The Pickwick Papers
profound mystery, disappeared in quest of the three strangers, with whom
he presently returned; and having coughed thrice, and nodded as many
times, as an assurance to Mr. Pickwick that he would not forget to pay,
he shook hands all round, in an engaging manner, and at length took
himself off.
‘My dear friends,’ said Mr. Pickwick, shaking hands alternately with Mr.
Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, who were the three visitors in
question, ‘I am delighted to see you.’
The triumvirate were much affected. Mr. Tupman shook his head
deploringly, Mr. Snodgrass drew forth his handkerchief, with undisguised
emotion; and Mr. Winkle retired to the window, and sniffed aloud.
‘Mornin’, gen’l’m’n,’ said Sam, entering at the moment with the shoes
and gaiters. ‘Avay vith melincholly, as the little boy said ven his
schoolmissus died. Velcome to the college, gen’l’m’n.’
‘This foolish fellow,’ said Mr. Pickwick, tapping Sam on the head as he
knelt down to button up his master’s gaiters--‘this foolish fellow has
got himself arrested, in order to be near me.’
‘What!’ exclaimed the three friends.
‘Yes, gen’l’m’n,’ said Sam, ‘I’m a--stand steady, sir, if you please--
I’m a prisoner, gen’l’m’n. Con-fined, as the lady said.’
‘A prisoner!’ exclaimed Mr. Winkle, with unaccountable vehemence.
‘Hollo, sir!’ responded Sam, looking up. ‘Wot’s the matter, Sir?’
‘I had hoped, Sam, that--Nothing, nothing,’ said Mr. Winkle
precipitately.
There was something so very abrupt and unsettled in Mr. Winkle’s manner,
that Mr. Pickwick involuntarily looked at his two friends for an
explanation.
‘We don’t know,’ said Mr. Tupman, answering this mute appeal aloud. ‘He
has been much excited for two days past, and his whole demeanour very
unlike what it usually is. We feared there must be something the matter,
but he resolutely denies it.’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Winkle, colouring beneath Mr. Pickwick’s gaze; ‘there
is really nothing. I assure you there is nothing, my dear sir. It will
be necessary for me to leave town, for a short time, on private
business, and I had hoped to have prevailed upon you to allow Sam to
accompany me.’
Mr. Pickwick looked more astonished than before.
‘I think,’ faltered Mr. Winkle, ‘that Sam would have had no objection to
do so; but, of course, his being a prisoner here, renders it impossible.
So I must go alone.’
As Mr. Winkle said these words, Mr. Pickwick felt, with some
astonishment, that Sam’s fingers were trembling at the gaiters, as if he
were rather surprised or startled. Sam looked up at Mr. Winkle, too,
when he had finished speaking; and though the glance they exchanged was
instantaneous, they seemed to understand each other.
‘Do you know anything of this, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick sharply.
‘No, I don’t, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, beginning to button with
extraordinary assiduity.
‘Are you sure, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Wy, sir,’ responded Mr. Weller; ‘I’m sure so far, that I’ve never heerd
anythin’ on the subject afore this moment. If I makes any guess about
it,’ added Sam, looking at Mr. Winkle, ‘I haven’t got any right to say
what it is, ‘fear it should be a wrong ‘un.’
‘I have no right to make any further inquiry into the private affairs of
a friend, however intimate a friend,’ said Mr. Pickwick, after a short
silence; ‘at present let me merely say, that I do not understand this at
all. There. We have had quite enough of the subject.’
Thus expressing himself, Mr. Pickwick led the conversation to different
topics, and Mr. Winkle gradually appeared more at ease, though still
very far from being completely so. They had all so much to converse
about, that the morning very quickly passed away; and when, at three
o’clock, Mr. Weller produced upon the little dining-table, a roast leg
of mutton and an enormous meat-pie, with sundry dishes of vegetables,
and pots of porter, which stood upon the chairs or the sofa bedstead, or
where they could, everybody felt disposed to do justice to the meal,
notwithstanding that the meat had been purchased, and dressed, and the
pie made, and baked, at the prison cookery hard by.
To these succeeded a bottle or two of very good wine, for which a
messenger was despatched by Mr. Pickwick to the Horn Coffee-house, in
Doctors’ Commons. The bottle or two, indeed, might be more properly
described as a bottle or six, for by the time it was drunk, and tea
over, the bell began to ring for strangers to withdraw.
But, if Mr. Winkle’s behaviour had been unaccountable in the morning, it
became perfectly unearthly and solemn when, under the influence of his
feelings, and his share of the bottle or six, he prepared to take leave
of his friend. He lingered behind, until Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass
had disappeared, and then fervently clenched Mr. Pickwick’s hand, with
an expression of face in which deep and mighty resolve was fearfully
blended with the very concentrated essence of gloom.
‘Good-night, my dear Sir!’ said Mr. Winkle between his set teeth.
‘Bless you, my dear fellow!’ replied the warm-hearted Mr. Pickwick, as
he returned the pressure of his young friend’s hand.
‘Now then!’ cried Mr. Tupman from the gallery.
‘Yes, yes, directly,’ replied Mr. Winkle. ‘Good-night!’
‘Good-night,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
There was another good-night, and another, and half a dozen more after
that, and still Mr. Winkle had fast hold of his friend’s hand, and was
looking into his face with the same strange expression.
‘Is anything the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick at last, when his arm was
quite sore with shaking.
‘Nothing,’ said Mr. Winkle.
‘Well then, good-night,’ said Mr. Pickwick, attempting to disengage his
hand.
‘My friend, my benefactor, my honoured companion,’ murmured Mr. Winkle,
catching at his wrist. ‘Do not judge me harshly; do not, when you hear
that, driven to extremity by hopeless obstacles, I--’
‘Now then,’ said Mr. Tupman, reappearing at the door. ‘Are you coming,
or are we to be locked in?’
‘Yes, yes, I am ready,’ replied Mr. Winkle. And with a violent effort he
tore himself away.
As Mr. Pickwick was gazing down the passage after them in silent
astonishment, Sam Weller appeared at the stair-head, and whispered for
one moment in Mr. Winkle’s ear.
‘Oh, certainly, depend upon me,’ said that gentleman aloud.
‘Thank’ee, sir. You won’t forget, sir?’ said Sam.
‘Of course not,’ replied Mr. Winkle.
‘Wish you luck, Sir,’ said Sam, touching his hat. ‘I should very much
liked to ha’ joined you, Sir; but the gov’nor, o’ course, is paramount.’
‘It is very much to your credit that you remain here,’ said Mr. Winkle.
With these words they disappeared down the stairs.
‘Very extraordinary,’ said Mr. Pickwick, going back into his room, and
seating himself at the table in a musing attitude. ‘What can that young
man be going to do?’
He had sat ruminating about the matter for some time, when the voice of
Roker, the turnkey, demanded whether he might come in.
‘By all means,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘I’ve brought you a softer pillow, Sir,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘instead of the
temporary one you had last night.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Will you take a glass of wine?’
‘You’re wery good, Sir,’ replied Mr. Roker, accepting the proffered
glass. ‘Yours, sir.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘I’m sorry to say that your landlord’s wery bad to-night, Sir,’ said
Roker, setting down the glass, and inspecting the lining of his hat
preparatory to putting it on again.
‘What! The Chancery prisoner!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
‘He won’t be a Chancery prisoner wery long, Sir,’ replied Roker, turning
his hat round, so as to get the maker’s name right side upwards, as he
looked into it.
‘You make my blood run cold,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s been consumptive for a long time past,’ said Mr. Roker, ‘and he’s
taken wery bad in the breath to-night. The doctor said, six months ago,
that nothing but change of air could save him.’
‘Great Heaven!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick; ‘has this man been slowly
murdered by the law for six months?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ replied Roker, weighing the hat by the brim
in both hands. ‘I suppose he’d have been took the same, wherever he was.
He went into the infirmary, this morning; the doctor says his strength
is to be kept up as much as possible; and the warden’s sent him wine and
broth and that, from his own house. It’s not the warden’s fault, you
know, sir.’
‘Of course not,’ replied Mr. Pickwick hastily.
‘I’m afraid, however,’ said Roker, shaking his head, ‘that it’s all up
with him. I offered Neddy two six-penn’orths to one upon it just now,
but he wouldn’t take it, and quite right. Thank’ee, Sir. Good-night,
sir.’
‘Stay,’ said Mr. Pickwick earnestly. ‘Where is this infirmary?’
‘Just over where you slept, sir,’ replied Roker. ‘I’ll show you, if you
like to come.’ Mr. Pickwick snatched up his hat without speaking, and
followed at once.
The turnkey led the way in silence; and gently raising the latch of the
room door, motioned Mr. Pickwick to enter. It was a large, bare,
desolate room, with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron, on one of
which lay stretched the shadow of a man--wan, pale, and ghastly. His
breathing was hard and thick, and he moaned painfully as it came and
went. At the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler’s apron, who, by
the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the Bible aloud.
It was the fortunate legatee.
The sick man laid his hand upon his attendant’s arm, and motioned him to
stop. He closed the book, and laid it on the bed.
‘Open the window,’ said the sick man.
He did so. The noise of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the
cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude
instinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated
into the room. Above the hoarse loud hum, arose, from time to time, a
boisterous laugh; or a scrap of some jingling song, shouted forth, by
one of the giddy crowd, would strike upon the ear, for an instant, and
then be lost amidst the roar of voices and the tramp of footsteps; the
breaking of the billows of the restless sea of life, that rolled heavily
on, without. These are melancholy sounds to a quiet listener at any
time; but how melancholy to the watcher by the bed of death!
‘There is no air here,’ said the man faintly. ‘The place pollutes it. It
was fresh round about, when I walked there, years ago; but it grows hot
and heavy in passing these walls. I cannot breathe it.’
‘We have breathed it together, for a long time,’ said the old man.
‘Come, come.’
There was a short silence, during which the two spectators approached
the bed. The sick man drew a hand of his old fellow-prisoner towards
him, and pressing it affectionately between both his own, retained it in
his grasp.
‘I hope,’ he gasped after a while, so faintly that they bent their ears
close over the bed to catch the half-formed sounds his pale lips gave
vent to--‘I hope my merciful Judge will bear in mind my heavy punishment
on earth. Twenty years, my friend, twenty years in this hideous grave!
My heart broke when my child died, and I could not even kiss him in his
little coffin. My loneliness since then, in all this noise and riot, has
been very dreadful. May God forgive me! He has seen my solitary,
lingering death.’
He folded his hands, and murmuring something more they could not hear,
fell into a sleep--only a sleep at first, for they saw him smile.
They whispered together for a little time, and the turnkey, stooping
over the pillow, drew hastily back. ‘He has got his discharge, by G--!’
said the man.
He had. But he had grown so like death in life, that they knew not when
he died.
CHAPTER XLV. DESCRIPTIVE OF AN AFFECTING INTERVIEW BETWEEN MR. SAMUEL