Dombey and Son
formed by the neighbouring houses, and paved with echoing stones. It
was a great dim, shabby pile, with high old oaken pews, among which
about a score of people lost themselves every Sunday; while the
clergyman’s voice drowsily resounded through the emptiness, and the
organ rumbled and rolled as if the church had got the colic, for want
of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out. But so far was this
city church from languishing for the company of other churches, that
spires were clustered round it, as the masts of shipping cluster on the
river. It would have been hard to count them from its steeple-top, they
were so many. In almost every yard and blind-place near, there was a
church. The confusion of bells when Susan and Mr Toots betook
themselves towards it on the Sunday morning, was deafening. There were
twenty churches close together, clamouring for people to come in.
The two stray sheep in question were penned by a beadle in a commodious
pew, and, being early, sat for some time counting the congregation,
listening to the disappointed bell high up in the tower, or looking at
a shabby little old man in the porch behind the screen, who was ringing
the same, like the Bull in Cock Robin, with his foot in a stirrup. Mr
Toots, after a lengthened survey of the large books on the
reading-desk, whispered Miss Nipper that he wondered where the banns
were kept, but that young lady merely shook her head and frowned;
repelling for the time all approaches of a temporal nature.
Mr Toots, however, appearing unable to keep his thoughts from the
banns, was evidently looking out for them during the whole preliminary
portion of the service. As the time for reading them approached, the
poor young gentleman manifested great anxiety and trepidation, which
was not diminished by the unexpected apparition of the Captain in the
front row of the gallery. When the clerk handed up a list to the
clergyman, Mr Toots, being then seated, held on by the seat of the pew;
but when the names of Walter Gay and Florence Dombey were read aloud as
being in the third and last stage of that association, he was so
entirley conquered by his feelings as to rush from the church without
his hat, followed by the beadle and pew-opener, and two gentlemen of
the medical profession, who happened to be present; of whom the
first-named presently returned for that article, informing Miss Nipper
in a whisper that she was not to make herself uneasy about the
gentleman, as the gentleman said his indisposition was of no
consequence.
Miss Nipper, feeling that the eyes of that integral portion of Europe
which lost itself weekly among the high-backed pews, were upon her,
would have been sufficient embarrassed by this incident, though it had
terminated here; the more so, as the Captain in the front row of the
gallery, was in a state of unmitigated consciousness which could hardly
fail to express to the congregation that he had some mysterious
connection with it. But the extreme restlessness of Mr Toots painfully
increased and protracted the delicacy of her situation. That young
gentleman, incapable, in his state of mind, of remaining alone in the
churchyard, a prey to solitary meditation, and also desirous, no doubt,
of testifying his respect for the offices he had in some measure
interrupted, suddenly returned—not coming back to the pew, but
stationing himself on a free seat in the aisle, between two elderly
females who were in the habit of receiving their portion of a weekly
dole of bread then set forth on a shelf in the porch. In this
conjunction Mr Toots remained, greatly disturbing the congregation, who
felt it impossible to avoid looking at him, until his feelings overcame
him again, when he departed silently and suddenly. Not venturing to
trust himself in the church any more, and yet wishing to have some
social participation in what was going on there, Mr Toots was, after
this, seen from time to time, looking in, with a lorn aspect, at one or
other of the windows; and as there were several windows accessible to
him from without, and as his restlessness was very great, it not only
became difficult to conceive at which window he would appear next, but
likewise became necessary, as it were, for the whole congregation to
speculate upon the chances of the different windows, during the
comparative leisure afforded them by the sermon. Mr Toots’s movements
in the churchyard were so eccentric, that he seemed generally to defeat
all calculation, and to appear, like the conjuror’s figure, where he
was least expected; and the effect of these mysterious presentations
was much increased by its being difficult to him to see in, and easy to
everybody else to see out: which occasioned his remaining, every time,
longer than might have been expected, with his face close to the glass,
until he all at once became aware that all eyes were upon him, and
vanished.
These proceedings on the part of Mr Toots, and the strong individual
consciousness of them that was exhibited by the Captain, rendered Miss
Nipper’s position so responsible a one, that she was mightily relieved
by the conclusion of the service; and was hardly so affable to Mr Toots
as usual, when he informed her and the Captain, on the way back, that
now he was sure he had no hope, you know, he felt more comfortable—at
least not exactly more comfortable, but more comfortably and completely
miserable.
Swiftly now, indeed, the time flew by until it was the evening before
the day appointed for the marriage. They were all assembled in the
upper room at the Midshipman’s, and had no fear of interruption; for
there were no lodgers in the house now, and the Midshipman had it all
to himself. They were grave and quiet in the prospect of to-morrow, but
moderately cheerful too. Florence, with Walter close beside her, was
finishing a little piece of work intended as a parting gift to the
Captain. The Captain was playing cribbage with Mr Toots. Mr Toots was
taking counsel as to his hand, of Susan Nipper. Miss Nipper was giving
it, with all due secrecy and circumspection. Diogenes was listening,
and occasionally breaking out into a gruff half-smothered fragment of a
bark, of which he afterwards seemed half-ashamed, as if he doubted
having any reason for it.
“Steady, steady!” said the Captain to Diogenes, “what’s amiss with you?
You don’t seem easy in your mind tonight, my boy!”
Diogenes wagged his tail, but pricked up his ears immediately
afterwards, and gave utterance to another fragment of a bark; for which
he apologised to the Captain, by again wagging his tail.
“It’s my opinion, Di,” said the Captain, looking thoughtfully at his
cards, and stroking his chin with his hook, “as you have your doubts of
Mrs Richards; but if you’re the animal I take you to be, you’ll think
better o’ that; for her looks is her commission. Now, Brother:” to Mr
Toots: “if so be as you’re ready, heave ahead.”
The Captain spoke with all composure and attention to the game, but
suddenly his cards dropped out of his hand, his mouth and eyes opened
wide, his legs drew themselves up and stuck out in front of his chair,
and he sat staring at the door with blank amazement. Looking round upon
the company, and seeing that none of them observed him or the cause of
his astonishment, the Captain recovered himself with a great gasp,
struck the table a tremendous blow, cried in a stentorian roar, “Sol
Gills ahoy!” and tumbled into the arms of a weather-beaten pea-coat
that had come with Polly into the room.
In another moment, Walter was in the arms of the weather-beaten
pea-coat. In another moment, Florence was in the arms of the
weather-beaten pea-coat. In another moment, Captain Cuttle had embraced
Mrs Richards and Miss Nipper, and was violently shaking hands with Mr
Toots, exclaiming, as he waved his hook above his head, “Hooroar, my
lad, hooroar!” To which Mr Toots, wholly at a loss to account for these
proceedings, replied with great politeness, “Certainly, Captain Gills,
whatever you think proper!”
The weather-beaten pea-coat, and a no less weather-beaten cap and
comforter belonging to it, turned from the Captain and from Florence
back to Walter, and sounds came from the weather-beaten pea-coat, cap,
and comforter, as of an old man sobbing underneath them; while the
shaggy sleeves clasped Walter tight. During this pause, there was an
universal silence, and the Captain polished his nose with great
diligence. But when the pea-coat, cap, and comforter lifted themselves
up again, Florence gently moved towards them; and she and Walter taking
them off, disclosed the old Instrument-maker, a little thinner and more
careworn than of old, in his old Welsh wig and his old coffee-coloured
coat and basket buttons, with his old infallible chronometer ticking
away in his pocket.
“Chock full o’ science,” said the radiant Captain, “as ever he was! Sol
Gills, Sol Gills, what have you been up to, for this many a long day,
my ould boy?”
“I’m half blind, Ned,” said the old man, “and almost deaf and dumb with
joy.”
“His wery woice,” said the Captain, looking round with an exultation to
which even his face could hardly render justice—“his wery woice as
chock full o’ science as ever it was! Sol Gills, lay to, my lad, upon
your own wines and fig-trees like a taut ould patriark as you are, and
overhaul them there adwentures o’ yourn, in your own formilior woice.
“Tis the woice,” said the Captain, impressively, and announcing a
quotation with his hook, “of the sluggard, I heerd him complain, you
have woke me too soon, I must slumber again. Scatter his ene-mies, and
make ’em fall!”
The Captain sat down with the air of a man who had happily expressed
the feeling of everybody present, and immediately rose again to present
Mr Toots, who was much disconcerted by the arrival of anybody,
appearing to prefer a claim to the name of Gills.
“Although,” stammered Mr Toots, “I had not the pleasure of your
acquaintance, Sir, before you were—you were—”
“Lost to sight, to memory dear,” suggested the Captain, in a low voice.
“Exactly so, Captain Gills!” assented Mr Toots. “Although I had not the
pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr—Mr Sols,” said Toots, hitting on that
name in the inspiration of a bright idea, “before that happened, I have
the greatest pleasure, I assure you, in—you know, in knowing you. I
hope,” said Mr Toots, “that you’re as well as can be expected.”
With these courteous words, Mr Toots sat down blushing and chuckling.
The old Instrument-maker, seated in a corner between Walter and
Florence, and nodding at Polly, who was looking on, all smiles and
delight, answered the Captain thus:
“Ned Cuttle, my dear boy, although I have heard something of the
changes of events here, from my pleasant friend there—what a pleasant
face she has to be sure, to welcome a wanderer home!” said the old man,
breaking off, and rubbing his hands in his old dreamy way.
“Hear him!” cried the Captain gravely. “’Tis woman as seduces all
mankind. For which,” aside to Mr Toots, “you’ll overhaul your Adam and
Eve, brother.”
“I shall make a point of doing so, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots.
“Although I have heard something of the changes of events, from her,”
resumed the Instrument-maker, taking his old spectacles from his
pocket, and putting them on his forehead in his old manner, “they are
so great and unexpected, and I am so overpowered by the sight of my
dear boy, and by the,”—glancing at the downcast eyes of Florence, and
not attempting to finish the sentence—“that I—I can’t say much
tonight. But my dear Ned Cuttle, why didn’t you write?”
The astonishment depicted in the Captain’s features positively
frightened Mr Toots, whose eyes were quite fixed by it, so that he
could not withdraw them from his face.