'It got us in trouble last time,' said the woman, turning into the
house; 'I woan't have nothin' to say to 'un.'
'Most extraordinary thing I have ever met with in my life,' said the
astonished Mr. Pickwick.
'I--I--really believe,' whispered Mr. Winkle, as his friends gathered
round him, 'that they think we have come by this horse in some dishonest
manner.'
'What!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, in a storm of indignation. Mr. Winkle
modestly repeated his suggestion.
'Hollo, you fellow,' said the angry Mr. Pickwick,'do you think we stole
the horse?'
'I'm sure ye did,' replied the red-headed man, with a grin which
agitated his countenance from one auricular organ to the other. Saying
which he turned into the house and banged the door after him.
'It's like a dream,' ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, 'a hideous dream. The idea
of a man's walking about all day with a dreadful horse that he can't get
rid of!' The depressed Pickwickians turned moodily away, with the
tall quadruped, for which they all felt the most unmitigated disgust,
following slowly at their heels.
It was late in the afternoon when the four friends and their four-footed
companion turned into the lane leading to Manor Farm; and even when
they were so near their place of destination, the pleasure they would
otherwise have experienced was materially damped as they reflected
on the singularity of their appearance, and the absurdity of their
situation. Torn clothes, lacerated faces, dusty shoes, exhausted looks,
and, above all, the horse. Oh, how Mr. Pickwick cursed that horse: he
had eyed the noble animal from time to time with looks expressive of
hatred and revenge; more than once he had calculated the probable
amount of the expense he would incur by cutting his throat; and now the
temptation to destroy him, or to cast him loose upon the world, rushed
upon his mind with tenfold force. He was roused from a meditation on
these dire imaginings by the sudden appearance of two figures at a turn
of the lane. It was Mr. Wardle, and his faithful attendant, the fat boy.
'Why, where have you been?' said the hospitable old gentleman; 'I've
been waiting for you all day. Well, you DO look tired. What! Scratches!
Not hurt, I hope--eh? Well, I AM glad to hear that--very. So you've been
spilt, eh? Never mind. Common accident in these parts. Joe--he's asleep
again!--Joe, take that horse from the gentlemen, and lead it into the
stable.'
The fat boy sauntered heavily behind them with the animal; and the old
gentleman, condoling with his guests in homely phrase on so much of the
day's adventures as they thought proper to communicate, led the way to
the kitchen.
'We'll have you put to rights here,' said the old gentleman, 'and then
I'll introduce you to the people in the parlour. Emma, bring out the
cherry brandy; now, Jane, a needle and thread here; towels and water,
Mary. Come, girls, bustle about.'
Three or four buxom girls speedily dispersed in search of the
different articles in requisition, while a couple of large-headed,
circular-visaged males rose from their seats in the chimney-corner (for
although it was a May evening their attachment to the wood fire appeared
as cordial as if it were Christmas), and dived into some obscure
recesses, from which they speedily produced a bottle of blacking, and
some half-dozen brushes.
'Bustle!' said the old gentleman again, but the admonition was quite
unnecessary, for one of the girls poured out the cherry brandy, and
another brought in the towels, and one of the men suddenly seizing Mr.
Pickwick by the leg, at imminent hazard of throwing him off his balance,
brushed away at his boot till his corns were red-hot; while the other
shampooed Mr. Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, indulging, during the
operation, in that hissing sound which hostlers are wont to produce when
engaged in rubbing down a horse.
Mr. Snodgrass, having concluded his ablutions, took a survey of the
room, while standing with his back to the fire, sipping his cherry
brandy with heartfelt satisfaction. He describes it as a large
apartment, with a red brick floor and a capacious chimney; the ceiling
garnished with hams, sides of bacon, and ropes of onions. The walls were
decorated with several hunting-whips, two or three bridles, a saddle,
and an old rusty blunderbuss, with an inscription below it, intimating
that it was 'Loaded'--as it had been, on the same authority, for half
a century at least. An old eight-day clock, of solemn and sedate
demeanour, ticked gravely in one corner; and a silver watch, of equal
antiquity, dangled from one of the many hooks which ornamented the
dresser.
'Ready?' said the old gentleman inquiringly, when his guests had been
washed, mended, brushed, and brandied.
'Quite,' replied Mr. Pickwick.
'Come along, then;' and the party having traversed several dark
passages, and being joined by Mr. Tupman, who had lingered behind to
snatch a kiss from Emma, for which he had been duly rewarded with sundry
pushings and scratchings, arrived at the parlour door.
'Welcome,' said their hospitable host, throwing it open and stepping
forward to announce them, 'welcome, gentlemen, to Manor Farm.'
CHAPTER VI. AN OLD-FASHIONED CARD-PARTY--THE CLERGYMAN'S VERSES--THE
STORY OF THE CONVICT'S RETURN
Several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet Mr.
Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performance
of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, Mr. Pickwick
had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the characters
and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded--a habit in which
he, in common with many other great men, delighted to indulge.
A very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a personage
than Mr. Wardle's mother--occupied the post of honour on the right-hand
corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of her having been
brought up in the way she should go when young, and of her not having
departed from it when old, ornamented the walls, in the form of samplers
of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal antiquity, and crimson
silk tea-kettle holders of a more modern period. The aunt, the two young
ladies, and Mr. Wardle, each vying with the other in paying zealous and
unremitting attentions to the old lady, crowded round her easy-chair,
one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a
smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and
punching the pillows which were arranged for her support. On the
opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured,
benevolent face--the clergyman of Dingley Dell; and next him sat
his wife, a stout, blooming old lady, who looked as if she were well
skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing home-made
cordials greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of tasting them
occasionally very much to her own. A little hard-headed, Ripstone
pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in one corner;
and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more old ladies,
sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring very hard at
Mr. Pickwick and his fellow-voyagers.
'Mr. Pickwick, mother,' said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice.
'Ah!' said the old lady, shaking her head; 'I can't hear you.'
'Mr. Pickwick, grandma!' screamed both the young ladies together.
'Ah!' exclaimed the old lady. 'Well, it don't much matter. He don't care
for an old 'ooman like me, I dare say.'
'I assure you, ma'am,' said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand,
and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his
benevolent countenance--'I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me
more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family,
and looking so young and well.'
'Ah!' said the old lady, after a short pause: 'it's all very fine, I
dare say; but I can't hear him.'
'Grandma's rather put out now,' said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low
tone; 'but she'll talk to you presently.'
Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age,
and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the
circle.
'Delightful situation this,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Delightful!' echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.
'Well, I think it is,' said Mr. Wardle.
'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir,' said the
hard-headed man with the pippin--face; 'there ain't indeed, sir--I'm
sure there ain't, Sir.' The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round,
as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the
better of him at last.
'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent,' said the hard-headed
man again, after a pause.
''Cept Mullins's Meadows,' observed the fat man solemnly. 'Mullins's
Meadows!' ejaculated the other, with profound contempt.
'Ah, Mullins's Meadows,' repeated the fat man.
'Reg'lar good land that,' interposed another fat man.
'And so it is, sure-ly,' said a third fat man.
'Everybody knows that,' said the corpulent host.
The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in a
minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more. 'What are they
talking about?' inquired the old lady of one of her granddaughters, in
a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she never seemed to
calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing what she said
herself.
'About the land, grandma.'
'What about the land?--Nothing the matter, is there?'
'No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins's
Meadows.'
'How should he know anything about it?'inquired the old lady
indignantly. 'Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said
so.' Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken
above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the
hard-headed delinquent.
'Come, come,' said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change
the conversation, 'what say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?'
'I should like it of all things,' replied that gentleman; 'but pray
don't make up one on my account.'
'Oh, I assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber,' said Mr. Wardle;
'ain't you, mother?'
The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other,
replied in the affirmative.
'Joe, Joe!' said the gentleman; 'Joe--damn that--oh, here he is; put out
the card--tables.'
The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out
two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The
whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady, Mr. Miller and the fat
gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company.
The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and
sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled 'whist'--a
solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of 'game'
has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game
table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to
interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so
much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high
crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman
to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady
in a proportionate degree.
'There!' said the criminal Miller triumphantly, as he took up the odd
trick at the conclusion of a hand; 'that could not have been played
better, I flatter myself; impossible to have made another trick!'
'Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn't he, Sir?' said the
old lady.
Mr. Pickwick nodded assent.
'Ought I, though?' said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his
partner.
'You ought, Sir,' said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice.
'Very sorry,' said the crestfallen Miller.
'Much use that,' growled the fat gentleman.
'Two by honours--makes us eight,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Another hand. 'Can you one?' inquired the old lady.
'I can,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Double, single, and the rub.'
'Never was such luck,' said Mr. Miller.
'Never was such cards,' said the fat gentleman.
A solemn silence; Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat
gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous.
'Another double,' said the old lady, triumphantly making a memorandum of
the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny under
the candlestick.
'A double, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Quite aware of the fact, Sir,' replied the fat gentleman sharply.
Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the
unlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high
personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when
he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour
and twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his
retirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of
a man who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuries
sustained. The old lady's hearing decidedly improved and the unlucky
Miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box.
