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its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp,

then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the

level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an

incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any

little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less

than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right

in the morning by the best authorities. As no arguments I could urge,

in my bewildered condition, had the least effect upon his modesty

in inducing him to accept my bedroom, I was obliged to make the best

arrangements I could, for his repose before the fire. The mattress of

the sofa (which was a great deal too short for his lank figure), the

sofa pillows, a blanket, the table-cover, a clean breakfast-cloth, and

a great-coat, made him a bed and covering, for which he was more than

thankful. Having lent him a night-cap, which he put on at once, and in

which he made such an awful figure, that I have never worn one since, I

left him to his rest.

I never shall forget that night. I never shall forget how I turned

and tumbled; how I wearied myself with thinking about Agnes and this

creature; how I considered what could I do, and what ought I to do; how

I could come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her

peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If

I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender

eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen

him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague

terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next

room, sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed me with a

leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger.

The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn’t come out. I

thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I

had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so

haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that

I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his

back, with his legs extending to I don’t know where, gurglings taking

place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like

a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered

fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and

could not help wandering in and out every half-hour or so, and taking

another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and

hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky.

When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven!

he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was

going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged

Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my

sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence.

CHAPTER 26. I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY

I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I was

at the coach office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was

he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small

satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered,

mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella

like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while

Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be

friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little

recompense. At the coach window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered

about us without a moment’s intermission, like a great vulture: gorging

himself on every syllable that I said to Agnes, or Agnes said to me.

In the state of trouble into which his disclosure by my fire had thrown

me, I had thought very much of the words Agnes had used in reference to

the partnership. ‘I did what I hope was right. Feeling sure that it

was necessary for papa’s peace that the sacrifice should be made, I

entreated him to make it.’ A miserable foreboding that she would

yield to, and sustain herself by, the same feeling in reference to any

sacrifice for his sake, had oppressed me ever since. I knew how she

loved him. I knew what the devotion of her nature was. I knew from her

own lips that she regarded herself as the innocent cause of his errors,

and as owing him a great debt she ardently desired to pay. I had no

consolation in seeing how different she was from this detestable Rufus

with the mulberry-coloured great-coat, for I felt that in the very

difference between them, in the self-denial of her pure soul and the

sordid baseness of his, the greatest danger lay. All this, doubtless, he

knew thoroughly, and had, in his cunning, considered well.

Yet I was so certain that the prospect of such a sacrifice afar off,

must destroy the happiness of Agnes; and I was so sure, from her manner,

of its being unseen by her then, and having cast no shadow on her yet;

that I could as soon have injured her, as given her any warning of what

impended. Thus it was that we parted without explanation: she waving

her hand and smiling farewell from the coach window; her evil genius

writhing on the roof, as if he had her in his clutches and triumphed.

I could not get over this farewell glimpse of them for a long time. When

Agnes wrote to tell me of her safe arrival, I was as miserable as when

I saw her going away. Whenever I fell into a thoughtful state, this

subject was sure to present itself, and all my uneasiness was sure to be

redoubled. Hardly a night passed without my dreaming of it. It became a

part of my life, and as inseparable from my life as my own head.

I had ample leisure to refine upon my uneasiness: for Steerforth was at

Oxford, as he wrote to me, and when I was not at the Commons, I was

very much alone. I believe I had at this time some lurking distrust of

Steerforth. I wrote to him most affectionately in reply to his, but I

think I was glad, upon the whole, that he could not come to London just

then. I suspect the truth to be, that the influence of Agnes was upon

me, undisturbed by the sight of him; and that it was the more powerful

with me, because she had so large a share in my thoughts and interest.

In the meantime, days and weeks slipped away. I was articled to Spenlow

and Jorkins. I had ninety pounds a year (exclusive of my house-rent

and sundry collateral matters) from my aunt. My rooms were engaged

for twelve months certain: and though I still found them dreary of an

evening, and the evenings long, I could settle down into a state of

equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which I seem, on

looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my

existence. At about this time, too, I made three discoveries: first,

that Mrs. Crupp was a martyr to a curious disorder called ‘the

spazzums’, which was generally accompanied with inflammation of the

nose, and required to be constantly treated with peppermint; secondly,

that something peculiar in the temperature of my pantry, made the

brandy-bottles burst; thirdly, that I was alone in the world, and much

given to record that circumstance in fragments of English versification.

On the day when I was articled, no festivity took place, beyond my

having sandwiches and sherry into the office for the clerks, and going

alone to the theatre at night. I went to see The Stranger, as a Doctors’

Commons sort of play, and was so dreadfully cut up, that I hardly knew

myself in my own glass when I got home. Mr. Spenlow remarked, on this

occasion, when we concluded our business, that he should have been

happy to have seen me at his house at Norwood to celebrate our becoming

connected, but for his domestic arrangements being in some disorder,

on account of the expected return of his daughter from finishing her

education at Paris. But, he intimated that when she came home he should

hope to have the pleasure of entertaining me. I knew that he was a

widower with one daughter, and expressed my acknowledgements.

Mr. Spenlow was as good as his word. In a week or two, he referred to

this engagement, and said, that if I would do him the favour to come

down next Saturday, and stay till Monday, he would be extremely happy.

Of course I said I would do him the favour; and he was to drive me down

in his phaeton, and to bring me back.

When the day arrived, my very carpet-bag was an object of veneration

to the stipendiary clerks, to whom the house at Norwood was a sacred

mystery. One of them informed me that he had heard that Mr. Spenlow

ate entirely off plate and china; and another hinted at champagne being

constantly on draught, after the usual custom of table-beer. The old

clerk with the wig, whose name was Mr. Tiffey, had been down on business

several times in the course of his career, and had on each occasion

penetrated to the breakfast-parlour. He described it as an apartment of

the most sumptuous nature, and said that he had drunk brown East India

sherry there, of a quality so precious as to make a man wink. We had

an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day--about excommunicating a

baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate--and as the

evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a

calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished.

However, we got him excommunicated for six weeks, and sentenced in

no end of costs; and then the baker’s proctor, and the judge, and the

advocates on both sides (who were all nearly related), went out of town

together, and Mr. Spenlow and I drove away in the phaeton.

The phaeton was a very handsome affair; the horses arched their necks

and lifted up their legs as if they knew they belonged to Doctors’

Commons. There was a good deal of competition in the Commons on all

points of display, and it turned out some very choice equipages then;

though I always have considered, and always shall consider, that in my

time the great article of competition there was starch: which I think

was worn among the proctors to as great an extent as it is in the nature

of man to bear.

We were very pleasant, going down, and Mr. Spenlow gave me some hints in

reference to my profession. He said it was the genteelest profession in

the world, and must on no account be confounded with the profession of a

solicitor: being quite another sort of thing, infinitely more exclusive,

less mechanical, and more profitable. We took things much more easily

in the Commons than they could be taken anywhere else, he observed, and

that set us, as a privileged class, apart. He said it was impossible

to conceal the disagreeable fact, that we were chiefly employed by

solicitors; but he gave me to understand that they were an inferior race

of men, universally looked down upon by all proctors of any pretensions.

I asked Mr. Spenlow what he considered the best sort of professional

business? He replied, that a good case of a disputed will, where there

was a neat little estate of thirty or forty thousand pounds, was,

perhaps, the best of all. In such a case, he said, not only were there

very pretty pickings, in the way of arguments at every stage of the

proceedings, and mountains upon mountains of evidence on interrogatory

and counter-interrogatory (to say nothing of an appeal lying, first to

the Delegates, and then to the Lords), but, the costs being pretty sure

to come out of the estate at last, both sides went at it in a lively

and spirited manner, and expense was no consideration. Then, he launched

into a general eulogium on the Commons. What was to be particularly

admired (he said) in the Commons, was its compactness. It was the most

conveniently organized place in the world. It was the complete idea of

snugness. It lay in a nutshell. For example: You brought a divorce case,

or a restitution case, into the Consistory. Very good. You tried it in

the Consistory. You made a quiet little round game of it, among a family

group, and you played it out at leisure. Suppose you were not satisfied

with the Consistory, what did you do then? Why, you went into the

Arches. What was the Arches? The same court, in the same room, with the

same bar, and the same practitioners, but another judge, for there the

Consistory judge could plead any court-day as an advocate. Well, you

played your round game out again. Still you were not satisfied. Very

good. What did you do then? Why, you went to the Delegates. Who were the

Delegates? Why, the Ecclesiastical Delegates were the advocates without

any business, who had looked on at the round game when it was playing in

both courts, and had seen the cards shuffled, and cut, and played, and

had talked to all the players about it, and now came fresh, as judges,

to settle the matter to the satisfaction of everybody! Discontented

people might talk of corruption in the Commons, closeness in the

Commons, and the necessity of reforming the Commons, said Mr. Spenlow

solemnly, in conclusion; but when the price of wheat per bushel had been

highest, the Commons had been busiest; and a man might lay his hand upon

his heart, and say this to the whole world,--‘Touch the Commons, and

down comes the country!’

I listened to all this with attention; and though, I must say, I had my

doubts whether the country was quite as much obliged to the Commons as

Mr. Spenlow made out, I respectfully deferred to his opinion. That

about the price of wheat per bushel, I modestly felt was too much for

my strength, and quite settled the question. I have never, to this hour,

got the better of that bushel of wheat. It has reappeared to annihilate

me, all through my life, in connexion with all kinds of subjects. I

don’t know now, exactly, what it has to do with me, or what right it has

to crush me, on an infinite variety of occasions; but whenever I see my

old friend the bushel brought in by the head and shoulders (as he always

is, I observe), I give up a subject for lost.

This is a digression. I was not the man to touch the Commons, and

bring down the country. I submissively expressed, by my silence, my