +CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. + +And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down +before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab’s harpoon had been welded. + +It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her +last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in +glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, +sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous +to pointing her prow for home. + +The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red +bunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, +bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long +lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks +of all colours were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways +lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; +above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of +the same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen +lamp. + +As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most +surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in +the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without +securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been +given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional +supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; +and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain’s and +officers’ state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked +into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an +oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. In the +forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests, +and filled them; it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a +head on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged +his spare coffee-pot and filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the +sockets of their irons and filled them; that indeed everything was +filled with sperm, except the captain’s pantaloons pockets, and those +he reserved to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of +his entire satisfaction. + +As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the +barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing +still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge +try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like _poke_ or stomach skin +of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the +clenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and +harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with +them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, +firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long +Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were +presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship’s +company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from +which the huge pots had been removed. You would have almost thought +they were pulling down the cursed Bastille, such wild cries they +raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled into the +sea. + +Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the +ship’s elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was +full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual +diversion. + +And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, +with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other’s +wakes—one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings +as to things to come—their two captains in themselves impersonated the +whole striking contrast of the scene. + +“Come aboard, come aboard!” cried the gay Bachelor’s commander, lifting +a glass and a bottle in the air. + +“Hast seen the White Whale?” gritted Ahab in reply. + +“No; only heard of him; but don’t believe in him at all,” said the +other good-humoredly. “Come aboard!” + +“Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?” + +“Not enough to speak of—two islanders, that’s all;—but come aboard, old +hearty, come along. I’ll soon take that black from your brow. Come +along, will ye (merry’s the play); a full ship and homeward-bound.” + +“How wondrous familiar is a fool!” muttered Ahab; then aloud, “Thou art +a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an +empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward +there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!” + +And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other +stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew +of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the +receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor’s men never heeding their gaze for +the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the +taffrail, eyed the homeward-bound craft, he took from his pocket a +small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed +thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was +filled with Nantucket soundings. + + +CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale. + +Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favourites +sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the +rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed +it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, +whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab. + +It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the +crimson fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, +sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and +such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy +air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent +valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned +sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns. + +Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned +off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the +now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm +whales dying—the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring—that +strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab +conveyed a wondrousness unknown before. + +“He turns and turns him to it,—how slowly, but how steadfastly, his +homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too +worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!—Oh +that these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights. +Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in +these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks +furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still +rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the +Niger’s unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith; +but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it +heads some other way. + +“Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded +thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas; +thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the +wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor +has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round +again, without a lesson to me. + +“Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, +rainbowed jet!—that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In +vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening +sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, +darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy +unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of +once living things, exhaled as air, but water now. + +“Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild +fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though +hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!” + + +CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch. + +The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to +windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These +last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one +could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay +by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab’s. + +The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale’s spout-hole; and +the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon +the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which +gently chafed the whale’s broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach. + +Ahab and all his boat’s crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who +crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played +round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A +sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven +ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air. + +Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and +hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a +flooded world. “I have dreamed it again,” said he. + +“Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor +coffin can be thine?” + +“And who are hearsed that die on the sea?” + +“But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two +hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by +mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in +America.” + +“Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:—a hearse and its plumes +floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a +sight we shall not soon see.” + +“Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.” + +“And what was that saying about thyself?” + +“Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot.” + +“And when thou art so gone before—if that ever befall—then ere I can +follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?—Was it not so? +Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two +pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it.” + +“Take another pledge, old man,” said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up +like fire-flies in the gloom—“Hemp only can kill thee.” + +“The gallows, ye mean.—I am immortal then, on land and on sea,” cried +Ahab, with a laugh of derision;—“Immortal on land and on sea!” + +Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the +slumbering crew arose from the boat’s bottom, and ere noon the dead +whale was brought to the ship. + + +CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant. + +The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab, +coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would +ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to +the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed +on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship’s +prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon +high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was +about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his +latitude. + +Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of +effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing +focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks +lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this +nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of +God’s throne. Well that Ahab’s quadrant was furnished with coloured +glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging +his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his +astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that +posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun +should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention +was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship’s deck, +and with face thrown up like Ahab’s, was eyeing the same sun with him; +only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild face was +subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the desired +observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab +soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise instant. Then +falling into a moment’s revery, he again looked up towards the sun and +murmured to himself: “Thou sea-mark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou +tellest me truly where I _am_—but canst thou cast the least hint where +I _shall_ be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is +this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be +eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now +beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding +the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!” + +Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its +numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: +“Foolish toy! babies’ plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, +and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but +what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where +thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that +holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of +water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy +impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; +and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven, +whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now +scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth’s horizon +are the glances of man’s eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as +if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou +quadrant!” dashing it to the deck, “no longer will I guide my earthly +way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by +log and by line; _these_ shall conduct me, and show me my place on the +sea. Aye,” lighting from the boat to the deck, “thus I trample on thee, +thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and +destroy thee!” + +As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and +dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a +fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself—these passed over the +mute, motionless Parsee’s face. Unobserved he rose and glided away; +while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered +together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, +shouted out—“To the braces! Up helm!—square in!” + +In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon +her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her +long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one +sufficient steed. + +Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod’s +tumultuous way, and Ahab’s also, as he went lurching along the deck. + +“I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full +of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, +down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of +thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!” + +“Aye,” cried Stubb, “but sea-coal ashes—mind ye that, Mr. +Starbuck—sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab +mutter, ‘Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of +mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.’ And damn me, Ahab, +but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!” + + +CHAPTER 119. The Candles. + +Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal +crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most +effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows +tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in +these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of +all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that +cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town. + +Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and +bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly +ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the +thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts +fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the +tempest had left for its after sport. + +Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at +every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional +disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb +and Flask were directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer +lashing of the boats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted +to the very top of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab’s) did +not escape. A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling +ship’s high teetering side, stove in the boat’s bottom at the stern, +and left it again, all dripping through like a sieve. + +“Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck,” said Stubb, regarding the wreck, +“but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can’t fight it. You +see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, +all round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, +all the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But +never mind; it’s all in fun: so the old song says;”—(_sings_.) + + + Oh! jolly is the gale, And a joker is the whale, A’ flourishin’ his + tail,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the + Ocean, oh! + + The scud all a flyin’, That’s his flip only foamin’; When he stirs in + the spicin’,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, + is the Ocean, oh! + + Thunder splits the ships, But he only smacks his lips, A tastin’ of + this flip,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, + is the Ocean, oh! + + + +“Avast Stubb,” cried Starbuck, “let the Typhoon sing, and strike his +harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold +thy peace.” + +“But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward; +and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr. +Starbuck, there’s no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my +throat. And when that’s done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a +wind-up.” + +“Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.” + +“What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never +mind how foolish?” + +“Here!” cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his +hand towards the weather bow, “markest thou not that the gale comes +from the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the +very course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where +is that stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand—his +stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou +must! + +“I don’t half understand ye: what’s in the wind?” + +“Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to +Nantucket,” soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb’s +question. “The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it +into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward, +all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward—I see it lightens up +there; but not with the lightning.” + +At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following +the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same +instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead. + +“Who’s there?” + +“Old Thunder!” said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his +pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed +lances of fire. + +Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off +the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some +ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But +as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may +avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly +towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering +not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the +vessel’s way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a +ship’s lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made +in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the +chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require. + +“The rods! the rods!” cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished +to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting +flambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. “Are they overboard? drop them +over, fore and aft. Quick!” + +“Avast!” cried Ahab; “let’s have fair play here, though we be the +weaker side. Yet I’ll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and +Andes, that all the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let +them be, sir.” + +“Look aloft!” cried Starbuck. “The corpusants! the corpusants!” + +All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each +tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of +the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like +three gigantic wax tapers before an altar. + +“Blast the boat! let it go!” cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing +sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently +jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. “Blast it!”—but slipping +backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and +immediately shifting his tone he cried—“The corpusants have mercy on us +all!” + +To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of +the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses +from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething +sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when +God’s burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His “Mene, Mene, +Tekel Upharsin” has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage. + +While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the +enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all +their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away +constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the +gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and +seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted +mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely +gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by +the preternatural light, Queequeg’s tattooing burned like Satanic blue +flames on his body. + +The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more +the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment +or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. +It was Stubb. “What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not +the same in the song.” + +“No, no, it wasn’t; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I +hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?—have +they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck—but it’s too dark +to look. Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign +of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be +chock a’ block with sperm-oil, d’ye see; and so, all that sperm will +work up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will +yet be as three spermaceti candles—that’s the good promise we saw.” + +At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb’s face slowly beginning +to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: “See! see!” and once +more the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled +supernaturalness in their pallor. + +“The corpusants have mercy on us all,” cried Stubb, again. + +At the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame, +the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab’s front, but with his head bowed away +from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where +they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen, +arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a +knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various +enchanted attitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running +skeletons in Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck; but all +their eyes upcast. + +“Aye, aye, men!” cried Ahab. “Look up at it; mark it well; the white +flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast +links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against +it; blood against fire! So.” + +Then turning—the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot +upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm, +he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames. + +“Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian +once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that +to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I +now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor +reverence wilt thou be kind; and e’en for hate thou canst but kill; and +all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, +placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will +dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of +the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a +point at best; whencesoe’er I came; wheresoe’er I go; yet while I +earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal +rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of +love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere +supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted +worlds, there’s that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou +clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of +fire, I breathe it back to thee.” + +[_Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning; the nine flames leap +lengthwise to thrice their previous height; Ahab, with the rest, closes +his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them._] + +“I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung +from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can +then grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the +homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The +lightning flashes through my skull; mine eye-balls ache and ache; my +whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning +ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though +thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of +light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? +There burn the flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my +genealogy. But thou art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know +not. Oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but +thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself +unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself +unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou +omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear +spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness +mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly +see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast +thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with +haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap +with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly +I worship thee!” + +“The boat! the boat!” cried Starbuck, “look at thy boat, old man!” + +Ahab’s harpoon, the one forged at Perth’s fire, remained firmly lashed +in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat’s +bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather +sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a +levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there +like a serpent’s tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm—“God, God is +against thee, old man; forbear! ’tis an ill voyage! ill begun, ill +continued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a +fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this.” + +Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the +braces—though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast +mate’s thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But +dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the +burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to +transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope’s end. +Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart +that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:— + +“All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and +heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye +may know to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out +the last fear!” And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the +flame. + +As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of +some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it +so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for +thunderbolts; so at those last words of Ahab’s many of the mariners did +run from him in a terror of dismay. + + +CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch. + +_Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him._ + +“We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working +loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?” + +“Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I’d sway them up +now.” + +“Sir!—in God’s name!—sir?” + +“Well.” + +“The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?” + +“Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises, +but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.—By +masts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some +coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest +trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now +sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards +send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft +there! I would e’en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic +is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!” + + +CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks. + +_Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over +the anchors there hanging._ + +“No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but +you will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how +long ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn’t you once say +that whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra +on its insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder +barrels aft and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn’t you say +so?” + +“Well, suppose I did? What then? I’ve part changed my flesh since that +time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we _are_ loaded with powder +barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get +afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have pretty +red hair, but you couldn’t get afire now. Shake yourself; you’re +Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat +collar. Don’t you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine +Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. +But hark, again, and I’ll answer ye the other thing. First take your +leg off from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the +rope; now listen. What’s the mighty difference between holding a mast’s +lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn’t +got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don’t you see, you +timber-head, that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the +mast is first struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in +a hundred carries rods, and Ahab,—aye, man, and all of us,—were in no +more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten +thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose +you would have every man in the world go about with a small +lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia +officer’s skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why +don’t ye be sensible, Flask? it’s easy to be sensible; why don’t ye, +then? any man with half an eye can be sensible.” + +“I don’t know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard.” + +“Yes, when a fellow’s soaked through, it’s hard to be sensible, that’s +a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the +turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors +now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two +anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man’s hands behind him. And +what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron +fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the +world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long +cable, though. There, hammer that knot down, and we’ve done. So; next +to touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say, +just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at +long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a long tailed coat ought always +to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, +serve to carry off the water, d’ye see. Same with cocked hats; the +cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and +tarpaulins for me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a +beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, +Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly! +This is a nasty night, lad.” + + +CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning. + +_The main-top-sail yard_.—_Tashtego passing new lashings around it_. + +“Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What’s +the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don’t want thunder; we want rum; +give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!” + + +CHAPTER 123. The Musket. + +During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod’s +jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by +its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached +to it—for they were slack—because some play to the tiller was +indispensable. + +In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock +to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the +compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the +Pequod’s; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice +the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is a +sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted +emotion. + +Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the +strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb—one engaged forward and the +other aft—the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails +were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like +the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds +when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing. + +The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a +storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through +the water with some precision again; and the course—for the present, +East-south-east—which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more +given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only +steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the +ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, +lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul +breeze became fair! + +Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of “_Ho! the fair +wind! oh-ye-ho, cheerly men!_” the crew singing for joy, that so +promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents +preceding it. + +In compliance with the standing order of his commander—to report +immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided +change in the affairs of the deck,—Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the +yards to the breeze—however reluctantly and gloomily,—than he +mechanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance. + +Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it a +moment. The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that—was burning +fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door,—a +thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. The +isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming silence +to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of the +elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as +they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an +honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck’s heart, at that instant when +he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so +blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he +hardly knew it for itself. + +“He would have shot me once,” he murmured, “yes, there’s the very +musket that he pointed at me;—that one with the studded stock; let me +touch it—lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly +lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, +aye; and powder in the pan;—that’s not good. Best spill it?—wait. I’ll +cure myself of this. I’ll hold the musket boldly while I think.—I come +to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and +doom,—_that’s_ fair for Moby Dick. It’s a fair wind that’s only fair +for that accursed fish.—The very tube he pointed at me!—the very one; +_this_ one—I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing +I handle now.—Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say +he will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his +heavenly quadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his +way by mere dead reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very +Typhoon, did he not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But +shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s +company down to doom with him?—Yes, it would make him the wilful +murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; +and come to deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have +his way. If, then, he were this instant—put aside, that crime would not +be his. Ha! is he muttering in his sleep? Yes, just there,—in there, +he’s sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I +can’t withstand thee, then, old man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance; +not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest. Flat +obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye, +and say’st the men have vow’d thy vow; say’st all of us are Ahabs. +Great God forbid!—But is there no other way? no lawful way?—Make him a +prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man’s living +power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it. Say he were +pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes and hawsers; chained down to +ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would be more hideous than a caged +tiger, then. I could not endure the sight; could not possibly fly his +howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me +on the long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains? The land is +hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest. I stand alone +here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me +and law.—Aye, aye, ’tis so.—Is heaven a murderer when its lightning +strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin +together?—And would I be a murderer, then, if”—and slowly, stealthily, +and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket’s end against +the door. + +“On this level, Ahab’s hammock swings within; his head this way. A +touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.—Oh +Mary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But if I wake thee not to death, old man, +who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck’s body this day week may +sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall +I?—The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails +are reefed and set; she heads her course.” + +“Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!” + +Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man’s +tormented sleep, as if Starbuck’s voice had caused the long dumb dream +to speak. + +The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard’s arm against the panel; +Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he +placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place. + +“He’s too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell +him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know’st what to say.” + + +CHAPTER 124. The Needle. + +Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of +mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod’s gurgling track, pushed her on +like giants’ palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded +so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world +boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the +invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; +where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned +Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a +crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat. + +Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time +the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to +eye the bright sun’s rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly +settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun’s rearward +place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating +wake. + +“Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot +of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to +ye! Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!” + +But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards +the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading. + +“East-sou-east, sir,” said the frightened steersman. + +“Thou liest!” smiting him with his clenched fist. “Heading East at this +hour in the morning, and the sun astern?” + +Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then +observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very +blinding palpableness must have been the cause. + +Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse +of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost +seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two +compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West. + +But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the +old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, “I have it! It has happened +before. Mr. Starbuck, last night’s thunder turned our compasses—that’s +all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.” + +“Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir,” said the pale mate, +gloomily. + +Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than +one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as +developed in the mariner’s needle, is, as all know, essentially one +with the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much +marvelled at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning +has actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars +and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more +fatal; all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before +magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife’s knitting needle. +But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the +original virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be +affected, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; +even were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson. + +Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed +compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took +the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were +exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship’s course to be +changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod +thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair +one had only been juggling her. + +Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said +nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and +Flask—who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his +feelings—likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some +of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear +of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost +wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain +magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab’s. + +For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But +chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper +sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck. + +“Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun’s pilot! yesterday I wrecked +thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But +Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck—a lance without +a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker’s needles. +Quick!” + +Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about +to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to +revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a +matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old +man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily +practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious +sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents. + +“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him +the things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s +needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, +that will point as true as any.” + +Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as +this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic +might follow. But Starbuck looked away. + +With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the +lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade +him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the +maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he +placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly +hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. +Then going through some small strange motions with it—whether +indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to +augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he called for linen thread; +and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, +and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of +the compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering +and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when +Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly +back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, +exclaimed,—“Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level +loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!” + +One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could +persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk +away. + +In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his +fatal pride. + + +CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line. + +While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log +and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance +upon other means of determining the vessel’s place, some merchantmen, +and many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave +the log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form’s sake +than anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the +course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of +progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden +reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the +railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and +wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that +hung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he +happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet +scene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his +frantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing +plungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots. + +“Forward, there! Heave the log!” + +Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman. +“Take the reel, one of ye, I’ll heave.” + +They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship’s lee side, where the +deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into +the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea. + +The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting +handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so +stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to +him. + +Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty +turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old +Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to +speak. + +“Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have +spoiled it.” + +“’Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee? +Thou seem’st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it.” + +“I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these grey +hairs of mine ’tis not worth while disputing, ’specially with a +superior, who’ll ne’er confess.” + +“What’s that? There now’s a patched professor in Queen Nature’s +granite-founded College; but methinks he’s too subservient. Where wert +thou born?” + +“In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.” + +“Excellent! Thou’st hit the world by that.” + +“I know not, sir, but I was born there.” + +“In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it’s good. Here’s a man +from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man; +which is sucked in—by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall +butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So.” + +The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long +dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In +turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing +resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely. + +“Hold hard!” + +Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the +tugging log was gone. + +“I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad +sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian; +reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and +mend thou the line. See to it.” + +“There he goes now; to him nothing’s happened; but to me, the skewer +seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, +Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and +dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?” + +“Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whale-boat. Pip’s missing. +Let’s see now if ye haven’t fished him up here, fisherman. It drags +hard; I guess he’s holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul +in no cowards here. Ho! there’s his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! +a hatchet! cut it off—we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir, +sir! here’s Pip, trying to get on board again.” + +“Peace, thou crazy loon,” cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm. +“Away from the quarter-deck!” + +“The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser,” muttered Ahab, advancing. +“Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy? + +“Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!” + +“And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of +thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to +sieve through! Who art thou, boy?” + +“Bell-boy, sir; ship’s-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! One +hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high—looks +cowardly—quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip the +coward?” + +“There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen heavens! +look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned +him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab’s cabin shall be Pip’s +home henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; +thou art tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let’s +down.” + +“What’s this? here’s velvet shark-skin,” intently gazing at Ahab’s +hand, and feeling it. “Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing +as this, perhaps he had ne’er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a +man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth +now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the +white, for I will not let this go.” + +“Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse +horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in +gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods +oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not +what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! +I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an +Emperor’s!” + +“There go two daft ones now,” muttered the old Manxman. “One daft with +strength, the other daft with weakness. But here’s the end of the +rotten line—all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a +new line altogether. I’ll see Mr. Stubb about it.” + + +CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy. + +Steering now south-eastward by Ahab’s levelled steel, and her progress +solely determined by Ahab’s level log and line; the Pequod held on her +path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such +unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways +impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all +these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and +desperate scene. + +At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the +Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before +the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch—then +headed by Flask—was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and +unearthly—like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s +murdered Innocents—that one and all, they started from their reveries, +and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all +transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild +cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the +crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers +remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman—the oldest mariner of +all—declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the +voices of newly drowned men in the sea. + +Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he +came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not +unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus +explained the wonder. + +Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great +numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or +some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and +kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of +wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most +mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not +only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the +human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen +peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain +circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men. + +But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible +confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At +sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; +and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for +sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus +with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had +not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard—a cry and a +rushing—and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and +looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the +sea. + +The life-buoy—a long slender cask—was dropped from the stern, where it +always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it, +and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it +slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and +the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to +yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one. + +And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out +for the White Whale, on the White Whale’s own peculiar ground; that man +was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the +time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at +least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of +evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. +They declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they +had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. + +The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see +to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in +the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the +voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly +connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be; +therefore, they were going to leave the ship’s stern unprovided with a +buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a +hint concerning his coffin. + +“A life-buoy of a coffin!” cried Starbuck, starting. + +“Rather queer, that, I should say,” said Stubb. + +“It will make a good enough one,” said Flask, “the carpenter here can +arrange it easily.” + +“Bring it up; there’s nothing else for it,” said Starbuck, after a +melancholy pause. “Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so—the coffin, +I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.” + +“And shall I nail down the lid, sir?” moving his hand as with a hammer. + +“Aye.” + +“And shall I caulk the seams, sir?” moving his hand as with a +caulking-iron. + +“Aye.” + +“And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?” moving his hand +as with a pitch-pot. + +“Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and +no more.—Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.” + +“He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he +baulks. Now I don’t like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he +wears it like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he +won’t put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with +that coffin? And now I’m ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It’s like +turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I +don’t like this cobbling sort of business—I don’t like it at all; it’s +undignified; it’s not my place. Let tinkers’ brats do tinkerings; we +are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, +fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at +the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at +the conclusion; not a cobbler’s job, that’s at an end in the middle, +and at the beginning at the end. It’s the old woman’s tricks to be +giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old women have for +tinkers. I know an old woman of sixty-five who ran away with a +bald-headed young tinker once. And that’s the reason I never would work +for lonely widow old women ashore, when I kept my job-shop in the +Vineyard; they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run +off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let +me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with +pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over +the ship’s stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some +superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere +they would do the job. But I’m made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I +don’t budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a grave-yard +tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make bridal-bedsteads and +card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We work by the month, or +by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask the why and wherefore +of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it +if we can. Hem! I’ll do the job, now, tenderly. I’ll have me—let’s +see—how many in the ship’s company, all told? But I’ve forgotten. Any +way, I’ll have me thirty separate, Turk’s-headed life-lines, each three +feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, if the hull go down, +there’ll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight +not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, caulking-iron, +pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let’s to it.” + + +CHAPTER 127. The Deck. + +_The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the +open hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of twisted +oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of +his frock.—Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip +following him._ + +“Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand +complies with my humor more genially than that boy.—Middle aisle of a +church! What’s here?” + +“Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck’s orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the +hatchway!” + +“Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.” + +“Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.” + +“Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy +shop?” + +“I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?” + +“Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?” + +“Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but +they’ve set me now to turning it into something else.” + +“Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, +monopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the +next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those +same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a +jack-of-all-trades.” + +“But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do.” + +“The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a +coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the +craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in +hand. Dost thou never?” + +“Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I’m indifferent enough, sir, for that; but +the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there +was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark +to it.” + +“Aye, and that’s because the lid there’s a sounding-board; and what in +all things makes the sounding-board is this—there’s naught beneath. And +yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. +Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against +the churchyard gate, going in? + +“Faith, sir, I’ve——” + +“Faith? What’s that?” + +“Why, faith, sir, it’s only a sort of exclamation-like—that’s all, +sir.” + +“Um, um; go on.” + +“I was about to say, sir, that——” + +“Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? +Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight.” + +“He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot +latitudes. I’ve heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the +Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some +sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He’s always +under the Line—fiery hot, I tell ye! He’s looking this way—come, oakum; +quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I’m the +professor of musical glasses—tap, tap!” + +(_Ahab to himself_.) + +“There’s a sight! There’s a sound! The greyheaded woodpecker tapping +the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that +thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, +that fellow. Rat-tat! So man’s seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all +materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here +now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the +expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A +life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some +spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! +I’ll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, +that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain +twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed +sound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return again. +Now, then, Pip, we’ll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous +philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds +must empty into thee!” + + +CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel. + +Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down +upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time +the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the +broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all +fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from +the smitten hull. + +“Bad news; she brings bad news,” muttered the old Manxman. But ere her +commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he +could hopefully hail, Ahab’s voice was heard. + +“Hast seen the White Whale?” + +“Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?” + +Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; +and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger +captain himself, having stopped his vessel’s way, was seen descending +her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the +Pequod’s main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was +recognised by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation +was exchanged. + +“Where was he?—not killed!—not killed!” cried Ahab, closely advancing. +“How was it?” + +It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, +while three of the stranger’s boats were engaged with a shoal of +whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and +while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head +of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to +leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat—a reserved one—had been +instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this +fourth boat—the swiftest keeled of all—seemed to have succeeded in +fastening—at least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell +anything about it. In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; +and then a swift gleam of bubbling white water; and after that nothing +more; whence it was concluded that the stricken whale must have +indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens. There was +some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals +were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and forced to pick up her +three far to windward boats—ere going in quest of the fourth one in the +precisely opposite direction—the ship had not only been necessitated to +leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to +increase her distance from it. But the rest of her crew being at last +safe aboard, she crowded all sail—stunsail on stunsail—after the +missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every +other man aloft on the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a +sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when +last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all +around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again +paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued doing +till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been +seen. + +The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his +object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his +own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles +apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were. + +“I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some one +in that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat; mayhap, his +watch—he’s so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two +pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height +of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks—pale in +the very buttons of his eyes—look—it wasn’t the coat—it must have been +the—” + +“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake—I beg, I +conjure”—here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had +but icily received his petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let me +charter your ship—I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it—if +there be no other way—for eight-and-forty hours only—only that—you +must, oh, you must, and you _shall_ do this thing.” + +“His son!” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the +coat and watch—what says Ahab? We must save that boy.” + +“He’s drowned with the rest on ’em, last night,” said the old Manx +sailor standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.” + +Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel’s +the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the +Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but among +the number of the other boat’s crews, at the same time, but on the +other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the +chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the +wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; +which was only solved for him by his chief mate’s instinctively +adopting the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies, +that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to +pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown +constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not +till forced to it by Ahab’s iciness did he allude to his one yet +missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the +earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer’s paternal love, had +thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a +vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it +unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of such +tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years’ voyage +in some other ship than their own; so that their first knowledge of a +whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a +father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and +concern. + +Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab; +and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without +the least quivering of his own. + +“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say _aye_ to me. Do to me +as you would have me do to you in the like case. For _you_ too have a +boy, Captain Ahab—though but a child, and nestling safely at home now—a +child of your old age too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see it—run, run, men, +now, and stand by to square in the yards.” + +“Avast,” cried Ahab—“touch not a rope-yarn”; then in a voice that +prolongingly moulded every word—“Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. +Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I +forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle +watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all +strangers: then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.” + +Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, +leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter +rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, +Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his +boat, and returned to his ship. + +Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel +was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, +however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung +round; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat +against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the +while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three +tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs. + +But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly +saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without +comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were +not. + + +CHAPTER 129. The Cabin. + +(_Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip catches him by the hand to follow._) + +“Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is +coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee +by him. There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my +malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most +desired health. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, +as if thou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own +screwed chair; another screw to it, thou must be.” + +“No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for +your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain +a part of ye.” + +“Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless +fidelity of man!—and a black! and crazy!—but methinks like-cures-like +applies to him too; he grows so sane again.” + +“They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose +drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin. +But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with +ye.” + +“If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab’s purpose keels up in him. +I tell thee no; it cannot be.” + +“Oh good master, master, master! + +“Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad. +Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still +know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!—Met! True art +thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So: God for ever bless +thee; and if it come to that,—God for ever save thee, let what will +befall.” + +(_Ahab goes; Pip steps one step forward._) + +“Here he this instant stood; I stand in his air,—but I’m alone. Now +were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he’s missing. Pip! Pip! +Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip? He must be up here; let’s try the +door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there’s no opening +it. It must be the spell; he told me to stay here: Aye, and told me +this screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I’ll seat me, against the +transom, in the ship’s full middle, all her keel and her three masts +before me. Here, our old sailors say, in their black seventy-fours +great admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of +captains and lieutenants. Ha! what’s this? epaulets! epaulets! the +epaulets all come crowding! Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; +fill up, monsieurs! What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy’s host +to white men with gold lace upon their coats!—Monsieurs, have ye seen +one Pip?—a little negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and +cowardly! Jumped from a whale-boat once;—seen him? No! Well then, fill +up again, captains, and let’s drink shame upon all cowards! I name no +names. Shame upon them! Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon all +cowards.—Hist! above there, I hear ivory—Oh, master! master! I am +indeed down-hearted when you walk over me. But here I’ll stay, though +this stern strikes rocks; and they bulge through; and oysters come to +join me.” + + +CHAPTER 130. The Hat. + +And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a +preliminary cruise, Ahab,—all other whaling waters swept—seemed to have +chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely there; +now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and longitude +where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a vessel had +been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered +Moby Dick;—and now that all his successive meetings with various ships +contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which +the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against; +now it was that there lurked a something in the old man’s eyes, which +it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting +polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months’ night +sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab’s purpose now +fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It +domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, +fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a +single spear or leaf. + +In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural, +vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more +strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed +ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped +mortar of Ahab’s iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the +deck, ever conscious that the old man’s despot eye was on them. + +But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours; when +he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that +even as Ahab’s eyes so awed the crew’s, the inscrutable Parsee’s glance +awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it. +Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah +now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious +at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal +substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen +being’s body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by +night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go +below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan +but wondrous eyes did plainly say—We two watchmen never rest. + +Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the +deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, +or exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits,—the +main-mast and the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the +cabin-scuttle,—his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; +his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he +stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung +in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never +tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at +times; or whether he was still intently scanning them; no matter, +though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and +the unheeded night-damp gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved +coat and hat. The clothes that the night had wet, the next day’s +sunshine dried upon him; and so, day after day, and night after night; +he went no more beneath the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin +that thing he sent for. + +He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,—breakfast and +dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly +grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still +grow idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But +though his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the +Parsee’s mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these +two never seemed to speak—one man to the other—unless at long intervals +some passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent +spell seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck +crew, they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak +one word; by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the +slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a +single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his +scuttle, the Parsee by the mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each +other; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the +Parsee his abandoned substance. + +And yet, somehow, did Ahab—in his own proper self, as daily, hourly, +and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,—Ahab +seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both +seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean +shade siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and +keel was solid Ahab. + +At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard +from aft,—“Man the mast-heads!”—and all through the day, till after +sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking +of the helmsman’s bell, was heard—“What d’ye see?—sharp! sharp!” + +But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the +children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the monomaniac +old man seemed distrustful of his crew’s fidelity; at least, of nearly +all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether +Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But +if these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from +verbally expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them. + +“I will have the first sight of the whale myself,”—he said. “Aye! Ahab +must have the doubloon!” and with his own hands he rigged a nest of +basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved +block, to secure to the main-mast head, he received the two ends of the +downward-reeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin +for the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with +that end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round +upon his crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his glance long +upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then +settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,—“Take the +rope, sir—I give it into thy hands, Starbuck.” Then arranging his +person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist him to his +perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last; and +afterwards stood near it. And thus, with one hand clinging round the +royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles,—ahead, +astern, this side, and that,—within the wide expanded circle commanded +at so great a height. + +When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in +the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is +hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these +circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict +charge to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such +a wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations +aloft cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at +the deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few +minutes cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural +fatality, if, unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor +should by some carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all +swooping to the sea. So Ahab’s proceedings in this matter were not +unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, +almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with +anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision—one of those +too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt +somewhat;—it was strange, that this was the very man he should select +for his watchman; freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise +distrusted person’s hands. + +Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten +minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly +incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these +latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his +head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a +thousand feet straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and +went eddying again round his head. + +But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed +not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked +it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least +heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every +sight. + +“Your hat, your hat, sir!” suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who +being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though +somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing +them. + +But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes; the long +hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with +his prize. + +An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin’s head, removing his cap to replace +it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be +king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen +accounted good. Ahab’s hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on +and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; +while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was +dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea. + + +CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight. + +The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the +life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably +misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were +fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some +whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine +feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats. + +Upon the stranger’s shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and +some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you +now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled, +half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse. + +“Hast seen the White Whale?” + +“Look!” replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with +his trumpet he pointed to the wreck. + +“Hast killed him?” + +“The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that,” answered the +other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose +gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together. + +“Not forged!” and snatching Perth’s levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab +held it out, exclaiming—“Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold +his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these +barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the +fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!” + +“Then God keep thee, old man—see’st thou that”—pointing to the +hammock—“I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only +yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only _that_ one I bury; the rest +were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb.” Then turning +to his crew—“Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and +lift the body; so, then—Oh! God”—advancing towards the hammock with +uplifted hands—“may the resurrection and the life——” + +“Brace forward! Up helm!” cried Ahab like lightning to his men. + +But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the +sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not +so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have +sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism. + +As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy +hanging at the Pequod’s stern came into conspicuous relief. + +“Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!” cried a foreboding voice in her wake. +“In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your +taffrail to show us your coffin!” + + +CHAPTER 132. The Symphony. + +It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were +hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was +transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and +man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s +chest in his sleep. + +Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, +unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; +but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed +mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, +troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea. + +But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and +shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, +that distinguished them. + +Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle +air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the +girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion—most seen +here at the equator—denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving +alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away. + +Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm +and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the +ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the +morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl’s +forehead of heaven. + +Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged +creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how +oblivious were ye of old Ahab’s close-coiled woe! But so have I seen +little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around +their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on +the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain. + +Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side +and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the +more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the +lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a +moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that +winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, +so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn +neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that +however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save +and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into +the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee +drop. + +Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; +and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing +that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to +touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood +there. + +Ahab turned. + +“Starbuck!” + +“Sir.” + +“Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such +a day—very much such a sweetness as this—I struck my first whale—a +boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty—forty—forty years ago!—ago! Forty +years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and +storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab +forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors +of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not +spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the +desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a +Captain’s exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any +sympathy from the green country without—oh, weariness! heaviness! +Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!—when I think of all this; +only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before—and how for forty +years I have fed upon dry salted fare—fit emblem of the dry nourishment +of my soil!—when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily +hand, and broken the world’s fresh bread to my mouldy crusts—away, +whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and +sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage +pillow—wife? wife?—rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I +widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the +madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with +which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly +chased his prey—more a demon than a man!—aye, aye! what a forty years’ +fool—fool—old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? +why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? +how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not +hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been +snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, +that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some +ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel +deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering +beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!—crack my +heart!—stave my brain!—mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey +hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus +intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a +human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to +gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is +the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; +stay on board, on board!—lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives +chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with +the far away home I see in that eye!” + +“Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! +why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us +fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are +Starbuck’s—wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow +youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, +longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!—this instant let me alter +the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl +on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some +such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.” + +“They have, they have. I have seen them—some summer days in the +morning. About this time—yes, it is his noon nap now—the boy +vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of +cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back +to dance him again.” + +“’Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every +morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of +his father’s sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for +Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! +See, see! the boy’s face from the window! the boy’s hand on the hill!” + +But Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and +cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. + +“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what +cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor +commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep +pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly +making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not +so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this +arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy +in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible +power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain +think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does +that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round +in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all +the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon +Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where +do murderers go, man! Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged +to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and +the air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have +been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and +the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we +how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust +amid greenness; as last year’s scythes flung down, and left in the +half-cut swaths—Starbuck!” + +But blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away. + +Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at +two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly +leaning over the same rail. + + +CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day. + +That night, in the mid-watch, when the old man—as his wont at +intervals—stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went +to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing +up the sea air as a sagacious ship’s dog will, in drawing nigh to some +barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that +peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living +sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner +surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, +and then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as +possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship’s course to be slightly +altered, and the sail to be shortened. + +The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated +at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and +lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery +wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift +tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream. + +“Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!” + +Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle +deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they +seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear +with their clothes in their hands. + +“What d’ye see?” cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky. + +“Nothing, nothing sir!” was the sound hailing down in reply. + +“T’gallant sails!—stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides!” + +All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for +swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were +hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and +while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the +main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the +air. “There she blows!—there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is +Moby Dick!” + +Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three +look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous +whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final +perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just +beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian’s +head was almost on a level with Ahab’s heel. From this height the whale +was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing +his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into +the air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they +had so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans. + +“And did none of ye see it before?” cried Ahab, hailing the perched men +all around him. + +“I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I +cried out,” said Tashtego. + +“Not the same instant; not the same—no, the doubloon is mine, Fate +reserved the doubloon for me. _I_ only; none of ye could have raised +the White Whale first. There she blows!—there she blows!—there she +blows! There again!—there again!” he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, +methodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale’s +visible jets. “He’s going to sound! In stunsails! Down +top-gallant-sails! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay +on board, and keep the ship. Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So; +steady, man, steady! There go flukes! No, no; only black water! All +ready the boats there? Stand by, stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; +lower, lower,—quick, quicker!” and he slid through the air to the deck. + +“He is heading straight to leeward, sir,” cried Stubb, “right away from +us; cannot have seen the ship yet.” + +“Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!—brace up! +Shiver her!—shiver her!—So; well that! Boats, boats!” + +Soon all the boats but Starbuck’s were dropped; all the boat-sails +set—all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to +leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up +Fedallah’s sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth. + +Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; +but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew +still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a +noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter +came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling +hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated +thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, +greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly +projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged +waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky +forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and +behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving +valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and +danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of +hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their +fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull +of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected +from the white whale’s back; and at intervals one of the cloud of +soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over +the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail +feathers streaming like pennons. + +A gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested +the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with +ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering +eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, +rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that +great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so +divinely swam. + +On each soft side—coincident with the parted swell, that but once +leaving him, then flowed so wide away—on each bright side, the whale +shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who +namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured +to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of +tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all +who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way +thou may’st have bejuggled and destroyed before. + +And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among +waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby +Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his +submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw. +But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an +instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia’s +Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, +the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. +Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls +longingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left. + +With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, +the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick’s reappearance. + +“An hour,” said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat’s stern; and he gazed +beyond the whale’s place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing +vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed +whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze +now freshened; the sea began to swell. + +“The birds!—the birds!” cried Tashtego. + +In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were now +all flying towards Ahab’s boat; and when within a few yards began +fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, +expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man’s; Ahab could +discover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down +into its depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a +white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it +rose, till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long +crooked rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the +undiscoverable bottom. It was Moby Dick’s open mouth and scrolled jaw; +his vast, shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea. +The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble +tomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled +the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon +Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and +seizing Perth’s harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and +stand by to stern. + +Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, +its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale’s head while yet +under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that +malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted +himself, as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head +lengthwise beneath the boat. + +Through and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for +an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of a +biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his +mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into +the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish +pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab’s +head, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale +now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With +unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the +tiger-yellow crew were tumbling over each other’s heads to gain the +uttermost stern. + +And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the +whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his +body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from +the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and while +the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis +impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with +this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and +helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized +the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from +its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the +frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an +enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in +twain, and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the +two floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the +crew at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold +fast to the oars to lash them across. + +At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first +to perceive the whale’s intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a +movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand had +made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only +slipping further into the whale’s mouth, and tilting over sideways as +it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him +out of it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the +sea. + +Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little +distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the +billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; +so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose—some twenty or more feet +out of the water—the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, +dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray +still higher into the air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel +billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to +overleap its summit with their scud. + +*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its +designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary +up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called +pitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale must best +and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him. + +But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round +and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful +wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly +assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the +blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus’s elephants in the +book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the +whale’s insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,—though he +could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; +helpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least +chance shock might burst. From the boat’s fragmentary stern, Fedallah +incuriously and mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other +drifting end, could not succor him; more than enough was it for them to +look to themselves. For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale’s +aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, +that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other +boats, unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into +the eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant +destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that +case could they themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then, +they remained on the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had +now become the old man’s head. + +Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship’s +mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene; +and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!—“Sail on +the”—but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and +whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing +to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,—“Sail on the whale!—Drive him +off!” + +The Pequod’s prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle, +she effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly +swam off, the boats flew to the rescue. + +Dragged into Stubb’s boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white +brine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab’s bodily +strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body’s doom: for a +time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb’s boat, like one trodden +under foot of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from +him, as desolate sounds from out ravines. + +But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more +abbreviate it. In an instant’s compass, great hearts sometimes condense +to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused +through feebler men’s whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary +in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their life-time +aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous +intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures +contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls. + +“The harpoon,” said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on +one bended arm—“is it safe?” + +“Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it,” said Stubb, showing it. + +“Lay it before me;—any missing men?” + +“One, two, three, four, five;—there were five oars, sir, and here are +five men.” + +“That’s good.—Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there! +there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!—Hands off from me! +The eternal sap runs up in Ahab’s bones again! Set the sail; out oars; +the helm!” + +It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked +up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is +thus continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now. +But the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the +whale, for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with +a velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these +circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely +prolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long +a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing +barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, +then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate +means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, +and were soon swayed up to their cranes—the two parts of the wrecked +boat having been previously secured by her—and then hoisting everything +to her side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways +outstretching it with stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an +albatross; the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At +the well known, methodic intervals, the whale’s glittering spout was +regularly announced from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be +reported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing +the deck, binnacle-watch in hand, so soon as the last second of the +allotted hour expired, his voice was heard.—“Whose is the doubloon now? +D’ye see him?” and if the reply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded +them to lift him to his perch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now +aloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly pacing the planks. + +As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men +aloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a +still greater breadth—thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, +at every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped +upon the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered +stern. At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded +sky fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old +man’s face there now stole some such added gloom as this. + +Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to +evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in +his Captain’s mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed—“The +thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha! ha!” + +“What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did +I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could +swear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a +wreck.” + +“Aye, sir,” said Starbuck drawing near, “’tis a solemn sight; an omen, +and an ill one.” + +“Omen? omen?—the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to +man, they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and +give an old wives’ darkling hint.—Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles +of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye +two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the +peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold—I shiver!—How +now? Aloft there! D’ye see him? Sing out for every spout, though he +spout ten times a second!” + +The day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling. +Soon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset. + +“Can’t see the spout now, sir;—too dark”—cried a voice from the air. + +“How heading when last seen?” + +“As before, sir,—straight to leeward.” + +“Good! he will travel slower now ’tis night. Down royals and +top-gallant stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before +morning; he’s making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm +there! keep her full before the wind!—Aloft! come down!—Mr. Stubb, send +a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till +morning.”—Then advancing towards the doubloon in the main-mast—“Men, +this gold is mine, for I earned it; but I shall let it abide here till +the White Whale is dead; and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, +upon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man’s; and if on +that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be +divided among all of ye! Away now!—the deck is thine, sir!” + +And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and +slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals +rousing himself to see how the night wore on. + + +CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day. + +At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh. + +“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light +to spread. + +“See nothing, sir.” + +“Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought +for;—the top-gallant sails!—aye, they should have been kept on her all +night. But no matter—’tis but resting for the rush.” + +Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular +whale, continued through day into night, and through night into day, is +a thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is +the wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible +confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket +commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale when last +descried, they will, under certain given circumstances, pretty +accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue to +swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of +progression during that period. And, in these cases, somewhat as a +pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general trending he +well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again, but at +some further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass, and takes +the precise bearing of the cape at present visible, in order the more +certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be +visited: so does the fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for +after being chased, and diligently marked, through several hours of +daylight, then, when night obscures the fish, the creature’s future +wake through the darkness is almost as established to the sagacious +mind of the hunter, as the pilot’s coast is to him. So that to this +hunter’s wondrous skill, the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in +water, a wake, is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the +steadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway +is so familiarly known in its every pace, that, with watches in their +hands, men time his rate as doctors that of a baby’s pulse; and lightly +say of it, the up train or the down train will reach such or such a +spot, at such or such an hour; even so, almost, there are occasions +when these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep, +according to the observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves, so +many hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have +about reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude. But to +render this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the +sea must be the whaleman’s allies; for of what present avail to the +becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that assures him he is +exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable +from these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the +chase of whales. + +The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a +cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level +field. + +“By salt and hemp!” cried Stubb, “but this swift motion of the deck +creeps up one’s legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two +brave fellows!—Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise, +on the sea,—for by live-oaks! my spine’s a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait +that leaves no dust behind!” + +“There she blows—she blows!—she blows!—right ahead!” was now the +mast-head cry. + +“Aye, aye!” cried Stubb, “I knew it—ye can’t escape—blow on and split +your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your +trump—blister your lungs!—Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller +shuts his watergate upon the stream!” + +And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies +of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine +worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might +have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the +growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, +as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand +of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of the +previous day; the rack of the past night’s suspense; the fixed, +unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging +towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled +along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the +vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of +that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race. + +They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; +though it was put together of all contrasting things—oak, and maple, +and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp—yet all these ran into each +other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced +and directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities +of the crew, this man’s valor, that man’s fear; guilt and guiltiness, +all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that +fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. + +The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were +outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one +hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, +shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking +yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for +their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to +seek out the thing that might destroy them! + +“Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?” cried Ahab, when, after +the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard. +“Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick casts one odd +jet that way, and then disappears.” + +It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some +other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for +hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its +pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the +air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant +halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as—much nearer to the ship +than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead—Moby Dick +bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not +by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the +White Whale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous +phenomenon of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the +furthest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the +pure element of air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows +his place to the distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, +the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, +this breaching is his act of defiance. + +“There she breaches! there she breaches!” was the cry, as in his +immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to +Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved +against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, +for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and +stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling +intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale. + +“Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!” cried Ahab, “thy hour +and thy harpoon are at hand!—Down! down all of ye, but one man at the +fore. The boats!—stand by!” + +Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like +shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and +halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped +from his perch. + +“Lower away,” he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat—a spare one, +rigged the afternoon previous. “Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine—keep +away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!” + +As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first +assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the +three crews. Ahab’s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told +them he would take the whale head-and-head,—that is, pull straight up +to his forehead,—a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, +such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale’s sidelong +vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three +boats were plain as the ship’s three masts to his eye; the White Whale +churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, +rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered +appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him +from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank +of which those boats were made. But skilfully manœuvred, incessantly +wheeling like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while +eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while all the +time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds. + +But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed +and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three +lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, +warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now +for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more +tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more +line: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again—hoping +that way to disencumber it of some snarls—when lo!—a sight more savage +than the embattled teeth of sharks! + +Caught and twisted—corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons +and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing +and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab’s boat. Only one +thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached +within—through—and then, without—the rays of steel; dragged in the line +beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice sundering +the rope near the chocks—dropped the intercepted fagot of steel into +the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White Whale made a +sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; by so +doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask +towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on a +surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a +boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of +the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly +stirred bowl of punch. + +While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after +the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while +aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching +his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was +lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old +man’s line—now parting—admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to +rescue whom he could;—in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand +concreted perils,—Ahab’s yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards +Heaven by invisible wires,—as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly +from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its +bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air; till it fell +again—gunwale downwards—and Ahab and his men struggled out from under +it, like seals from a sea-side cave. + +The first uprising momentum of the whale—modifying its direction as he +struck the surface—involuntarily launched him along it, to a little +distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his +back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from +side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or +crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and +came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work +for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the +ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his +leeward way at a traveller’s methodic pace. + +As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again +came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the +floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, +and safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists, +and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances; +inextricable intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these +were there; but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen +any one. As with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly +clinging to his boat’s broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy +float; nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day’s mishap. + +But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as +instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of +Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory +leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter. + +“Aye, aye, Starbuck, ’tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he +will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has.” + +“The ferrule has not stood, sir,” said the carpenter, now coming up; “I +put good work into that leg.” + +“But no bones broken, sir, I hope,” said Stubb with true concern. + +“Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!—d’ye see it.—But even with a +broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of +mine one jot more me, than this dead one that’s lost. Nor white whale, +nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and +inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape +yonder roof?—Aloft there! which way?” + +“Dead to leeward, sir.” + +“Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of +the spare boats and rig them—Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat’s +crews.” + +“Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir.” + +“Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the +unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!” + +“Sir?” + +“My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane—there, that +shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet. +By heaven it cannot be!—missing?—quick! call them all.” + +The old man’s hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the +Parsee was not there. + +“The Parsee!” cried Stubb—“he must have been caught in——” + +“The black vomit wrench thee!—run all of ye above, alow, cabin, +forecastle—find him—not gone—not gone!” + +But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was +nowhere to be found. + +“Aye, sir,” said Stubb—“caught among the tangles of your line—I thought +I saw him dragging under.” + +“_My_ line! _my_ line? Gone?—gone? What means that little word?—What +death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry. +The harpoon, too!—toss over the litter there,—d’ye see it?—the forged +iron, men, the white whale’s—no, no, no,—blistered fool! this hand did +dart it!—’tis in the fish!—Aloft there! Keep him nailed—Quick!—all +hands to the rigging of the boats—collect the oars—harpooneers! the +irons, the irons!—hoist the royals higher—a pull on all the +sheets!—helm there! steady, steady for your life! I’ll ten times girdle +the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I’ll slay +him yet!” + +“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck; +“never, never wilt thou capture him, old man—In Jesus’ name no more of +this, that’s worse than devil’s madness. Two days chased; twice stove +to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil +shadow gone—all good angels mobbing thee with warnings:—what more +wouldst thou have?—Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he +swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the +sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh,—Impiety +and blasphemy to hunt him more!” + +“Starbuck, of late I’ve felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that +hour we both saw—thou know’st what, in one another’s eyes. But in this +matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this +hand—a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This +whole act’s immutably decreed. ’Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion +years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act +under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.—Stand round +me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered +lance; propped up on a lonely foot. ’Tis Ahab—his body’s part; but +Ahab’s soul’s a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel +strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a +gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, ye’ll hear me crack; and till +ye hear _that_, know that Ahab’s hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe +ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! +For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; +then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick—two days he’s +floated—tomorrow will be the third. Aye, men, he’ll rise once more,—but +only to spout his last! D’ye feel brave men, brave?” + +“As fearless fire,” cried Stubb. + +“And as mechanical,” muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he +muttered on: “The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same +to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek +to drive out of others’ hearts what’s clinched so fast in mine!—The +Parsee—the Parsee!—gone, gone? and he was to go before:—but still was +to be seen again ere I could perish—How’s that?—There’s a riddle now +might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of +judges:—like a hawk’s beak it pecks my brain. _I’ll_, _I’ll_ solve it, +though!” + +When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward. + +So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as on +the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the +grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by +lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and +sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken +keel of Ahab’s wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while +still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his +scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its +dial; sat due eastward for the earliest sun. + + +CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day. + +The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the +solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the +daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar. + +“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight. + +“In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that’s all. Helm +there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day +again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the +angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a +fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here’s food for thought, had +Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; +_that’s_ tingling enough for mortal man! to think’s audacity. God only +has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness +and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too +much for that. And yet, I’ve sometimes thought my brain was very +calm—frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the +contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing +now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it’s like +that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy +clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow +it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the +tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this +through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and +ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. +Out upon it!—it’s tainted. Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a +wicked, miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink +there. And yet, ’tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever +conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run +tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that +strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. +Even Ahab is a braver thing—a nobler thing than _that_. Would now the +wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and +outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as +objects, not as agents. There’s a most special, a most cunning, oh, a +most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that +there’s something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These warm +Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in +strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, +however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest +Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go +at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly +blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them—something so +unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! +Aloft there! What d’ye see?” + +“Nothing, sir.” + +“Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun! +Aye, aye, it must be so. I’ve oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, +he’s chasing _me_ now; not I, _him_—that’s bad; I might have known it, +too. Fool! the lines—the harpoons he’s towing. Aye, aye, I have run him +by last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look +outs! Man the braces!” + +Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod’s +quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced +ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own +white wake. + +“Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw,” murmured Starbuck to +himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. “God +keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside +wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!” + +“Stand by to sway me up!” cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. +“We should meet him soon.” + +“Aye, aye, sir,” and straightway Starbuck did Ahab’s bidding, and once +more Ahab swung on high. + +A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held +long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the +weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the +three mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had +voiced it. + +“Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck +there!—brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind’s eye. He’s too far +off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that +helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But +let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there’s +time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and +not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of +Nantucket! The same!—the same!—the same to Noah as to me. There’s a +soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead +somewhere—to something else than common land, more palmy than the +palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then; +the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old +mast-head! What’s this?—green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. +No such green weather stains on Ahab’s head! There’s the difference now +between man’s old age and matter’s. But aye, old mast, we both grow old +together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a +leg, that’s all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live +flesh every way. I can’t compare with it; and I’ve known some ships +made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital +stuff of vital fathers. What’s that he said? he should still go before +me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at +the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and +all night I’ve been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, +aye, like many more thou told’st direful truth as touching thyself, O +Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head—keep +a good eye upon the whale, the while I’m gone. We’ll talk to-morrow, +nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and +tail.” + +He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered +through the cloven blue air to the deck. + +In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop’s +stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the +mate,—who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck—and bade him pause. + +“Starbuck!” + +“Sir?” + +“For the third time my soul’s ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.” + +“Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so.” + +“Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, +Starbuck!” + +“Truth, sir: saddest truth.” + +“Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the +flood;—and I feel now like a billow that’s all one crested comb, +Starbuck. I am old;—shake hands with me, man.” + +Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck’s tears the glue. + +“Oh, my captain, my captain!—noble heart—go not—go not!—see, it’s a +brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!” + +“Lower away!”—cried Ahab, tossing the mate’s arm from him. “Stand by +the crew!” + +In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. + +“The sharks! the sharks!” cried a voice from the low cabin-window +there; “O master, my master, come back!” + +But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the +boat leaped on. + +Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when +numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath +the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time +they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with +their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats +in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them +in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of +marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that +had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first +descried; and whether it was that Ahab’s crew were all such +tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the +senses of the sharks—a matter sometimes well known to affect +them,—however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without +molesting the others. + +“Heart of wrought steel!” murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and +following with his eyes the receding boat—“canst thou yet ring boldly +to that sight?—lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by +them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?—For +when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be +sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the +evening and the end of that thing—be that end what it may. Oh! my God! +what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet +expectant,—fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, +as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. +Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see +but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem +clearing; but clouds sweep between—Is my journey’s end coming? My legs +feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,—beats +it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!—stave it off—move, move! speak +aloud!—Mast-head there! See ye my boy’s hand on the hill?—Crazed;—aloft +there!—keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:—mark well the whale!—Ho! +again!—drive off that hawk! see! he pecks—he tears the vane”—pointing +to the red flag flying at the main-truck—“Ha! he soars away with +it!—Where’s the old man now? see’st thou that sight, oh Ahab!—shudder, +shudder!” + +The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads—a +downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but +intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a +little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the +profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered +against the opposing bow. + +“Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads +drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and +no hearse can be mine:—and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!” + +Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then +quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, +swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a +subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with +trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, +but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, +it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping +back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for +an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of +flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the +marble trunk of the whale. + +“Give way!” cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to +the attack; but maddened by yesterday’s fresh irons that corroded in +him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell +from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad +white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; +as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more +flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two +mates’ boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, +but leaving Ahab’s almost without a scar. + +While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the +whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he +shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round +and round to the fish’s back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in +which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of +the lines around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his +sable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old +Ahab. + +The harpoon dropped from his hand. + +“Befooled, befooled!”—drawing in a long lean breath—“Aye, Parsee! I see +thee again.—Aye, and thou goest before; and this, _this_ then is the +hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of +thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those +boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me; +if not, Ahab is enough to die—Down, men! the first thing that but +offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are +not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.—Where’s the +whale? gone down again?” + +But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the +corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter +had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again +steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,—which thus +far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the +present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his +utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight +path in the sea. + +“Oh! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third +day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that +madly seekest him!” + +Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled +to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding +by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck’s face as he +leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and +follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, +he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three +mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats +which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in +repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he +sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying +themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all +this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers +seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking +that the vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to +Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another +flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast. + +Whether fagged by the three days’ running chase, and the resistance to +his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some +latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White +Whale’s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly +nearing him once more; though indeed the whale’s last start had not +been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves +the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to +the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades +became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at +almost every dip. + +“Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull +on! ’tis the better rest, the shark’s jaw than the yielding water.” + +“But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!” + +“They will last long enough! pull on!—But who can tell”—he +muttered—“whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on +Ahab?—But pull on! Aye, all alive, now—we near him. The helm! take the +helm! let me pass,”—and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward +to the bows of the still flying boat. + +At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with +the White Whale’s flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its +advance—as the whale sometimes will—and Ahab was fairly within the +smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale’s spout, curled +round his great, Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when, +with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the +poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the +hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked +into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his +nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so +suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated +part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have +been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen—who foreknew +not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for +its effects—these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two +of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a +combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man +helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming. + +Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, +instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering +sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with +the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their +seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line +felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air! + +“What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!—’tis whole again; oars! oars! +Burst in upon him!” + +Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled +round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, +catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing +in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it—it may be—a +larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing +prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. + +Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. “I grow blind; hands! +stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is’t night?” + +“The whale! The ship!” cried the cringing oarsmen. + +“Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that ere it be for +ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I +see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship?” + +But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the +sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks +burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat +lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, +trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. + +Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego’s mast-head hammer +remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as +with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own +forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the +bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon +as he. + +“The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of +air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a +woman’s fainting fit. Up helm, I say—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is +this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? +Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up +helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on +towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me +now!” + +“Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now +help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning +whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb’s own +unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is +all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, +thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins +of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would +yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! +thou grinning whale, but there’ll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye +not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his +drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;—cherries! +cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!” + +“Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope +my poor mother’s drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will +now come to her, for the voyage is up.” + +From the ship’s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, +bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their +hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all +their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side +strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of +overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, +swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of +all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead +smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell +flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the +harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, +they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. + +“The ship! The hearse!—the second hearse!” cried Ahab from the boat; +“its wood could only be American!” + +Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its +keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far +off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat, where, for a +time, he lay quiescent. + +“I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy +hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; +and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and +Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and +without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest +shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel +my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your +furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone +life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, +thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with +thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last +breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! +and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still +chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! _Thus_, I give up +the spear!” + +The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting +velocity the line ran through the grooves;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to +clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the +neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was +shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the +heavy eye-splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty +tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its +depths. + +For an instant, the tranced boat’s crew stood still; then turned. “The +ship? Great God, where is the ship?” Soon they through dim, bewildering +mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata +Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by +infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the +pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. +And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its +crew, and each floating oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, +animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the +smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight. + +But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the +sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the +erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, +which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying +billows they almost touched;—at that instant, a red arm and a hammer +hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the +flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that +tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home +among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; +this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between +the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial +thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his +hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic +shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive +form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like +Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of +heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it. + +Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen +white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the +great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. + + +Epilogue + +“AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE” Job. + +The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one +did survive the wreck. + +It so chanced, that after the Parsee’s disappearance, I was he whom the +Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that bowsman +assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three +men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, +floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, +when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but +slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had +subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting +towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly +wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that +vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by +reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising +with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, +fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost +one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The +unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; +the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a +sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the +devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing +children, only found another orphan.