Martin Chuzzlewit
at me, on purpose to prevent my throwing him a shilling! I had it ready
for him all the time, and he never once looked towards me; whereas that
man naturally, (for I know him very well,) would have done nothing but
grin and stare. Upon my word, the kindness of people perfectly melts
me.’
Here he caught the coachman’s eye. The coachman winked. ‘Remarkable fine
woman for her time of life,’ said the coachman.
‘I quite agree with you,’ returned Tom. ‘So she is.’
‘Finer than many a young ‘un, I mean to say,’ observed the coachman.
‘Eh?’
‘Than many a young one,’ Tom assented.
‘I don’t care for ‘em myself when they’re too young,’ remarked the
coachman.
This was a matter of taste, which Tom did not feel himself called upon
to discuss.
‘You’ll seldom find ‘em possessing correct opinions about refreshment,
for instance, when they’re too young, you know,’ said the coachman; ‘a
woman must have arrived at maturity, before her mind’s equal to coming
provided with a basket like that.’
‘Perhaps you would like to know what it contains?’ said Tom, smiling.
As the coachman only laughed, and as Tom was curious himself, he
unpacked it, and put the articles, one by one, upon the footboard. A
cold roast fowl, a packet of ham in slices, a crusty loaf, a piece of
cheese, a paper of biscuits, half a dozen apples, a knife, some butter,
a screw of salt, and a bottle of old sherry. There was a letter besides,
which Tom put in his pocket.
The coachman was so earnest in his approval of Mrs Lupin’s provident
habits, and congratulated Torn so warmly on his good fortune, that Tom
felt it necessary, for the lady’s sake, to explain that the basket was
a strictly Platonic basket, and had merely been presented to him in the
way of friendship. When he had made the statement with perfect gravity;
for he felt it incumbent on him to disabuse the mind of this lax rover
of any incorrect impressions on the subject; he signified that he would
be happy to share the gifts with him, and proposed that they should
attack the basket in a spirit of good fellowship at any time in the
course of the night which the coachman’s experience and knowledge of the
road might suggest, as being best adapted to the purpose. From this time
they chatted so pleasantly together, that although Tom knew infinitely
more of unicorns than horses, the coachman informed his friend the guard
at the end of the next stage, ‘that rum as the box-seat looked, he was
as good a one to go, in pint of conversation, as ever he’d wish to sit
by.’
Yoho, among the gathering shades; making of no account the deep
reflections of the trees, but scampering on through light and darkness,
all the same, as if the light of London fifty miles away, were quite
enough to travel by, and some to spare. Yoho, beside the village green,
where cricket-players linger yet, and every little indentation made in
the fresh grass by bat or wicket, ball or player’s foot, sheds out its
perfume on the night. Away with four fresh horses from the Bald-faced
Stag, where topers congregate about the door admiring; and the last
team with traces hanging loose, go roaming off towards the pond, until
observed and shouted after by a dozen throats, while volunteering boys
pursue them. Now, with a clattering of hoofs and striking out of fiery
sparks, across the old stone bridge, and down again into the shadowy
road, and through the open gate, and far away, away, into the wold.
Yoho!
Yoho, behind there, stop that bugle for a moment! Come creeping over to
the front, along the coach-roof, guard, and make one at this basket! Not
that we slacken in our pace the while, not we; we rather put the bits
of blood upon their metal, for the greater glory of the snack. Ah! It
is long since this bottle of old wine was brought into contact with the
mellow breath of night, you may depend, and rare good stuff it is to wet
a bugler’s whistle with. Only try it. Don’t be afraid of turning up your
finger, Bill, another pull! Now, take your breath, and try the bugle,
Bill. There’s music! There’s a tone!’ over the hills and far away,’
indeed. Yoho! The skittish mare is all alive to-night. Yoho! Yoho!
See the bright moon! High up before we know it; making the earth reflect
the objects on its breast like water. Hedges, trees, low cottages,
church steeples, blighted stumps and flourishing young slips, have
all grown vain upon the sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair
images till morning. The poplars yonder rustle that their quivering
leaves may see themselves upon the ground. Not so the oak; trembling
does not become HIM; and he watches himself in his stout old burly
steadfastness, without the motion of a twig. The moss-grown gate,
ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and decayed swings to and
fro before its glass, like some fantastic dowager; while our own ghostly
likeness travels on, Yoho! Yoho! through ditch and brake, upon the
ploughed land and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall,
as if it were a phantom-Hunter.
Clouds too! And a mist upon the Hollow! Not a dull fog that hides it,
but a light airy gauze-like mist, which in our eyes of modest admiration
gives a new charm to the beauties it is spread before; as real gauze has
done ere now, and would again, so please you, though we were the Pope.
Yoho! Why now we travel like the Moon herself. Hiding this minute in a
grove of trees; next minute in a patch of vapour; emerging now upon our
broad clear course; withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey
is a counter-part of hers. Yoho! A match against the Moon!
The beauty of the night is hardly felt, when Day comes rushing up. Yoho!
Two stages, and the country roads are almost changed to a continuous
street. Yoho, past market-gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents,
terraces, and squares; past waggons, coaches, carts; past early workmen,
late stragglers, drunken men, and sober carriers of loads; past brick
and mortar in its every shape; and in among the rattling pavements,
where a jaunty-seat upon a coach is not so easy to preserve! Yoho,
down countless turnings, and through countless mazy ways, until an old
Innyard is gained, and Tom Pinch, getting down quite stunned and giddy,
is in London!
‘Five minutes before the time, too!’ said the driver, as he received his
fee of Tom.
‘Upon my word,’ said Tom, ‘I should not have minded very much, if we had
been five hours after it; for at this early hour I don’t know where to
go, or what to do with myself.’
‘Don’t they expect you then?’ inquired the driver.
‘Who?’ said Tom.
‘Why them,’ returned the driver.
His mind was so clearly running on the assumption of Tom’s having come
to town to see an extensive circle of anxious relations and friends,
that it would have been pretty hard work to undeceive him. Tom did not
try. He cheerfully evaded the subject, and going into the Inn, fell fast
asleep before a fire in one of the public rooms opening from the yard.
When he awoke, the people in the house were all astir, so he washed and
dressed himself; to his great refreshment after the journey; and, it
being by that time eight o’clock, went forth at once to see his old
friend John.
John Westlock lived in Furnival’s Inn, High Holborn, which was within a
quarter of an hour’s walk of Tom’s starting-point, but seemed a long way
off, by reason of his going two or three miles out of the straight road
to make a short cut. When at last he arrived outside John’s door, two
stories up, he stood faltering with his hand upon the knocker, and
trembled from head to foot. For he was rendered very nervous by the
thought of having to relate what had fallen out between himself and
Pecksniff; and he had a misgiving that John would exult fearfully in the
disclosure.
‘But it must be made,’ thought Tom, ‘sooner or later; and I had better
get it over.’
Rat tat.
‘I am afraid that’s not a London knock,’ thought Tom. ‘It didn’t sound
bold. Perhaps that’s the reason why nobody answers the door.’
It is quite certain that nobody came, and that Tom stood looking at the
knocker; wondering whereabouts in the neighbourhood a certain gentleman
resided, who was roaring out to somebody ‘Come in!’ with all his might.
‘Bless my soul!’ thought Tom at last. ‘Perhaps he lives here, and is
calling to me. I never thought of that. Can I open the door from the
outside, I wonder. Yes, to be sure I can.’
To be sure he could, by turning the handle; and to be sure when he did
turn it the same voice came rushing out, crying ‘Why don’t you come
in? Come in, do you hear? What are you standing there for?’--quite
violently.
Tom stepped from the little passage into the room from which these
sounds proceeded, and had barely caught a glimpse of a gentleman in a
dressing-gown and slippers (with his boots beside him ready to put on),
sitting at his breakfast with a newspaper in his hand, when the said
gentleman, at the imminent hazard of oversetting his tea-table, made a
plunge at Tom, and hugged him.
‘Why, Tom, my boy!’ cried the gentleman. ‘Tom!’
‘How glad I am to see you, Mr Westlock!’ said Tom Pinch, shaking both
his hands, and trembling more than ever. ‘How kind you are!’
‘Mr Westlock!’ repeated John, ‘what do you mean by that, Pinch? You have
not forgotten my Christian name, I suppose?’
‘No, John, no. I have not forgotten,’ said Thomas Pinch. ‘Good gracious
me, how kind you are!’
‘I never saw such a fellow in all my life!’ cried John. ‘What do you
mean by saying THAT over and over again? What did you expect me to be, I
wonder! Here, sit down, Tom, and be a reasonable creature. How are you,
my boy? I am delighted to see you!’
‘And I am delighted to see YOU,’ said Tom.
‘It’s mutual, of course,’ returned John. ‘It always was, I hope. If
I had known you had been coming, Tom, I would have had something for
breakfast. I would rather have such a surprise than the best breakfast
in the world, myself; but yours is another case, and I have no doubt you
are as hungry as a hunter. You must make out as well as you can, Tom,
and we’ll recompense ourselves at dinner-time. You take sugar, I know;
I recollect the sugar at Pecksniff’s. Ha, ha, ha! How IS Pecksniff? When
did you come to town? DO begin at something or other, Tom. There are
only scraps here, but they are not at all bad. Boar’s Head potted. Try
it, Tom. Make a beginning whatever you do. What an old Blade you are! I
am delighted to see you.’
While he delivered himself of these words in a state of great commotion,
John was constantly running backwards and forwards to and from the
closet, bringing out all sorts of things in pots, scooping extraordinary
quantities of tea out of the caddy, dropping French rolls into his
boots, pouring hot water over the butter, and making a variety of
similar mistakes without disconcerting himself in the least.
‘There!’ said John, sitting down for the fiftieth time, and instantly
starting up again to make some other addition to the breakfast. ‘Now we
are as well off as we are likely to be till dinner. And now let us have
the news, Tom. Imprimis, how’s Pecksniff?’
‘I don’t know how he is,’ was Tom’s grave answer.
John Westlock put the teapot down, and looked at him, in astonishment.
‘I don’t know how he is,’ said Thomas Pinch; ‘and, saving that I wish
him no ill, I don’t care. I have left him, John. I have left him for
ever.’
‘Voluntarily?’
‘Why, no, for he dismissed me. But I had first found out that I was
mistaken in him; and I could not have remained with him under any
circumstances. I grieve to say that you were right in your estimate of
his character. It may be a ridiculous weakness, John, but it has been
very painful and bitter to me to find this out, I do assure you.’
Tom had no need to direct that appealing look towards his friend, in