The Pickwick Papers
waited to hear detailed the symptoms of some disorder from which he saw
in perspective a long train of profits and advantages.
The first thing the old lady did, was to shake her head a great many
times, and began to cry.
‘Nervous,’ said Bob Sawyer complacently. ‘Camphor-julep and water three
times a day, and composing draught at night.’
‘I don’t know how to begin, Mr. Sawyer,’ said the old lady. ‘It is so
very painful and distressing.’
‘You need not begin, ma’am,’ rejoined Mr. Bob Sawyer. ‘I can anticipate
all you would say. The head is in fault.’
‘I should be very sorry to think it was the heart,’ said the old lady,
with a slight groan.
‘Not the slightest danger of that, ma’am,’ replied Bob Sawyer. ‘The
stomach is the primary cause.’
‘Mr. Sawyer!’ exclaimed the old lady, starting.
‘Not the least doubt of it, ma’am,’ rejoined Bob, looking wondrous wise.
‘Medicine, in time, my dear ma’am, would have prevented it all.’
‘Mr. Sawyer,’ said the old lady, more flurried than before, ‘this
conduct is either great impertinence to one in my situation, Sir, or it
arises from your not understanding the object of my visit. If it had
been in the power of medicine, or any foresight I could have used, to
prevent what has occurred, I should certainly have done so. I had better
see my nephew at once,’ said the old lady, twirling her reticule
indignantly, and rising as she spoke.
‘Stop a moment, ma’am,’ said Bob Sawyer; ‘I’m afraid I have not
understood you. What _is_ the matter, ma’am?’
‘My niece, Mr. Sawyer,’ said the old lady: ‘your friend’s sister.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bob, all impatience; for the old lady, although much
agitated, spoke with the most tantalising deliberation, as old ladies
often do. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Left my home, Mr. Sawyer, three days ago, on a pretended visit to my
sister, another aunt of hers, who keeps the large boarding-school, just
beyond the third mile-stone, where there is a very large laburnum-tree
and an oak gate,’ said the old lady, stopping in this place to dry her
eyes.
‘Oh, devil take the laburnum-tree, ma’am!’ said Bob, quite forgetting
his professional dignity in his anxiety. ‘Get on a little faster; put a
little more steam on, ma’am, pray.’
‘This morning,’ said the old lady slowly--‘this morning, she--’
‘She came back, ma’am, I suppose,’ said Bob, with great animation. ‘Did
she come back?’
‘No, she did not; she wrote,’ replied the old lady.
‘What did she say?’ inquired Bob eagerly.
‘She said, Mr. Sawyer,’ replied the old lady--‘and it is this I want to
prepare Benjamin’s mind for, gently and by degrees; she said that she
was--I have got the letter in my pocket, Mr. Sawyer, but my glasses are
in the carriage, and I should only waste your time if I attempted to
point out the passage to you, without them; she said, in short, Mr.
Sawyer, that she was married.’
What!’ said, or rather shouted, Mr. Bob Sawyer.
‘Married,’ repeated the old lady.
Mr. Bob Sawyer stopped to hear no more; but darting from the surgery
into the outer shop, cried in a stentorian voice, ‘Ben, my boy, she’s
bolted!’
Mr. Ben Allen, who had been slumbering behind the counter, with his head
half a foot or so below his knees, no sooner heard this appalling
communication, than he made a precipitate rush at Mr. Martin, and,
twisting his hand in the neck-cloth of that taciturn servitor, expressed
an obliging intention of choking him where he stood. This intention,
with a promptitude often the effect of desperation, he at once commenced
carrying into execution, with much vigour and surgical skill.
Mr. Martin, who was a man of few words and possessed but little power of
eloquence or persuasion, submitted to this operation with a very calm
and agreeable expression of countenance, for some seconds; finding,
however, that it threatened speedily to lead to a result which would
place it beyond his power to claim any wages, board or otherwise, in all
time to come, he muttered an inarticulate remonstrance and felled Mr.
Benjamin Allen to the ground. As that gentleman had his hands entangled
in his cravat, he had no alternative but to follow him to the floor.
There they both lay struggling, when the shop door opened, and the party
was increased by the arrival of two most unexpected visitors, to wit,
Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Samuel Weller.
The impression at once produced on Mr. Weller’s mind by what he saw,
was, that Mr. Martin was hired by the establishment of Sawyer, late
Nockemorf, to take strong medicine, or to go into fits and be
experimentalised upon, or to swallow poison now and then with the view
of testing the efficacy of some new antidotes, or to do something or
other to promote the great science of medicine, and gratify the ardent
spirit of inquiry burning in the bosoms of its two young professors. So,
without presuming to interfere, Sam stood perfectly still, and looked
on, as if he were mightily interested in the result of the then pending
experiment. Not so, Mr. Pickwick. He at once threw himself on the
astonished combatants, with his accustomed energy, and loudly called
upon the bystanders to interpose.
This roused Mr. Bob Sawyer, who had been hitherto quite paralysed by the
frenzy of his companion. With that gentleman’s assistance, Mr. Pickwick
raised Ben Allen to his feet. Mr. Martin finding himself alone on the
floor, got up, and looked about him.
‘Mr. Allen,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘what is the matter, Sir?’
‘Never mind, Sir!’ replied Mr. Allen, with haughty defiance.
‘What is it?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, looking at Bob Sawyer. ‘Is he
unwell?’
Before Bob could reply, Mr. Ben Allen seized Mr. Pickwick by the hand,
and murmured, in sorrowful accents, ‘My sister, my dear Sir; my sister.’
‘Oh, is that all!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘We shall easily arrange that
matter, I hope. Your sister is safe and well, and I am here, my dear
Sir, to--’
‘Sorry to do anythin’ as may cause an interruption to such wery pleasant
proceedin’s, as the king said wen he dissolved the parliament,’
interposed Mr. Weller, who had been peeping through the glass door; ‘but
there’s another experiment here, sir. Here’s a wenerable old lady a--
lyin’ on the carpet waitin’ for dissection, or galwinism, or some other
rewivin’ and scientific inwention.’
‘I forgot,’ exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen. ‘It is my aunt.’
‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘Poor lady! Gently Sam, gently.’
‘Strange sitivation for one o’ the family,’ observed Sam Weller,
hoisting the aunt into a chair. ‘Now depitty sawbones, bring out the
wollatilly!’
The latter observation was addressed to the boy in gray, who, having
handed over the fly to the care of the street-keeper, had come back to
see what all the noise was about. Between the boy in gray, and Mr. Bob
Sawyer, and Mr. Benjamin Allen (who having frightened his aunt into a
fainting fit, was affectionately solicitous for her recovery) the old
lady was at length restored to consciousness; then Mr. Ben Allen,
turning with a puzzled countenance to Mr. Pickwick, asked him what he
was about to say, when he had been so alarmingly interrupted.
‘We are all friends here, I presume?’ said Mr. Pickwick, clearing his
voice, and looking towards the man of few words with the surly
countenance, who drove the fly with the chubby horse.
This reminded Mr. Bob Sawyer that the boy in gray was looking on, with
eyes wide open, and greedy ears. The incipient chemist having been
lifted up by his coat collar, and dropped outside the door, Bob Sawyer
assured Mr. Pickwick that he might speak without reserve.
‘Your sister, my dear Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning to Benjamin
Allen, ‘is in London; well and happy.’
‘Her happiness is no object to me, sir,’ said Benjamin Allen, with a
flourish of the hand.
‘Her husband _is_ an object to _me_, Sir,’ said Bob Sawyer. ‘He shall be
an object to me, sir, at twelve paces, and a pretty object I’ll make of
him, sir--a mean-spirited scoundrel!’ This, as it stood, was a very
pretty denunciation, and magnanimous withal; but Mr. Bob Sawyer rather
weakened its effect, by winding up with some general observations
concerning the punching of heads and knocking out of eyes, which were
commonplace by comparison.
‘Stay, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘before you apply those epithets to the
gentleman in question, consider, dispassionately, the extent of his
fault, and above all remember that he is a friend of mine.’
‘What!’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer. ‘His name!’ cried Ben Allen. ‘His name!’
‘Mr. Nathaniel Winkle,’ said Mr. Pickwick.
Mr. Benjamin Allen deliberately crushed his spectacles beneath the heel
of his boot, and having picked up the pieces, and put them into three
separate pockets, folded his arms, bit his lips, and looked in a
threatening manner at the bland features of Mr. Pickwick.
‘Then it’s you, is it, Sir, who have encouraged and brought about this
match?’ inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen at length.
‘And it’s this gentleman’s servant, I suppose,’ interrupted the old
lady, ‘who has been skulking about my house, and endeavouring to entrap
my servants to conspire against their mistress.--Martin!’
‘Well?’ said the surly man, coming forward.
‘Is that the young man you saw in the lane, whom you told me about, this
morning?’
Mr. Martin, who, as it has already appeared, was a man of few words,
looked at Sam Weller, nodded his head, and growled forth, ‘That’s the
man.’ Mr. Weller, who was never proud, gave a smile of friendly
recognition as his eyes encountered those of the surly groom, and
admitted in courteous terms, that he had ‘knowed him afore.’
‘And this is the faithful creature,’ exclaimed Mr. Ben Allen, ‘whom I
had nearly suffocated!--Mr. Pickwick, how dare you allow your fellow to
be employed in the abduction of my sister? I demand that you explain
this matter, sir.’
‘Explain it, sir!’ cried Bob Sawyer fiercely.
‘It’s a conspiracy,’ said Ben Allen.
‘A regular plant,’ added Mr. Bob Sawyer.
‘A disgraceful imposition,’ observed the old lady.
‘Nothing but a do,’ remarked Martin.
‘Pray hear me,’ urged Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Ben Allen fell into a chair
that patients were bled in, and gave way to his pocket-handkerchief. ‘I
have rendered no assistance in this matter, beyond being present at one
interview between the young people which I could not prevent, and from
which I conceived my presence would remove any slight colouring of
impropriety that it might otherwise have had; this is the whole share I
have had in the transaction, and I had no suspicion that an immediate
marriage was even contemplated. Though, mind,’ added Mr. Pickwick,
hastily checking himself--‘mind, I do not say I should have prevented
it, if I had known that it was intended.’
‘You hear that, all of you; you hear that?’ said Mr. Benjamin Allen.
‘I hope they do,’ mildly observed Mr. Pickwick, looking round, ‘and,’
added that gentleman, his colour mounting as he spoke, ‘I hope they hear
this, Sir, also. That from what has been stated to me, sir, I assert
that you were by no means justified in attempting to force your sister’s
inclinations as you did, and that you should rather have endeavoured by
your kindness and forbearance to have supplied the place of other nearer
relations whom she had never known, from a child. As regards my young
friend, I must beg to add, that in every point of worldly advantage he
is, at least, on an equal footing with yourself, if not on a much better
one, and that unless I hear this question discussed with becoming temper
and moderation, I decline hearing any more said upon the subject.’
‘I wish to make a wery few remarks in addition to wot has been put
for’ard by the honourable gen’l’m’n as has jist give over,’ said Mr.
Weller, stepping forth, ‘wich is this here: a indiwidual in company has
called me a feller.’