As Mr. Pickwick could by no means be prevailed upon to stay, it was
arranged at once, on his own proposition, that Mr. Benjamin Allen should
accompany him on his journey to the elder Mr. Winkle's, and that the
coach should be at the door, at nine o'clock next morning. He then took
his leave, and, followed by Samuel Weller, repaired to the Bush. It is
worthy of remark, that Mr. Martin's face was horribly convulsed as he
shook hands with Sam at parting, and that he gave vent to a smile and an
oath simultaneously; from which tokens it has been inferred by those
who were best acquainted with that gentleman's peculiarities, that he
expressed himself much pleased with Mr. Weller's society, and requested
the honour of his further acquaintance.
'Shall I order a private room, Sir?' inquired Sam, when they reached the
Bush.
'Why, no, Sam,' replied Mr. Pickwick; 'as I dined in the coffee-room,
and shall go to bed soon, it is hardly worth while. See who there is in
the travellers' room, Sam.'
Mr. Weller departed on his errand, and presently returned to say that
there was only a gentleman with one eye; and that he and the landlord
were drinking a bowl of bishop together.
'I will join them,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'He's a queer customer, the vun-eyed vun, sir,' observed Mr. Weller, as
he led the way. 'He's a-gammonin' that 'ere landlord, he is, sir, till
he don't rightly know wether he's a-standing on the soles of his boots
or the crown of his hat.'
The individual to whom this observation referred, was sitting at the
upper end of the room when Mr. Pickwick entered, and was smoking a
large Dutch pipe, with his eye intently fixed on the round face of the
landlord; a jolly-looking old personage, to whom he had recently been
relating some tale of wonder, as was testified by sundry disjointed
exclamations of, 'Well, I wouldn't have believed it! The strangest thing
I ever heard! Couldn't have supposed it possible!' and other expressions
of astonishment which burst spontaneously from his lips, as he returned
the fixed gaze of the one-eyed man.
'Servant, sir,' said the one-eyed man to Mr. Pickwick. 'Fine night,
sir.'
'Very much so indeed,' replied Mr. Pickwick, as the waiter placed a
small decanter of brandy, and some hot water before him.
While Mr. Pickwick was mixing his brandy-and-water, the one-eyed man
looked round at him earnestly, from time to time, and at length said--
'I think I've seen you before.'
'I don't recollect you,' rejoined Mr. Pickwick.
'I dare say not,' said the one-eyed man. 'You didn't know me, but I knew
two friends of yours that were stopping at the Peacock at Eatanswill, at
the time of the election.'
'Oh, indeed!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
'Yes,' rejoined the one-eyed man. 'I mentioned a little circumstance
to them about a friend of mine of the name of Tom Smart. Perhaps you've
heard them speak of it.'
'Often,' rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling. 'He was your uncle, I think?'
'No, no; only a friend of my uncle's,' replied the one-eyed man.
'He was a wonderful man, that uncle of yours, though,' remarked the
landlord shaking his head.
'Well, I think he was; I think I may say he was,' answered the one-eyed
man. 'I could tell you a story about that same uncle, gentlemen, that
would rather surprise you.'
'Could you?' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Let us hear it, by all means.'
The one-eyed bagman ladled out a glass of negus from the bowl, and drank
it; smoked a long whiff out of the Dutch pipe; and then, calling to Sam
Weller who was lingering near the door, that he needn't go away unless
he wanted to, because the story was no secret, fixed his eye upon the
landlord's, and proceeded, in the words of the next chapter.
CHAPTER XLIX. CONTAINING THE STORY OF THE BAGMAN'S UNCLE
'My uncle, gentlemen,' said the bagman, 'was one of the merriest,
pleasantest, cleverest fellows, that ever lived. I wish you had known
him, gentlemen. On second thoughts, gentlemen, I don't wish you had
known him, for if you had, you would have been all, by this time, in the
ordinary course of nature, if not dead, at all events so near it, as to
have taken to stopping at home and giving up company, which would
have deprived me of the inestimable pleasure of addressing you at this
moment. Gentlemen, I wish your fathers and mothers had known my uncle.
They would have been amazingly fond of him, especially your respectable
mothers; I know they would. If any two of his numerous virtues
predominated over the many that adorned his character, I should say they
were his mixed punch and his after-supper song. Excuse my dwelling on
these melancholy recollections of departed worth; you won't see a man
like my uncle every day in the week.
'I have always considered it a great point in my uncle's character,
gentlemen, that he was the intimate friend and companion of Tom Smart,
of the great house of Bilson and Slum, Cateaton Street, City. My uncle
collected for Tiggin and Welps, but for a long time he went pretty near
the same journey as Tom; and the very first night they met, my uncle
took a fancy for Tom, and Tom took a fancy for my uncle. They made a bet
of a new hat before they had known each other half an hour, who should
brew the best quart of punch and drink it the quickest. My uncle was
judged to have won the making, but Tom Smart beat him in the drinking by
about half a salt-spoonful. They took another quart apiece to drink each
other's health in, and were staunch friends ever afterwards. There's a
destiny in these things, gentlemen; we can't help it.
'In personal appearance, my uncle was a trifle shorter than the middle
size; he was a thought stouter too, than the ordinary run of people, and
perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the jolliest face you
ever saw, gentleman: something like Punch, with a handsome nose and
chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good-humour;
and a smile--not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry,
hearty, good-tempered smile--was perpetually on his countenance. He
was pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a
milestone. There he lay, stunned, and so cut about the face with some
gravel which had been heaped up alongside it, that, to use my uncle's
own strong expression, if his mother could have revisited the earth,
she wouldn't have known him. Indeed, when I come to think of the matter,
gentlemen, I feel pretty sure she wouldn't, for she died when my uncle
was two years and seven months old, and I think it's very likely that,
even without the gravel, his top-boots would have puzzled the good lady
not a little; to say nothing of his jolly red face. However, there he
lay, and I have heard my uncle say, many a time, that the man said who
picked him up that he was smiling as merrily as if he had tumbled
out for a treat, and that after they had bled him, the first faint
glimmerings of returning animation, were his jumping up in bed, bursting
out into a loud laugh, kissing the young woman who held the basin,
and demanding a mutton chop and a pickled walnut. He was very fond of
pickled walnuts, gentlemen. He said he always found that, taken without
vinegar, they relished the beer.
'My uncle's great journey was in the fall of the leaf, at which time
he collected debts, and took orders, in the north; going from London to
Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, from Glasgow back to Edinburgh,
and thence to London by the smack. You are to understand that his second
visit to Edinburgh was for his own pleasure. He used to go back for a
week, just to look up his old friends; and what with breakfasting with
this one, lunching with that, dining with the third, and supping with
another, a pretty tight week he used to make of it. I don't know whether
any of you, gentlemen, ever partook of a real substantial hospitable
Scotch breakfast, and then went out to a slight lunch of a bushel of
oysters, a dozen or so of bottled ale, and a noggin or two of whiskey to
close up with. If you ever did, you will agree with me that it requires
a pretty strong head to go out to dinner and supper afterwards.
'But bless your hearts and eyebrows, all this sort of thing was nothing
to my uncle! He was so well seasoned, that it was mere child's play. I
have heard him say that he could see the Dundee people out, any day, and
walk home afterwards without staggering; and yet the Dundee people have
as strong heads and as strong punch, gentlemen, as you are likely to
meet with, between the poles. I have heard of a Glasgow man and a Dundee
man drinking against each other for fifteen hours at a sitting. They
were both suffocated, as nearly as could be ascertained, at the same
moment, but with this trifling exception, gentlemen, they were not a bit
the worse for it.
'One night, within four-and-twenty hours of the time when he had settled
to take shipping for London, my uncle supped at the house of a very old
friend of his, a Bailie Mac something and four syllables after it, who
lived in the old town of Edinburgh. There were the bailie's wife, and
the bailie's three daughters, and the bailie's grown-up son, and three
or four stout, bushy eye-browed, canny, old Scotch fellows, that the
bailie had got together to do honour to my uncle, and help to make
merry. It was a glorious supper. There was kippered salmon, and Finnan
haddocks, and a lamb's head, and a haggis--a celebrated Scotch dish,
gentlemen, which my uncle used to say always looked to him, when it
came to table, very much like a Cupid's stomach--and a great many
other things besides, that I forget the names of, but very good things,
notwithstanding. The lassies were pretty and agreeable; the bailie's
wife was one of the best creatures that ever lived; and my uncle was in
thoroughly good cue. The consequence of which was, that the young ladies
tittered and giggled, and the old lady laughed out loud, and the bailie
and the other old fellows roared till they were red in the face,
the whole mortal time. I don't quite recollect how many tumblers of
whiskey-toddy each man drank after supper; but this I know, that about
one o'clock in the morning, the bailie's grown-up son became insensible
while attempting the first verse of "Willie brewed a peck o' maut";
and he having been, for half an hour before, the only other man visible
above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it was almost time to
think about going, especially as drinking had set in at seven o'clock,
in order that he might get home at a decent hour. But, thinking it might
not be quite polite to go just then, my uncle voted himself into the
chair, mixed another glass, rose to propose his own health, addressed
himself in a neat and complimentary speech, and drank the toast with
great enthusiasm. Still nobody woke; so my uncle took a little drop
more--neat this time, to prevent the toddy from disagreeing with
him--and, laying violent hands on his hat, sallied forth into the
street.
'It was a wild, gusty night when my uncle closed the bailie's door, and
settling his hat firmly on his head to prevent the wind from taking
it, thrust his hands into his pockets, and looking upward, took a short
survey of the state of the weather. The clouds were drifting over the
moon at their giddiest speed; at one time wholly obscuring her; at
another, suffering her to burst forth in full splendour and shed her
light on all the objects around; anon, driving over her again, with
increased velocity, and shrouding everything in darkness. "Really, this
won't do," said my uncle, addressing himself to the weather, as if he
felt himself personally offended. "This is not at all the kind of
thing for my voyage. It will not do at any price," said my uncle, very
impressively. Having repeated this, several times, he recovered his
balance with some difficulty--for he was rather giddy with looking up
into the sky so long--and walked merrily on.
'The bailie's house was in the Canongate, and my uncle was going to the
other end of Leith Walk, rather better than a mile's journey. On either
side of him, there shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling
houses, with time-stained fronts, and windows that seemed to have shared
the lot of eyes in mortals, and to have grown dim and sunken with
age. Six, seven, eight Storey high, were the houses; storey piled upon
storey, as children build with cards--throwing their dark shadows over
the roughly paved road, and making the dark night darker. A few oil
lamps were scattered at long distances, but they only served to mark
the dirty entrance to some narrow close, or to show where a common stair
communicated, by steep and intricate windings, with the various flats
above. Glancing at all these things with the air of a man who had seen
them too often before, to think them worthy of much notice now, my
uncle walked up the middle of the street, with a thumb in each waistcoat
pocket, indulging from time to time in various snatches of song, chanted
forth with such good-will and spirit, that the quiet honest folk started
from their first sleep and lay trembling in bed till the sound died
away in the distance; when, satisfying themselves that it was only some
drunken ne'er-do-weel finding his way home, they covered themselves up
warm and fell asleep again.
'I am particular in describing how my uncle walked up the middle of the
street, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, gentlemen, because, as
he often used to say (and with great reason too) there is nothing at
all extraordinary in this story, unless you distinctly understand at
the beginning, that he was not by any means of a marvellous or romantic
