The Pickwick Papers
marching with reversed arms, like a couple of privates at a royal
funeral.
The dogs suddenly came to a dead stop, and the party advancing
stealthily a single pace, stopped too.
‘What’s the matter with the dogs’ legs?’ whispered Mr. Winkle. ‘How
queer they’re standing.’
‘Hush, can’t you?’ replied Wardle softly. ‘Don’t you see, they’re making
a point?’
‘Making a point!’ said Mr. Winkle, staring about him, as if he expected
to discover some particular beauty in the landscape, which the sagacious
animals were calling special attention to. ‘Making a point! What are
they pointing at?’
‘Keep your eyes open,’ said Wardle, not heeding the question in the
excitement of the moment. ‘Now then.’
There was a sharp whirring noise, that made Mr. Winkle start back as if
he had been shot himself. Bang, bang, went a couple of guns--the smoke
swept quickly away over the field, and curled into the air.
‘Where are they!’ said Mr. Winkle, in a state of the highest excitement,
turning round and round in all directions. ‘Where are they? Tell me when
to fire. Where are they--where are they?’
‘Where are they!’ said Wardle, taking up a brace of birds which the dogs
had deposited at his feet. ‘Why, here they are.’
‘No, no; I mean the others,’ said the bewildered Winkle.
‘Far enough off, by this time,’ replied Wardle, coolly reloading his
gun.
‘We shall very likely be up with another covey in five minutes,’ said
the long gamekeeper. ‘If the gentleman begins to fire now, perhaps he’ll
just get the shot out of the barrel by the time they rise.’
‘Ha! ha! ha!’ roared Mr. Weller.
‘Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, compassionating his follower’s confusion and
embarrassment.
‘Sir.’
‘Don’t laugh.’
‘Certainly not, Sir.’ So, by way of indemnification, Mr. Weller
contorted his features from behind the wheel-barrow, for the exclusive
amusement of the boy with the leggings, who thereupon burst into a
boisterous laugh, and was summarily cuffed by the long gamekeeper, who
wanted a pretext for turning round, to hide his own merriment.
‘Bravo, old fellow!’ said Wardle to Mr. Tupman; ‘you fired that time, at
all events.’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Mr. Tupman, with conscious pride. ‘I let it off.’
‘Well done. You’ll hit something next time, if you look sharp. Very
easy, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, it’s very easy,’ said Mr. Tupman. ‘How it hurts one’s shoulder,
though. It nearly knocked me backwards. I had no idea these small
firearms kicked so.’
‘Ah,’ said the old gentleman, smiling, ‘you’ll get used to it in time.
Now then--all ready--all right with the barrow there?’
‘All right, Sir,’ replied Mr. Weller.
‘Come along, then.’
‘Hold hard, Sir,’ said Sam, raising the barrow.
‘Aye, aye,’ replied Mr. Pickwick; and on they went, as briskly as need
be.
‘Keep that barrow back now,’ cried Wardle, when it had been hoisted over
a stile into another field, and Mr. Pickwick had been deposited in it
once more.
‘All right, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, pausing.
‘Now, Winkle,’ said the old gentleman, ‘follow me softly, and don’t be
too late this time.’
‘Never fear,’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘Are they pointing?’
‘No, no; not now. Quietly now, quietly.’ On they crept, and very quietly
they would have advanced, if Mr. Winkle, in the performance of some very
intricate evolutions with his gun, had not accidentally fired, at the
most critical moment, over the boy’s head, exactly in the very spot
where the tall man’s brain would have been, had he been there instead.
‘Why, what on earth did you do that for?’ said old Wardle, as the birds
flew unharmed away.
‘I never saw such a gun in my life,’ replied poor Mr. Winkle, looking at
the lock, as if that would do any good. ‘It goes off of its own accord.
It _will _do it.’
‘Will do it!’ echoed Wardle, with something of irritation in his manner.
‘I wish it would kill something of its own accord.’
‘It’ll do that afore long, Sir,’ observed the tall man, in a low,
prophetic voice.
‘What do you mean by that observation, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle,
angrily.
‘Never mind, Sir, never mind,’ replied the long gamekeeper; ‘I’ve no
family myself, sir; and this here boy’s mother will get something
handsome from Sir Geoffrey, if he’s killed on his land. Load again, Sir,
load again.’
‘Take away his gun,’ cried Mr. Pickwick from the barrow, horror-stricken
at the long man’s dark insinuations. ‘Take away his gun, do you hear,
somebody?’
Nobody, however, volunteered to obey the command; and Mr. Winkle, after
darting a rebellious glance at Mr. Pickwick, reloaded his gun, and
proceeded onwards with the rest.
We are bound, on the authority of Mr. Pickwick, to state, that Mr.
Tupman’s mode of proceeding evinced far more of prudence and
deliberation, than that adopted by Mr. Winkle. Still, this by no means
detracts from the great authority of the latter gentleman, on all
matters connected with the field; because, as Mr. Pickwick beautifully
observes, it has somehow or other happened, from time immemorial, that
many of the best and ablest philosophers, who have been perfect lights
of science in matters of theory, have been wholly unable to reduce them
to practice.
Mr. Tupman’s process, like many of our most sublime discoveries, was
extremely simple. With the quickness and penetration of a man of genius,
he had at once observed that the two great points to be attained were--
first, to discharge his piece without injury to himself, and, secondly,
to do so, without danger to the bystanders--obviously, the best thing to
do, after surmounting the difficulty of firing at all, was to shut his
eyes firmly, and fire into the air.
On one occasion, after performing this feat, Mr. Tupman, on opening his
eyes, beheld a plump partridge in the act of falling, wounded, to the
ground. He was on the point of congratulating Mr. Wardle on his
invariable success, when that gentleman advanced towards him, and
grasped him warmly by the hand.
‘Tupman,’ said the old gentleman, ‘you singled out that particular
bird?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Tupman--‘no.’
‘You did,’ said Wardle. ‘I saw you do it--I observed you pick him out--I
noticed you, as you raised your piece to take aim; and I will say this,
that the best shot in existence could not have done it more beautifully.
You are an older hand at this than I thought you, Tupman; you have been
out before.’
It was in vain for Mr. Tupman to protest, with a smile of self-denial,
that he never had. The very smile was taken as evidence to the contrary;
and from that time forth his reputation was established. It is not the
only reputation that has been acquired as easily, nor are such fortunate
circumstances confined to partridge-shooting.
Meanwhile, Mr. Winkle flashed, and blazed, and smoked away, without
producing any material results worthy of being noted down; sometimes
expending his charge in mid-air, and at others sending it skimming along
so near the surface of the ground as to place the lives of the two dogs
on a rather uncertain and precarious tenure. As a display of fancy-
shooting, it was extremely varied and curious; as an exhibition of
firing with any precise object, it was, upon the whole, perhaps a
failure. It is an established axiom, that ‘every bullet has its billet.’
If it apply in an equal degree to shot, those of Mr. Winkle were
unfortunate foundlings, deprived of their natural rights, cast loose
upon the world, and billeted nowhere.
‘Well,’ said Wardle, walking up to the side of the barrow, and wiping
the streams of perspiration from his jolly red face; ‘smoking day, isn’t
it?’
‘It is, indeed,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. The sun is tremendously hot, even
to me. I don’t know how you must feel it.’
‘Why,’ said the old gentleman, ‘pretty hot. It’s past twelve, though.
You see that green hill there?’
‘Certainly.’
‘That’s the place where we are to lunch; and, by Jove, there’s the boy
with the basket, punctual as clockwork!’
‘So he is,’ said Mr. Pickwick, brightening up. ‘Good boy, that. I’ll
give him a shilling, presently. Now, then, Sam, wheel away.’
‘Hold on, sir,’ said Mr. Weller, invigorated with the prospect of
refreshments. ‘Out of the vay, young leathers. If you walley my precious
life don’t upset me, as the gen’l’m’n said to the driver when they was
a-carryin’ him to Tyburn.’ And quickening his pace to a sharp run, Mr.
Weller wheeled his master nimbly to the green hill, shot him dexterously
out by the very side of the basket, and proceeded to unpack it with the
utmost despatch.
‘Weal pie,’ said Mr. Weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the eatables
on the grass. ‘Wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as
made it, and is quite sure it ain’t kittens; and arter all though,
where’s the odds, when they’re so like weal that the wery piemen
themselves don’t know the difference?’
‘Don’t they, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
‘Not they, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. ‘I lodged in the
same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man he was--reg’lar
clever chap, too--make pies out o’ anything, he could. “What a number o’
cats you keep, Mr. Brooks,” says I, when I’d got intimate with him.
“Ah,” says he, “I do--a good many,” says he, “You must be wery fond o’
cats,” says I. “Other people is,” says he, a-winkin’ at me; “they ain’t
in season till the winter though,” says he. “Not in season!” says I.
“No,” says he, “fruits is in, cats is out.” “Why, what do you mean?”
says I. “Mean!” says he. “That I’ll never be a party to the combination
o’ the butchers, to keep up the price o’ meat,” says he. “Mr. Weller,”
says he, a-squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering in my ear--“don’t
mention this here agin--but it’s the seasonin’ as does it. They’re all
made o’ them noble animals,” says he, a-pointin’ to a wery nice little
tabby kitten, “and I seasons ‘em for beefsteak, weal or kidney, ‘cording
to the demand. And more than that,” says he, “I can make a weal a beef-
steak, or a beef-steak a kidney, or any one on ‘em a mutton, at a
minute’s notice, just as the market changes, and appetites wary!”’
‘He must have been a very ingenious young man, that, Sam,’ said Mr.
Pickwick, with a slight shudder.
‘Just was, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, continuing his occupation of
emptying the basket, ‘and the pies was beautiful. Tongue--, well that’s
a wery good thing when it ain’t a woman’s. Bread--knuckle o’ ham,
reg’lar picter--cold beef in slices, wery good. What’s in them stone
jars, young touch-and-go?’
‘Beer in this one,’ replied the boy, taking from his shoulder a couple
of large stone bottles, fastened together by a leathern strap--‘cold
punch in t’other.’
‘And a wery good notion of a lunch it is, take it altogether,’ said Mr.
Weller, surveying his arrangement of the repast with great satisfaction.
‘Now, gen’l’m’n, “fall on,” as the English said to the French when they
fixed bagginets.’
It needed no second invitation to induce the party to yield full justice
to the meal; and as little pressing did it require to induce Mr. Weller,
the long gamekeeper, and the two boys, to station themselves on the
grass, at a little distance, and do good execution upon a decent
proportion of the viands. An old oak afforded a pleasant shelter to the
group, and a rich prospect of arable and meadow land, intersected with
luxuriant hedges, and richly ornamented with wood, lay spread out before
them.
‘This is delightful--thoroughly delightful!’ said Mr. Pickwick; the skin
of whose expressive countenance was rapidly peeling off, with exposure
to the sun.
‘So it is--so it is, old fellow,’ replied Wardle. ‘Come; a glass of
punch!’
‘With great pleasure,’ said Mr. Pickwick; the satisfaction of whose
countenance, after drinking it, bore testimony to the sincerity of the
reply.
‘Good,’ said Mr. Pickwick, smacking his lips. ‘Very good. I’ll take