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 XLIV. DESCRIPTIVE OF AN AFFECTING INTERVIEW BETWEEN Mr. SAMUEL
WELLER AND A FAMILY PARTY. Mr. PICKWICK MAKES A TOUR OF THE DIMINUTIVE
WORLD HE INHABITS, AND RESOLVES TO MIX WITH IT, IN FUTURE, AS LITTLE AS
POSSIBLE
A few mornings after his incarceration, Mr. Samuel Weller, having
arranged his master's room with all possible care, and seen him
comfortably seated over his books and papers, withdrew to employ himself
for an hour or two to come, as he best could. It was a fine morning, and
it occurred to Sam that a pint of porter in the open air would lighten
his next quarter of an hour or so, as well as any little amusement in
which he could indulge.
Having arrived at this conclusion, he betook himself to the
tap. Having purchased the beer, and obtained, moreover, the
day-but-one-before-yesterday's paper, he repaired to the skittle-ground,
and seating himself on a bench, proceeded to enjoy himself in a very
sedate and methodical manner.
First of all, he took a refreshing draught of the beer, and then he
looked up at a window, and bestowed a platonic wink on a young lady who
was peeling potatoes thereat. Then he opened the paper, and folded it
so as to get the police reports outwards; and this being a vexatious and
difficult thing to do, when there is any wind stirring, he took another
draught of the beer when he had accomplished it. Then, he read two lines
of the paper, and stopped short to look at a couple of men who were
finishing a game at rackets, which, being concluded, he cried out 'wery
good,' in an approving manner, and looked round upon the spectators, to
ascertain whether their sentiments coincided with his own. This involved
the necessity of looking up at the windows also; and as the young lady
was still there, it was an act of common politeness to wink again, and
to drink to her good health in dumb show, in another draught of the
beer, which Sam did; and having frowned hideously upon a small boy who
had noted this latter proceeding with open eyes, he threw one leg over
the other, and, holding the newspaper in both hands, began to read in
real earnest.
He had hardly composed himself into the needful state of abstraction,
when he thought he heard his own name proclaimed in some distant
passage. Nor was he mistaken, for it quickly passed from mouth to mouth,
and in a few seconds the air teemed with shouts of 'Weller!' 'Here!'
roared Sam, in a stentorian voice. 'Wot's the matter? Who wants him? Has
an express come to say that his country house is afire?'
'Somebody wants you in the hall,' said a man who was standing by.
'Just mind that 'ere paper and the pot, old feller, will you?' said
Sam. 'I'm a-comin'. Blessed, if they was a-callin' me to the bar, they
couldn't make more noise about it!'
Accompanying these words with a gentle rap on the head of the young
gentleman before noticed, who, unconscious of his close vicinity to
the person in request, was screaming 'Weller!' with all his might, Sam
hastened across the ground, and ran up the steps into the hall. Here,
the first object that met his eyes was his beloved father sitting on a
bottom stair, with his hat in his hand, shouting out 'Weller!' in his
very loudest tone, at half-minute intervals.
'Wot are you a-roarin' at?' said Sam impetuously, when the old gentleman
had discharged himself of another shout; 'making yourself so precious
hot that you looks like a aggrawated glass-blower. Wot's the matter?'
'Aha!' replied the old gentleman, 'I began to be afeerd that you'd gone
for a walk round the Regency Park, Sammy.'
'Come,' said Sam, 'none o' them taunts agin the wictim o' avarice, and
come off that 'ere step. Wot arc you a-settin' down there for? I don't
live there.'
'I've got such a game for you, Sammy,' said the elder Mr. Weller,
rising.
'Stop a minit,' said Sam, 'you're all vite behind.'
'That's right, Sammy, rub it off,' said Mr. Weller, as his son dusted
him. 'It might look personal here, if a man walked about with vitevash
on his clothes, eh, Sammy?'
As Mr. Weller exhibited in this place unequivocal symptoms of an
approaching fit of chuckling, Sam interposed to stop it.
'Keep quiet, do,' said Sam, 'there never vos such a old picter-card
born. Wot are you bustin' vith, now?'
'Sammy,' said Mr. Weller, wiping his forehead, 'I'm afeerd that vun o'
these days I shall laugh myself into a appleplexy, my boy.'
'Vell, then, wot do you do it for?' said Sam. 'Now, then, wot have you
got to say?'
'Who do you think's come here with me, Samivel?' said Mr. Weller,
drawing back a pace or two, pursing up his mouth, and extending his
eyebrows. 'Pell?' said Sam.
Mr. Weller shook his head, and his red cheeks expanded with the laughter
that was endeavouring to find a vent.
'Mottled-faced man, p'raps?' asked Sam.
Again Mr. Weller shook his head.
'Who then?'asked Sam.
'Your mother-in-law,' said Mr. Weller; and it was lucky he did say it,
