SECOND CHAPTER OF MR. PICKWICK'S TALE
We left Will Marks leaning under the gibbet with his face towards
the town, scanning the distance with a keen eye, which sought to
pierce the darkness and catch the earliest glimpse of any person or
persons that might approach towards him. But all was quiet, and,
save the howling of the wind as it swept across the heath in gusts,
and the creaking of the chains that dangled above his head, there
was no sound to break the sullen stillness of the night. After
half an hour or so this monotony became more disconcerting to Will
than the most furious uproar would have been, and he heartily
wished for some one antagonist with whom he might have a fair
stand-up fight, if it were only to warm himself.
Truth to tell, it was a bitter wind, and seemed to blow to the very
heart of a man whose blood, heated but now with rapid riding, was
the more sensitive to the chilling blast. Will was a daring
fellow, and cared not a jot for hard knocks or sharp blades; but he
could not persuade himself to move or walk about, having just that
vague expectation of a sudden assault which made it a comfortable
thing to have something at his back, even though that something
were a gallows-tree. He had no great faith in the superstitions of
the age, still such of them as occurred to him did not serve to
lighten the time, or to render his situation the more endurable.
He remembered how witches were said to repair at that ghostly hour
to churchyards and gibbets, and such-like dismal spots, to pluck
the bleeding mandrake or scrape the flesh from dead men's bones, as
choice ingredients for their spells; how, stealing by night to
lonely places, they dug graves with their finger-nails, or anointed
themselves before riding in the air, with a delicate pomatum made
of the fat of infants newly boiled. These, and many other fabled
practices of a no less agreeable nature, and all having some
reference to the circumstances in which he was placed, passed and
repassed in quick succession through the mind of Will Marks, and
adding a shadowy dread to that distrust and watchfulness which his
situation inspired, rendered it, upon the whole, sufficiently
uncomfortable. As he had foreseen, too, the rain began to descend
heavily, and driving before the wind in a thick mist, obscured even
those few objects which the darkness of the night had before
imperfectly revealed.
'Look!' shrieked a voice. 'Great Heaven, it has fallen down, and
stands erect as if it lived!'
The speaker was close behind him; the voice was almost at his ear.
Will threw off his cloak, drew his sword, and darting swiftly
round, seized a woman by the wrist, who, recoiling from him with a
dreadful shriek, fell struggling upon her knees. Another woman,
clad, like her whom he had grasped, in mourning garments, stood
rooted to the spot on which they were, gazing upon his face with
wild and glaring eyes that quite appalled him.
'Say,' cried Will, when they had confronted each other thus for
some time, 'what are ye?'
'Say what are YOU,' returned the woman, 'who trouble even this
obscene resting-place of the dead, and strip the gibbet of its
honoured burden? Where is the body?'
He looked in wonder and affright from the woman who questioned him
to the other whose arm he clutched.
'Where is the body?' repeated the questioner more firmly than
before. 'You wear no livery which marks you for the hireling of
the government. You are no friend to us, or I should recognise
you, for the friends of such as we are few in number. What are you
then, and wherefore are you here?'
'I am no foe to the distressed and helpless,' said Will. 'Are ye
among that number? ye should be by your looks.'
'We are!' was the answer.
'Is it ye who have been wailing and weeping here under cover of the
night?' said Will.
'It is,' replied the woman sternly; and pointing, as she spoke,
towards her companion, 'she mourns a husband, and I a brother.
Even the bloody law that wreaks its vengeance on the dead does not
make that a crime, and if it did 'twould be alike to us who are
past its fear or favour.'
Will glanced at the two females, and could barely discern that the
one whom he addressed was much the elder, and that the other was
young and of a slight figure. Both were deadly pale, their
garments wet and worn, their hair dishevelled and streaming in the
wind, themselves bowed down with grief and misery; their whole
appearance most dejected, wretched, and forlorn. A sight so
different from any he had expected to encounter touched him to the
quick, and all idea of anything but their pitiable condition
vanished before it.
'I am a rough, blunt yeoman,' said Will. 'Why I came here is told
in a word; you have been overheard at a distance in the silence of
the night, and I have undertaken a watch for hags or spirits. I
came here expecting an adventure, and prepared to go through with
any. If there be aught that I can do to help or aid you, name it,
and on the faith of a man who can be secret and trusty, I will
stand by you to the death.'
'How comes this gibbet to be empty?' asked the elder female.
'I swear to you,' replied Will, 'that I know as little as yourself.
But this I know, that when I came here an hour ago or so, it was as
it is now; and if, as I gather from your question, it was not so
last night, sure I am that it has been secretly disturbed without
the knowledge of the folks in yonder town. Bethink you, therefore,
whether you have no friends in league with you or with him on whom
the law has done its worst, by whom these sad remains have been
removed for burial.'
The women spoke together, and Will retired a pace or two while they
conversed apart. He could hear them sob and moan, and saw that
they wrung their hands in fruitless agony. He could make out
little that they said, but between whiles he gathered enough to
assure him that his suggestion was not very wide of the mark, and
that they not only suspected by whom the body had been removed, but
also whither it had been conveyed. When they had been in
conversation a long time, they turned towards him once more. This
time the younger female spoke.
'You have offered us your help?'
'I have.'
'And given a pledge that you are still willing to redeem?'
'Yes. So far as I may, keeping all plots and conspiracies at arm's
length.'
'Follow us, friend.'
Will, whose self-possession was now quite restored, needed no
second bidding, but with his drawn sword in his hand, and his cloak
so muffled over his left arm as to serve for a kind of shield
without offering any impediment to its free action, suffered them
to lead the way. Through mud and mire, and wind and rain, they
walked in silence a full mile. At length they turned into a dark
lane, where, suddenly starting out from beneath some trees where he
had taken shelter, a man appeared, having in his charge three
saddled horses. One of these (his own apparently), in obedience to
a whisper from the women, he consigned to Will, who, seeing that
they mounted, mounted also. Then, without a word spoken, they rode
on together, leaving the attendant behind.
They made no halt nor slackened their pace until they arrived near
Putney. At a large wooden house which stood apart from any other
they alighted, and giving their horses to one who was already
waiting, passed in by a side door, and so up some narrow creaking
stairs into a small panelled chamber, where Will was left alone.
He had not been here very long, when the door was softly opened,
and there entered to him a cavalier whose face was concealed
beneath a black mask.
Will stood upon his guard, and scrutinised this figure from head to
foot. The form was that of a man pretty far advanced in life, but
of a firm and stately carriage. His dress was of a rich and costly
kind, but so soiled and disordered that it was scarcely to be
recognised for one of those gorgeous suits which the expensive
taste and fashion of the time prescribed for men of any rank or
station.
He was booted and spurred, and bore about him even as many tokens
of the state of the roads as Will himself. All this he noted,
while the eyes behind the mask regarded him with equal attention.
This survey over, the cavalier broke silence.
'Thou'rt young and bold, and wouldst be richer than thou art?'
'The two first I am,' returned Will. 'The last I have scarcely
thought of. But be it so. Say that I would be richer than I am;
what then?'
'The way lies before thee now,' replied the Mask.
'Show it me.'
'First let me inform thee, that thou wert brought here to-night
lest thou shouldst too soon have told thy tale to those who placed
thee on the watch.'
'I thought as much when I followed,' said Will. 'But I am no blab,
not I.'
'Good,' returned the Mask. 'Now listen. He who was to have
executed the enterprise of burying that body, which, as thou hast
suspected, was taken down to-night, has left us in our need.'
Will nodded, and thought within himself that if the Mask were to
attempt to play any tricks, the first eyelet-hole on the left-hand
side of his doublet, counting from the buttons up the front, would
be a very good place in which to pink him neatly.
'Thou art here, and the emergency is desperate. I propose his task
to thee. Convey the body (now coffined in this house), by means
that I shall show, to the Church of St. Dunstan in London to-morrow
night, and thy service shall be richly paid. Thou'rt about to ask
whose corpse it is. Seek not to know. I warn thee, seek not to
know. Felons hang in chains on every moor and heath. Believe, as
others do, that this was one, and ask no further. The murders of
state policy, its victims or avengers, had best remain unknown to
such as thee.'
'The mystery of this service,' said Will, 'bespeaks its danger.
What is the reward?'
'One hundred golden unities,' replied the cavalier. 'The danger to
one who cannot be recognised as the friend of a fallen cause is not
great, but there is some hazard to be run. Decide between that and
the reward.'
'What if I refuse?' said Will.
'Depart in peace, in God's name,' returned the Mask in a melancholy
tone, 'and keep our secret, remembering that those who brought thee
here were crushed and stricken women, and that those who bade thee
go free could have had thy life with one word, and no man the
wiser.'
Men were readier to undertake desperate adventures in those times
than they are now. In this case the temptation was great, and the
punishment, even in case of detection, was not likely to be very
severe, as Will came of a loyal stock, and his uncle was in good
repute, and a passable tale to account for his possession of the
body and his ignorance of the identity might be easily devised.
The cavalier explained that a coveted cart had been prepared for
the purpose; that the time of departure could be arranged so that
he should reach London Bridge at dusk, and proceed through the City
after the day had closed in; that people would be ready at his
journey's end to place the coffin in a vault without a minute's
delay; that officious inquirers in the streets would be easily
repelled by the tale that he was carrying for interment the corpse
of one who had died of the plague; and in short showed him every
reason why he should succeed, and none why he should fail. After a
time they were joined by another gentleman, masked like the first,
who added new arguments to those which had been already urged; the
wretched wife, too, added her tears and prayers to their calmer
representations; and in the end, Will, moved by compassion and
good-nature, by a love of the marvellous, by a mischievous
anticipation of the terrors of the Kingston people when he should
be missing next day, and finally, by the prospect of gain, took
upon himself the task, and devoted all his energies to its
successful execution.
The following night, when it was quite dark, the hollow echoes of
old London Bridge responded to the rumbling of the cart which
contained the ghastly load, the object of Will Marks' care.
Sufficiently disguised to attract no attention by his garb, Will
walked at the horse's head, as unconcerned as a man could be who
was sensible that he had now arrived at the most dangerous part of
his undertaking, but full of boldness and confidence.
It was now eight o'clock. After nine, none could walk the streets
without danger of their lives, and even at this hour, robberies and
murder were of no uncommon occurrence. The shops upon the bridge
were all closed; the low wooden arches thrown across the way were
like so many black pits, in every one of which ill-favoured fellows
lurked in knots of three or four; some standing upright against the
wall, lying in wait; others skulking in gateways, and thrusting out
their uncombed heads and scowling eyes: others crossing and
recrossing, and constantly jostling both horse and man to provoke a
quarrel; others stealing away and summoning their companions in a
low whistle. Once, even in that short passage, there was the noise
of scuffling and the clash of swords behind him, but Will, who knew
the City and its ways, kept straight on and scarcely turned his
head.
The streets being unpaved, the rain of the night before had
converted them into a perfect quagmire, which the splashing water-
spouts from the gables, and the filth and offal cast from the
different houses, swelled in no small degree. These odious matters
being left to putrefy in the close and heavy air, emitted an
insupportable stench, to which every court and passage poured forth
a contribution of its own. Many parts, even of the main streets,
with their projecting stories tottering overhead and nearly
shutting out the sky, were more like huge chimneys than open ways.
At the corners of some of these, great bonfires were burning to
prevent infection from the plague, of which it was rumoured that
some citizens had lately died; and few, who availing themselves of
the light thus afforded paused for a moment to look around them,
would have been disposed to doubt the existence of the disease, or
wonder at its dreadful visitations.
But it was not in such scenes as these, or even in the deep and
miry road, that Will Marks found the chief obstacles to his
progress. There were kites and ravens feeding in the streets (the
only scavengers the City kept), who, scenting what he carried,
followed the cart or fluttered on its top, and croaked their
knowledge of its burden and their ravenous appetite for prey.
There were distant fires, where the poor wood and plaster tenements
wasted fiercely, and whither crowds made their way, clamouring
eagerly for plunder, beating down all who came within their reach,
and yelling like devils let loose. There were single-handed men
flying from bands of ruffians, who pursued them with naked weapons,
and hunted them savagely; there were drunken, desperate robbers
issuing from their dens and staggering through the open streets
where no man dared molest them; there were vagabond servitors
returning from the Bear Garden, where had been good sport that day,
dragging after them their torn and bleeding dogs, or leaving them
to die and rot upon the road. Nothing was abroad but cruelty,
violence, and disorder.
Many were the interruptions which Will Marks encountered from these
stragglers, and many the narrow escapes he made. Now some stout
bully would take his seat upon the cart, insisting to be driven to
his own home, and now two or three men would come down upon him
together, and demand that on peril of his life he showed them what
he had inside. Then a party of the city watch, upon their rounds,
would draw across the road, and not satisfied with his tale,
question him closely, and revenge themselves by a little cuffing
and hustling for maltreatment sustained at other hands that night.
All these assailants had to be rebutted, some by fair words, some
by foul, and some by blows. But Will Marks was not the man to be
stopped or turned back now he had penetrated so far, and though he
got on slowly, still he made his way down Fleet-street and reached
the church at last.
As he had been forewarned, all was in readiness. Directly he
stopped, the coffin was removed by four men, who appeared so
suddenly that they seemed to have started from the earth. A fifth
mounted the cart, and scarcely allowing Will time to snatch from it
a little bundle containing such of his own clothes as he had thrown
off on assuming his disguise, drove briskly away. Will never saw
cart or man again.
He followed the body into the church, and it was well he lost no
time in doing so, for the door was immediately closed. There was
no light in the building save that which came from a couple of
torches borne by two men in cloaks, who stood upon the brink of a
vault. Each supported a female figure, and all observed a profound
silence.
By this dim and solemn glare, which made Will feel as though light
itself were dead, and its tomb the dreary arches that frowned
above, they placed the coffin in the vault, with uncovered heads,
and closed it up. One of the torch-bearers then turned to Will,
and stretched forth his hand, in which was a purse of gold.
Something told him directly that those were the same eyes which he
had seen beneath the mask.
'Take it,' said the cavalier in a low voice, 'and be happy. Though
these have been hasty obsequies, and no priest has blessed the
work, there will not be the less peace with thee thereafter, for
having laid his bones beside those of his little children. Keep
thy own counsel, for thy sake no less than ours, and God be with
thee!'
'The blessing of a widowed mother on thy head, good friend!' cried
the younger lady through her tears; 'the blessing of one who has
now no hope or rest but in this grave!'
Will stood with the purse in his hand, and involuntarily made a
gesture as though he would return it, for though a thoughtless
fellow, he was of a frank and generous nature. But the two
gentlemen, extinguishing their torches, cautioned him to be gone,
as their common safety would be endangered by a longer delay; and
at the same time their retreating footsteps sounded through the
church. He turned, therefore, towards the point at which he had
entered, and seeing by a faint gleam in the distance that the door
was again partially open, groped his way towards it and so passed
into the street.
Meantime the local authorities of Kingston had kept watch and ward
all the previous night, fancying every now and then that dismal
shrieks were borne towards them on the wind, and frequently winking
to each other, and drawing closer to the fire as they drank the
health of the lonely sentinel, upon whom a clerical gentleman
present was especially severe by reason of his levity and youthful
folly. Two or three of the gravest in company, who were of a
theological turn, propounded to him the question, whether such a
character was not but poorly armed for single combat with the
Devil, and whether he himself would not have been a stronger
opponent; but the clerical gentleman, sharply reproving them for
their presumption in discussing such questions, clearly showed that
a fitter champion than Will could scarcely have been selected, not
only for that being a child of Satan, he was the less likely to be
alarmed by the appearance of his own father, but because Satan
himself would be at his ease in such company, and would not scruple
to kick up his heels to an extent which it was quite certain he
would never venture before clerical eyes, under whose influence (as
was notorious) he became quite a tame and milk-and-water character.
But when next morning arrived, and with it no Will Marks, and when
a strong party repairing to the spot, as a strong party ventured to
do in broad day, found Will gone and the gibbet empty, matters grew
serious indeed. The day passing away and no news arriving, and the
night going on also without any intelligence, the thing grew more
tremendous still; in short, the neighbourhood worked itself up to
such a comfortable pitch of mystery and horror, that it is a great
question whether the general feeling was not one of excessive
disappointment, when, on the second morning, Will Marks returned.
However this may be, back Will came in a very cool and collected
state, and appearing not to trouble himself much about anybody
except old John Podgers, who, having been sent for, was sitting in
the Town Hall crying slowly, and dozing between whiles. Having
embraced his uncle and assured him of his safety, Will mounted on a
table and told his story to the crowd.
And surely they would have been the most unreasonable crowd that
ever assembled together, if they had been in the least respect
disappointed with the tale he told them; for besides describing the
Witches' Dance to the minutest motion of their legs, and performing
it in character on the table, with the assistance of a broomstick,
he related how they had carried off the body in a copper caldron,
and so bewitched him, that he lost his senses until he found
himself lying under a hedge at least ten miles off, whence he had
straightway returned as they then beheld. The story gained such
universal applause that it soon afterwards brought down express
from London the great witch-finder of the age, the Heaven-born
Hopkins, who having examined Will closely on several points,
pronounced it the most extraordinary and the best accredited witch-
story ever known, under which title it was published at the Three
Bibles on London Bridge, in small quarto, with a view of the
caldron from an original drawing, and a portrait of the clerical
gentleman as he sat by the fire.
On one point Will was particularly careful: and that was to
describe for the witches he had seen, three impossible old females,
whose likenesses never were or will be. Thus he saved the lives of
the suspected parties, and of all other old women who were dragged
before him to be identified.
This circumstance occasioned John Podgers much grief and sorrow,
until happening one day to cast his eyes upon his house-keeper, and
observing her to be plainly afflicted with rheumatism, he procured
her to be burnt as an undoubted witch. For this service to the
state he was immediately knighted, and became from that time Sir
John Podgers.
Will Marks never gained any clue to the mystery in which he had
been an actor, nor did any inscription in the church, which he
often visited afterwards, nor any of the limited inquiries that he
dared to make, yield him the least assistance. As he kept his own
secret, he was compelled to spend the gold discreetly and
sparingly. In the course of time he married the young lady of whom
I have already told you, whose maiden name is not recorded, with
whom he led a prosperous and happy life. Years and years after
this adventure, it was his wont to tell her upon a stormy night
that it was a great comfort to him to think those bones, to
whomsoever they might have once belonged, were not bleaching in the
troubled air, but were mouldering away with the dust of their own
kith and kindred in a quiet grave.
FURTHER PARTICULARS OF MASTER HUMPHREY'S VISITOR
Being very full of Mr. Pickwick's application, and highly pleased
with the compliment he had paid me, it will be readily supposed
that long before our next night of meeting I communicated it to my
three friends, who unanimously voted his admission into our body.
We all looked forward with some impatience to the occasion which
would enroll him among us, but I am greatly mistaken if Jack
Redburn and myself were not by many degrees the most impatient of
the party.
At length the night came, and a few minutes after ten Mr.
Pickwick's knock was heard at the street-door. He was shown into a
lower room, and I directly took my crooked stick and went to
accompany him up-stairs, in order that he might be presented with
all honour and formality.
'Mr. Pickwick,' said I, on entering the room, 'I am rejoiced to see
you, - rejoiced to believe that this is but the opening of a long
series of visits to this house, and but the beginning of a close
and lasting friendship.'
That gentleman made a suitable reply with a cordiality and
frankness peculiarly his own, and glanced with a smile towards two
persons behind the door, whom I had not at first observed, and whom
I immediately recognised as Mr. Samuel Weller and his father.
It was a warm evening, but the elder Mr. Weller was attired,
notwithstanding, in a most capacious greatcoat, and his chin
enveloped in a large speckled shawl, such as is usually worn by
stage coachmen on active service. He looked very rosy and very
stout, especially about the legs, which appeared to have been
compressed into his top-boots with some difficulty. His broad-
brimmed hat he held under his left arm, and with the forefinger of
his right hand he touched his forehead a great many times in
acknowledgment of my presence.
'I am very glad to see you in such good health, Mr. Weller,' said
I.
'Why, thankee, sir,' returned Mr. Weller, 'the axle an't broke yet.
We keeps up a steady pace, - not too sewere, but vith a moderate
degree o' friction, - and the consekens is that ve're still a
runnin' and comes in to the time reg'lar. - My son Samivel, sir, as
you may have read on in history,' added Mr. Weller, introducing his
first-born.
I received Sam very graciously, but before he could say a word his
father struck in again.
'Samivel Veller, sir,' said the old gentleman, 'has conferred upon
me the ancient title o' grandfather vich had long laid dormouse,
and wos s'posed to be nearly hex-tinct in our family. Sammy,
relate a anecdote o' vun o' them boys, - that 'ere little anecdote
about young Tony sayin' as he WOULD smoke a pipe unbeknown to his
mother.'
'Be quiet, can't you?' said Sam; 'I never see such a old magpie -
never!'
'That 'ere Tony is the blessedest boy,' said Mr. Weller, heedless
of this rebuff, 'the blessedest boy as ever I see in MY days! of
all the charmin'est infants as ever I heerd tell on, includin' them
as was kivered over by the robin-redbreasts arter they'd committed
sooicide with blackberries, there never wos any like that 'ere
little Tony. He's alvays a playin' vith a quart pot, that boy is!
To see him a settin' down on the doorstep pretending to drink out
of it, and fetching a long breath artervards, and smoking a bit of
firevood, and sayin', "Now I'm grandfather," - to see him a doin'
that at two year old is better than any play as wos ever wrote.
"Now I'm grandfather!" He wouldn't take a pint pot if you wos to
make him a present on it, but he gets his quart, and then he says,
"Now I'm grandfather!"'
Mr. Weller was so overpowered by this picture that he straightway
fell into a most alarming fit of coughing, which must certainly
have been attended with some fatal result but for the dexterity and
promptitude of Sam, who, taking a firm grasp of the shawl just
under his father's chin, shook him to and fro with great violence,
at the same time administering some smart blows between his
shoulders. By this curious mode of treatment Mr. Weller was
finally recovered, but with a very crimson face, and in a state of
great exhaustion.
'He'll do now, Sam,' said Mr. Pickwick, who had been in some alarm
himself.
'He'll do, sir!' cried Sam, looking reproachfully at his parent.
'Yes, he WILL do one o' these days, - he'll do for his-self and
then he'll wish he hadn't. Did anybody ever see sich a
inconsiderate old file, - laughing into conwulsions afore company,
and stamping on the floor as if he'd brought his own carpet vith
him and wos under a wager to punch the pattern out in a given time?
He'll begin again in a minute. There - he's a goin' off - I said
he would!'
In fact, Mr. Weller, whose mind was still running upon his
precocious grandson, was seen to shake his head from side to side,
while a laugh, working like an earthquake, below the surface,
produced various extraordinary appearances in his face, chest, and
shoulders, - the more alarming because unaccompanied by any noise
whatever. These emotions, however, gradually subsided, and after
three or four short relapses he wiped his eyes with the cuff of his
coat, and looked about him with tolerable composure.
'Afore the governor vith-draws,' said Mr. Weller, 'there is a pint,
respecting vich Sammy has a qvestion to ask. Vile that qvestion is
a perwadin' this here conwersation, p'raps the genl'men vill permit
me to re-tire.'
'Wot are you goin' away for?' demanded Sam, seizing his father by
the coat-tail.
'I never see such a undootiful boy as you, Samivel,' returned Mr.
Weller. 'Didn't you make a solemn promise, amountin' almost to a
speeches o' wow, that you'd put that 'ere qvestion on my account?'
'Well, I'm agreeable to do it,' said Sam, 'but not if you go
cuttin' away like that, as the bull turned round and mildly
observed to the drover ven they wos a goadin' him into the
butcher's door. The fact is, sir,' said Sam, addressing me, 'that
he wants to know somethin' respectin' that 'ere lady as is
housekeeper here.'
'Ay. What is that?'
'Vy, sir,' said Sam, grinning still more, 'he wishes to know vether
she - '
'In short,' interposed old Mr. Weller decisively, a perspiration
breaking out upon his forehead, 'vether that 'ere old creetur is or
is not a widder.'
Mr. Pickwick laughed heartily, and so did I, as I replied
decisively, that 'my housekeeper was a spinster.'
'There!' cried Sam, 'now you're satisfied. You hear she's a
spinster.'
'A wot?' said his father, with deep scorn.
'A spinster,' replied Sam.
Mr. Weller looked very hard at his son for a minute or two, and
then said,
'Never mind vether she makes jokes or not, that's no matter. Wot I
say is, is that 'ere female a widder, or is she not?'
'Wot do you mean by her making jokes?' demanded Sam, quite aghast
at the obscurity of his parent's speech.
'Never you mind, Samivel,' returned Mr. Weller gravely; 'puns may
be wery good things or they may be wery bad 'uns, and a female may
be none the better or she may be none the vurse for making of 'em;
that's got nothing to do vith widders.'
'Wy now,' said Sam, looking round, 'would anybody believe as a man
at his time o' life could be running his head agin spinsters and
punsters being the same thing?'
'There an't a straw's difference between 'em,' said Mr. Weller.
'Your father didn't drive a coach for so many years, not to be ekal
to his own langvidge as far as THAT goes, Sammy.'
Avoiding the question of etymology, upon which the old gentleman's
mind was quite made up, he was several times assured that the
housekeeper had never been married. He expressed great
satisfaction on hearing this, and apologised for the question,
remarking that he had been greatly terrified by a widow not long
before, and that his natural timidity was increased in consequence.
'It wos on the rail,' said Mr. Weller, with strong emphasis; 'I wos
a goin' down to Birmingham by the rail, and I wos locked up in a
close carriage vith a living widder. Alone we wos; the widder and
me wos alone; and I believe it wos only because we WOS alone and
there wos no clergyman in the conwayance, that that 'ere widder
didn't marry me afore ve reached the half-way station. Ven I think
how she began a screaming as we wos a goin' under them tunnels in
the dark, - how she kept on a faintin' and ketchin' hold o' me, -
and how I tried to bust open the door as was tight-locked and
perwented all escape - Ah! It was a awful thing, most awful!'
Mr. Weller was so very much overcome by this retrospect that he was
unable, until he had wiped his brow several times, to return any
reply to the question whether he approved of railway communication,
notwithstanding that it would appear from the answer which he
ultimately gave, that he entertained strong opinions on the
subject.
'I con-sider,' said Mr. Weller, 'that the rail is unconstitootional
and an inwaser o' priwileges, and I should wery much like to know
what that 'ere old Carter as once stood up for our liberties and
wun 'em too, - I should like to know wot he vould say, if he wos
alive now, to Englishmen being locked up vith widders, or with
anybody again their wills. Wot a old Carter would have said, a old
Coachman may say, and I as-sert that in that pint o' view alone,
the rail is an inwaser. As to the comfort, vere's the comfort o'
sittin' in a harm-cheer lookin' at brick walls or heaps o' mud,
never comin' to a public-house, never seein' a glass o' ale, never
goin' through a pike, never meetin' a change o' no kind (horses or
othervise), but alvays comin' to a place, ven you come to one at
all, the wery picter o' the last, vith the same p'leesemen standing
about, the same blessed old bell a ringin', the same unfort'nate
people standing behind the bars, a waitin' to be let in; and
everythin' the same except the name, vich is wrote up in the same
sized letters as the last name, and vith the same colours. As to
the Honour and dignity o' travellin', vere can that be vithout a
coachman; and wot's the rail to sich coachmen and guards as is
sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and a insult? As to
the pace, wot sort o' pace do you think I, Tony Veller, could have
kept a coach goin' at, for five hundred thousand pound a mile, paid
in adwance afore the coach was on the road? And as to the ingein,
- a nasty, wheezin', creakin', gaspin', puffin', bustin' monster,
alvays out o' breath, vith a shiny green-and-gold back, like a
unpleasant beetle in that 'ere gas magnifier, - as to the ingein as
is alvays a pourin' out red-hot coals at night, and black smoke in
the day, the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is, ven
there's somethin' in the vay, and it sets up that 'ere frightful
scream vich seems to say, "Now here's two hundred and forty
passengers in the wery greatest extremity o' danger, and here's
their two hundred and forty screams in vun!"'
By this time I began to fear that my friends would be rendered
impatient by my protracted absence. I therefore begged Mr.
Pickwick to accompany me up-stairs, and left the two Mr. Wellers in
the care of the housekeeper, laying strict injunctions upon her to
treat them with all possible hospitality.
