gold-laced hat, with a small covered basket under his arm, whom Mr. Bob
Sawyer immediately hailed with, 'Tom, you vagabond, come here.'
The boy presented himself accordingly.
'You've been stopping to "over" all the posts in Bristol, you idle young
scamp!' said Mr. Bob Sawyer.
'No, sir, I haven't,' replied the boy.
'You had better not!' said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with a threatening aspect.
'Who do you suppose will ever employ a professional man, when they see
his boy playing at marbles in the gutter, or flying the garter in the
horse-road? Have you no feeling for your profession, you groveller? Did
you leave all the medicine?' 'Yes, Sir.'
'The powders for the child, at the large house with the new family,
and the pills to be taken four times a day at the ill-tempered old
gentleman's with the gouty leg?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then shut the door, and mind the shop.'
'Come,' said Mr. Winkle, as the boy retired, 'things are not quite so
bad as you would have me believe, either. There is SOME medicine to be
sent out.'
Mr. Bob Sawyer peeped into the shop to see that no stranger was within
hearing, and leaning forward to Mr. Winkle, said, in a low tone--
'He leaves it all at the wrong houses.'
Mr. Winkle looked perplexed, and Bob Sawyer and his friend laughed.
'Don't you see?' said Bob. 'He goes up to a house, rings the area bell,
pokes a packet of medicine without a direction into the servant's hand,
and walks off. Servant takes it into the dining-parlour; master opens
it, and reads the label: "Draught to be taken at bedtime--pills as
before--lotion as usual--the powder. From Sawyer's, late Nockemorf's.
Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared," and all the rest of
it. Shows it to his wife--she reads the label; it goes down to the
servants--THEY read the label. Next day, boy calls: "Very sorry--his
mistake--immense business--great many parcels to deliver--Mr. Sawyer's
compliments--late Nockemorf." The name gets known, and that's the thing,
my boy, in the medical way. Bless your heart, old fellow, it's better
than all the advertising in the world. We have got one four-ounce bottle
that's been to half the houses in Bristol, and hasn't done yet.'
'Dear me, I see,' observed Mr. Winkle; 'what an excellent plan!'
'Oh, Ben and I have hit upon a dozen such,' replied Bob Sawyer, with
great glee. 'The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the
night-bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always
rushes into the church just before the psalms, when the people have
got nothing to do but look about 'em, and calls me out, with horror and
dismay depicted on his countenance. "Bless my soul," everybody says,
"somebody taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf, sent for. What a
business that young man has!"'
At the termination of this disclosure of some of the mysteries of
medicine, Mr. Bob Sawyer and his friend, Ben Allen, threw themselves
back in their respective chairs, and laughed boisterously. When they
had enjoyed the joke to their heart's content, the discourse changed to
topics in which Mr. Winkle was more immediately interested.
We think we have hinted elsewhere, that Mr. Benjamin Allen had a way of
becoming sentimental after brandy. The case is not a peculiar one, as
we ourself can testify, having, on a few occasions, had to deal with
patients who have been afflicted in a similar manner. At this precise
period of his existence, Mr. Benjamin Allen had perhaps a greater
predisposition to maudlinism than he had ever known before; the cause
of which malady was briefly this. He had been staying nearly three weeks
with Mr. Bob Sawyer; Mr. Bob Sawyer was not remarkable for temperance,
nor was Mr. Benjamin Allen for the ownership of a very strong head; the
consequence was that, during the whole space of time just mentioned,
Mr. Benjamin Allen had been wavering between intoxication partial, and
intoxication complete.
'My dear friend,' said Mr. Ben Allen, taking advantage of Mr. Bob
Sawyer's temporary absence behind the counter, whither he had retired
to dispense some of the second-hand leeches, previously referred to; 'my
dear friend, I am very miserable.'
Mr. Winkle professed his heartfelt regret to hear it, and begged to know
whether he could do anything to alleviate the sorrows of the suffering
student.
'Nothing, my dear boy, nothing,' said Ben. 'You recollect Arabella,
Winkle? My sister Arabella--a little girl, Winkle, with black eyes--when
we were down at Wardle's? I don't know whether you happened to notice
her--a nice little girl, Winkle. Perhaps my features may recall her
countenance to your recollection?'
Mr. Winkle required nothing to recall the charming Arabella to his mind;
and it was rather fortunate he did not, for the features of her brother
Benjamin would unquestionably have proved but an indifferent refresher
to his memory. He answered, with as much calmness as he could assume,
that he perfectly remembered the young lady referred to, and sincerely
trusted she was in good health.
'Our friend Bob is a delightful fellow, Winkle,' was the only reply of
Mr. Ben Allen.
'Very,' said Mr. Winkle, not much relishing this close connection of the
two names.
'I designed 'em for each other; they were made for each other, sent into
the world for each other, born for each other, Winkle,' said Mr. Ben
Allen, setting down his glass with emphasis. 'There's a special destiny
in the matter, my dear sir; there's only five years' difference between
'em, and both their birthdays are in August.'
Mr. Winkle was too anxious to hear what was to follow to express much
wonderment at this extraordinary coincidence, marvellous as it was; so
Mr. Ben Allen, after a tear or two, went on to say that, notwithstanding
all his esteem and respect and veneration for his friend, Arabella had
unaccountably and undutifully evinced the most determined antipathy to
his person.
'And I think,' said Mr. Ben Allen, in conclusion. 'I think there's a
prior attachment.'
'Have you any idea who the object of it might be?' asked Mr. Winkle,
with great trepidation.
Mr. Ben Allen seized the poker, flourished it in a warlike manner above
his head, inflicted a savage blow on an imaginary skull, and wound up by
saying, in a very expressive manner, that he only wished he could guess;
that was all.
'I'd show him what I thought of him,' said Mr. Ben Allen. And round went
the poker again, more fiercely than before.
All this was, of course, very soothing to the feelings of Mr. Winkle,
who remained silent for a few minutes; but at length mustered up
resolution to inquire whether Miss Allen was in Kent.
'No, no,' said Mr. Ben Allen, laying aside the poker, and looking very
cunning; 'I didn't think Wardle's exactly the place for a headstrong
girl; so, as I am her natural protector and guardian, our parents being
dead, I have brought her down into this part of the country to spend a
few months at an old aunt's, in a nice, dull, close place. I think that
will cure her, my boy. If it doesn't, I'll take her abroad for a little
while, and see what that'll do.'
'Oh, the aunt's is in Bristol, is it?' faltered Mr. Winkle.
'No, no, not in Bristol,' replied Mr. Ben Allen, jerking his thumb over
his right shoulder; 'over that way--down there. But, hush, here's Bob.
Not a word, my dear friend, not a word.'
Short as this conversation was, it roused in Mr. Winkle the highest
degree of excitement and anxiety. The suspected prior attachment rankled
in his heart. Could he be the object of it? Could it be for him that the
fair Arabella had looked scornfully on the sprightly Bob Sawyer, or had
he a successful rival? He determined to see her, cost what it might;
but here an insurmountable objection presented itself, for whether the
explanatory 'over that way,' and 'down there,' of Mr. Ben Allen, meant
three miles off, or thirty, or three hundred, he could in no wise guess.
But he had no opportunity of pondering over his love just then, for Bob
Sawyer's return was the immediate precursor of the arrival of a meat-pie
from the baker's, of which that gentleman insisted on his staying to
partake. The cloth was laid by an occasional charwoman, who officiated
in the capacity of Mr. Bob Sawyer's housekeeper; and a third knife and
fork having been borrowed from the mother of the boy in the gray livery
(for Mr. Sawyer's domestic arrangements were as yet conducted on a
limited scale), they sat down to dinner; the beer being served up, as
Mr. Sawyer remarked, 'in its native pewter.'
After dinner, Mr. Bob Sawyer ordered in the largest mortar in the shop,
and proceeded to brew a reeking jorum of rum-punch therein, stirring up
and amalgamating the materials with a pestle in a very creditable and
apothecary-like manner. Mr. Sawyer, being a bachelor, had only one
tumbler in the house, which was assigned to Mr. Winkle as a compliment
to the visitor, Mr. Ben Allen being accommodated with a funnel with a
cork in the narrow end, and Bob Sawyer contented himself with one of
those wide-lipped crystal vessels inscribed with a variety of cabalistic
characters, in which chemists are wont to measure out their liquid drugs
in compounding prescriptions. These preliminaries adjusted, the punch
was tasted, and pronounced excellent; and it having been arranged that
Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen should be considered at liberty to fill twice
to Mr. Winkle's once, they started fair, with great satisfaction and
good-fellowship.
There was no singing, because Mr. Bob Sawyer said it wouldn't look
professional; but to make amends for this deprivation there was so much
talking and laughing that it might have been heard, and very likely was,
at the end of the street. Which conversation materially lightened the
hours and improved the mind of Mr. Bob Sawyer's boy, who, instead of
devoting the evening to his ordinary occupation of writing his name on
the counter, and rubbing it out again, peeped through the glass door,
and thus listened and looked on at the same time.
The mirth of Mr. Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious, Mr.
Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had
well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in,
announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer late
Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke up
the party. Mr. Bob Sawyer, understanding the message, after some twenty
repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself, and,
having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and issued
forth. Resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and finding
it quite impossible to engage Mr. Ben Allen in any intelligible
conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other,
Mr. Winkle took his departure, and returned to the Bush.
The anxiety of his mind, and the numerous meditations which Arabella
had awakened, prevented his share of the mortar of punch producing that
effect upon him which it would have had under other circumstances. So,
after taking a glass of soda-water and brandy at the bar, he turned into
the coffee-room, dispirited rather than elevated by the occurrences of
the evening. Sitting in front of the fire, with his back towards him,
was a tallish gentleman in a greatcoat: the only other occupant of the
room. It was rather a cool evening for the season of the year, and the
gentleman drew his chair aside to afford the new-comer a sight of the
fire. What were Mr. Winkle's feelings when, in doing so, he disclosed to
view the face and figure of the vindictive and sanguinary Dowler!
Mr. Winkle's first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest
bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind
Mr. Dowler's head. He had made one step towards it, before he checked
himself. As he did so, Mr. Dowler very hastily drew back.
'Mr. Winkle, Sir. Be calm. Don't strike me. I won't bear it. A blow!
Never!' said Mr. Dowler, looking meeker than Mr. Winkle had expected in
a gentleman of his ferocity.
'A blow, Sir?' stammered Mr. Winkle.
'A blow, Sir,' replied Dowler. 'Compose your feelings. Sit down. Hear
me.'
'Sir,' said Mr. Winkle, trembling from head to foot, 'before I consent
to sit down beside, or opposite you, without the presence of a waiter, I
must be secured by some further understanding. You used a threat against
me last night, Sir, a dreadful threat, Sir.' Here Mr. Winkle turned very
pale indeed, and stopped short.
'I did,' said Dowler, with a countenance almost as white as Mr.
Winkle's. 'Circumstances were suspicious. They have been explained.
I respect your bravery. Your feeling is upright. Conscious innocence.
There's my hand. Grasp it.'
'Really, Sir,' said Mr. Winkle, hesitating whether to give his hand or
not, and almost fearing that it was demanded in order that he might be
taken at an advantage, 'really, Sir, I--'
'I know what you mean,' interposed Dowler. 'You feel aggrieved. Very
natural. So should I. I was wrong. I beg your pardon. Be friendly.
Forgive me.' With this, Dowler fairly forced his hand upon Mr. Winkle,
and shaking it with the utmost vehemence, declared he was a fellow of
extreme spirit, and he had a higher opinion of him than ever.
'Now,' said Dowler, 'sit down. Relate it all. How did you find me? When
did you follow? Be frank. Tell me.'
'It's quite accidental,' replied Mr. Winkle, greatly perplexed by the
