The Pickwick Papers
bygone days. Slowly and peacefully, the father sank into the grave, and,
soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a
place of rest. The few who yet survived them, kneeled by their tomb, and
watered the green turf which covered it with their tears; then rose, and
turned away, sadly and mournfully, but not with bitter cries, or
despairing lamentations, for they knew that they should one day meet
again; and once more they mixed with the busy world, and their content
and cheerfulness were restored. The cloud settled upon the picture, and
concealed it from the sexton’s view.
‘“What do you think of _that_?” said the goblin, turning his large face
towards Gabriel Grub.
‘Gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty, and looked
somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him.
‘“You a miserable man!” said the goblin, in a tone of excessive
contempt. “You!” He appeared disposed to add more, but indignation
choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and,
flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aim, administered
a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the
goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him
without mercy, according to the established and invariable custom of
courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty
hugs.
‘“Show him some more!” said the king of the goblins.
‘At these words, the cloud was dispelled, and a rich and beautiful
landscape was disclosed to view--there is just such another, to this
day, within half a mile of the old abbey town. The sun shone from out
the clear blue sky, the water sparkled beneath his rays, and the trees
looked greener, and the flowers more gay, beneath its cheering
influence. The water rippled on with a pleasant sound, the trees rustled
in the light wind that murmured among their leaves, the birds sang upon
the boughs, and the lark carolled on high her welcome to the morning.
Yes, it was morning; the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest
leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. The ant crept
forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm
rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and
revelled in their brief but happy existence. Man walked forth, elated
with the scene; and all was brightness and splendour.
’”_You _a miserable man!” said the king of the goblins, in a more
contemptuous tone than before. And again the king of the goblins gave
his leg a flourish; again it descended on the shoulders of the sexton;
and again the attendant goblins imitated the example of their chief.
‘Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to
Gabriel Grub, who, although his shoulders smarted with pain from the
frequent applications of the goblins’ feet thereunto, looked on with an
interest that nothing could diminish. He saw that men who worked hard,
and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and
happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of Nature was a
never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been
delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations,
and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher
grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of
happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and
most fragile of all God’s creatures, were the oftenest superior to
sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they
bore, in their own hearts, an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and
devotion. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the
mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair
surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the
evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and
respectable sort of world after all. No sooner had he formed it, than
the cloud which had closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on
his senses, and lull him to repose. One by one, the goblins faded from
his sight; and, as the last one disappeared, he sank to sleep.
‘The day had broken when Gabriel Grub awoke, and found himself lying at
full length on the flat gravestone in the churchyard, with the wicker
bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade, and lantern, all
well whitened by the last night’s frost, scattered on the ground. The
stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright
before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was
not far off. At first, he began to doubt the reality of his adventures,
but the acute pain in his shoulders when he attempted to rise, assured
him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. He was
staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow on
which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the gravestones, but he
speedily accounted for this circumstance when he remembered that, being
spirits, they would leave no visible impression behind them. So, Gabriel
Grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and,
brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards
the town.
‘But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of
returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his
reformation disbelieved. He hesitated for a few moments; and then turned
away to wander where he might, and seek his bread elsewhere.
‘The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle were found, that day, in
the churchyard. There were a great many speculations about the sexton’s
fate, at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried
away by the goblins; and there were not wanting some very credible
witnesses who had distinctly seen him whisked through the air on the
back of a chestnut horse blind of one eye, with the hind-quarters of a
lion, and the tail of a bear. At length all this was devoutly believed;
and the new sexton used to exhibit to the curious, for a trifling
emolument, a good-sized piece of the church weathercock which had been
accidentally kicked off by the aforesaid horse in his aerial flight, and
picked up by himself in the churchyard, a year or two afterwards.
‘Unfortunately, these stories were somewhat disturbed by the unlooked-
for reappearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a
ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. He told his story to the
clergyman, and also to the mayor; and in course of time it began to be
received as a matter of history, in which form it has continued down to
this very day. The believers in the weathercock tale, having misplaced
their confidence once, were not easily prevailed upon to part with it
again, so they looked as wise as they could, shrugged their shoulders,
touched their foreheads, and murmured something about Gabriel Grub
having drunk all the Hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat
tombstone; and they affected to explain what he supposed he had
witnessed in the goblin’s cavern, by saying that he had seen the world,
and grown wiser. But this opinion, which was by no means a popular one
at any time, gradually died off; and be the matter how it may, as
Gabriel Grub was afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his days, this
story has at least one moral, if it teach no better one--and that is,
that if a man turn sulky and drink by himself at Christmas time, he may
make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it: let the spirits be
never so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as
those which Gabriel Grub saw in the goblin’s cavern.’
CHAPTER XXX. HOW THE PICKWICKIANS MADE AND CULTIVATED THE ACQUAINTANCE
OF A COUPLE OF NICE YOUNG MEN BELONGING TO ONE OF THE LIBERAL
PROFESSIONS; HOW THEY DISPORTED THEMSELVES ON THE ICE; AND HOW THEIR
VISIT CAME TO A CONCLUSION
Well, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick, as that favoured servitor entered his
bed-chamber, with his warm water, on the morning of Christmas Day,
‘still frosty?’
‘Water in the wash-hand basin’s a mask o’ ice, Sir,’ responded Sam.
‘Severe weather, Sam,’ observed Mr. Pickwick.
‘Fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar bear said to
himself, ven he was practising his skating,’ replied Mr. Weller.
‘I shall be down in a quarter of an hour, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick,
untying his nightcap.
‘Wery good, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘There’s a couple o’ sawbones
downstairs.’
‘A couple of what!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sitting up in bed.
‘A couple o’ sawbones,’ said Sam.
‘What’s a sawbones?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, not quite certain whether it
was a live animal, or something to eat.
‘What! Don’t you know what a sawbones is, sir?’ inquired Mr. Weller. ‘I
thought everybody know’d as a sawbones was a surgeon.’
‘Oh, a surgeon, eh?’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile.
‘Just that, sir,’ replied Sam. ‘These here ones as is below, though,
ain’t reg’lar thoroughbred sawbones; they’re only in trainin’.’
In other words they’re medical students, I suppose?’ said Mr. Pickwick.
Sam Weller nodded assent.
‘I am glad of it,’ said Mr. Pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically
on the counterpane. ‘They are fine fellows--very fine fellows; with
judgments matured by observation and reflection; and tastes refined by
reading and study. I am very glad of it.’
‘They’re a-smokin’ cigars by the kitchen fire,’ said Sam.
‘Ah!’ observed Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands, ‘overflowing with kindly
feelings and animal spirits. Just what I like to see.’
And one on ‘em,’ said Sam, not noticing his master’s interruption, ‘one
on ‘em’s got his legs on the table, and is a-drinking brandy neat, vile
the t’other one--him in the barnacles--has got a barrel o’ oysters
atween his knees, which he’s a-openin’ like steam, and as fast as he
eats ‘em, he takes a aim vith the shells at young dropsy, who’s a
sittin’ down fast asleep, in the chimbley corner.’
‘Eccentricities of genius, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. ‘You may retire.’
Sam did retire accordingly. Mr. Pickwick at the expiration of the
quarter of an hour, went down to breakfast.
‘Here he is at last!’ said old Mr. Wardle. ‘Pickwick, this is Miss
Allen’s brother, Mr. Benjamin Allen. Ben we call him, and so may you, if
you like. This gentleman is his very particular friend, Mr.--’
‘Mr. Bob Sawyer,’ interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen; whereupon Mr. Bob
Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen laughed in concert.
Mr. Pickwick bowed to Bob Sawyer, and Bob Sawyer bowed to Mr. Pickwick.
Bob and his very particular friend then applied themselves most
assiduously to the eatables before them; and Mr. Pickwick had an
opportunity of glancing at them both.
Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black
hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was
embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his
single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin,
appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating
in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in
the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although
there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a
shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that
appendage. He presented, altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and
emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas.
Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was habited in a coarse, blue coat, which, without
being either a greatcoat or a surtout, partook of the nature and
qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and
swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the