The Pickwick Papers
fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well
qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which
for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father’s house.
(Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led
forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish,’ added Mr. Pickwick--
‘I wish I was young enough to be her sister’s husband (cheers), but,
failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being
so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I
admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride’s
father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and I am proud to know
him (great uproar). He is a kind, excellent, independent-spirited, fine-
hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor
relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the two last). That
his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that
he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the
gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is,
I am persuaded, our united wish. So, let us drink their healths, and
wish them prolonged life, and every blessing!’
Mr. Pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more
were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under Mr. Weller’s command,
brought into active and efficient operation. Mr. Wardle proposed Mr.
Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick proposed the old lady. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr.
Wardle; Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Snodgrass. One of the poor relations
proposed Mr. Tupman, and the other poor relation proposed Mr. Winkle;
all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of
both the poor relations beneath the table, warned the party that it was
time to adjourn.
At dinner they met again, after a five-and-twenty mile walk, undertaken
by the males at Wardle’s recommendation, to get rid of the effects of
the wine at breakfast. The poor relations had kept in bed all day, with
the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been
unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a
state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small
alternate allotments of eating and sleeping.
The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as
noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts.
Then came the tea and coffee; and then, the ball.
The best sitting-room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark-panelled room
with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could
have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end
of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens were the
two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of
recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver
candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles
burned bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry
voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the
old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just
the place in which they would have held their revels.
If anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it
would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick’s appearing without
his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends.
‘You mean to dance?’ said Wardle.
‘Of course I do,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Don’t you see I am dressed for
the purpose?’ Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled silk
stockings, and smartly tied pumps.
‘_You _in silk stockings!’ exclaimed Mr. Tupman jocosely.
‘And why not, sir--why not?’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him.
‘Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn’t wear them,’
responded Mr. Tupman.
‘I imagine not, sir--I imagine not,’ said Mr. Pickwick, in a very
peremptory tone.
Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious
matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern.
‘I hope they are,’ said Mr. Pickwick, fixing his eyes upon his friend.
‘You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, _as_ stockings, I
trust, Sir?’
‘Certainly not. Oh, certainly not,’ replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away;
and Mr. Pickwick’s countenance resumed its customary benign expression.
‘We are all ready, I believe,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with
the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false
starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence.
‘Then begin at once,’ said Wardle. ‘Now!’
Up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went Mr. Pickwick
into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands, and a cry
of ‘Stop, stop!’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick, who was only brought to, by the
fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other
earthly power, if the house had been on fire.
‘Where’s Arabella Allen?’ cried a dozen voices.
‘And Winkle?’ added Mr. Tupman.
‘Here we are!’ exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty
companion from the corner; as he did so, it would have been hard to tell
which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black
eyes.
‘What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rather
pettishly, ‘that you couldn’t have taken your place before.’
‘Not at all extraordinary,’ said Mr. Winkle.
‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes
rested on Arabella, ‘well, I don’t know that it _was _extraordinary,
either, after all.’
However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the
fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick--hands
across--down the middle to the very end of the room, and half-way up the
chimney, back again to the door--poussette everywhere--loud stamp on the
ground--ready for the next couple--off again--all the figure over once
more--another stamp to beat out the time--next couple, and the next, and
the next again--never was such going; at last, after they had reached
the bottom of the dance, and full fourteen couple after the old lady had
retired in an exhausted state, and the clergyman’s wife had been
substituted in her stead, did that gentleman, when there was no demand
whatever on his exertions, keep perpetually dancing in his place, to
keep time to the music, smiling on his partner all the while with a
blandness of demeanour which baffles all description.
Long before Mr. Pickwick was weary of dancing, the newly-married couple
had retired from the scene. There was a glorious supper downstairs,
notwithstanding, and a good long sitting after it; and when Mr. Pickwick
awoke, late the next morning, he had a confused recollection of having,
severally and confidentially, invited somewhere about five-and-forty
people to dine with him at the George and Vulture, the very first time
they came to London; which Mr. Pickwick rightly considered a pretty
certain indication of his having taken something besides exercise, on
the previous night.
‘And so your family has games in the kitchen to-night, my dear, has
they?’ inquired Sam of Emma.
‘Yes, Mr. Weller,’ replied Emma; ‘we always have on Christmas Eve.
Master wouldn’t neglect to keep it up on any account.’
‘Your master’s a wery pretty notion of keeping anythin’ up, my dear,’
said Mr. Weller; ‘I never see such a sensible sort of man as he is, or
such a reg’lar gen’l’m’n.’
Oh, that he is!’ said the fat boy, joining in the conversation; ‘don’t
he breed nice pork!’ The fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at Mr.
Weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy.
‘Oh, you’ve woke up, at last, have you?’ said Sam.
The fat boy nodded.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer,’ said Mr. Weller
impressively; ‘if you don’t sleep a little less, and exercise a little
more, wen you comes to be a man you’ll lay yourself open to the same
sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen’l’m’n as
wore the pigtail.’
‘What did they do to him?’ inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice.
‘I’m a-going to tell you,’ replied Mr. Weller; ‘he was one o’ the
largest patterns as was ever turned out--reg’lar fat man, as hadn’t
caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty year.’
‘Lor!’ exclaimed Emma.
‘No, that he hadn’t, my dear,’ said Mr. Weller; ‘and if you’d put an
exact model of his own legs on the dinin’-table afore him, he wouldn’t
ha’ known ‘em. Well, he always walks to his office with a wery handsome
gold watch-chain hanging out, about a foot and a quarter, and a gold
watch in his fob pocket as was worth--I’m afraid to say how much, but as
much as a watch can be--a large, heavy, round manufacter, as stout for a
watch, as he was for a man, and with a big face in proportion. “You’d
better not carry that ‘ere watch,” says the old gen’l’m’n’s friends,
“you’ll be robbed on it,” says they. “Shall I?” says he. “Yes, you
will,” says they. “Well,” says he, “I should like to see the thief as
could get this here watch out, for I’m blessed if I ever can, it’s such
a tight fit,” says he, “and wenever I vants to know what’s o’clock, I’m
obliged to stare into the bakers’ shops,” he says. Well, then he laughs
as hearty as if he was a-goin’ to pieces, and out he walks agin with his
powdered head and pigtail, and rolls down the Strand with the chain
hangin’ out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin’
through his gray kersey smalls. There warn’t a pickpocket in all London
as didn’t take a pull at that chain, but the chain ‘ud never break, and
the watch ‘ud never come out, so they soon got tired of dragging such a
heavy old gen’l’m’n along the pavement, and he’d go home and laugh till
the pigtail wibrated like the penderlum of a Dutch clock. At last, one
day the old gen’l’m’n was a-rollin’ along, and he sees a pickpocket as
he know’d by sight, a-coming up, arm in arm with a little boy with a
wery large head. “Here’s a game,” says the old gen’l’m’n to himself,
“they’re a-goin’ to have another try, but it won’t do!” So he begins a-
chucklin’ wery hearty, wen, all of a sudden, the little boy leaves hold
of the pickpocket’s arm, and rushes head foremost straight into the old
gen’l’m’n’s stomach, and for a moment doubles him right up with the
pain. “Murder!” says the old gen’l’m’n. “All right, Sir,” says the
pickpocket, a-wisperin’ in his ear. And wen he come straight agin, the
watch and chain was gone, and what’s worse than that, the old
gen’l’m’n’s digestion was all wrong ever afterwards, to the wery last
day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care
you don’t get too fat.’
As Mr. Weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared
much affected, they all three repaired to the large kitchen, in which
the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom on
Christmas Eve, observed by old Wardle’s forefathers from time
immemorial.
From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just
suspended, with his own hands, a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same
branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and
most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr.
Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant
of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her
beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum.
The old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all
the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but the
younger ladies, not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious
veneration for the custom, or imagining that the value of a salute is