Bleak House, No. XI: Electronic Edition.

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870.


Funding from the E. S. P. Das Educational Foundation supported the electronic publication of this title.


Illustrated by  Browne, H. K. (Hablot Knight), 1815-1882
Text transcribed by Apex Data Services, Inc.
Images scanned by Ingrid Pohl
Text encoded by  Apex Data Services, Inc., Andrew Leiter, and Natalia Smith

First edition, 2002
ca. 300 K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,

© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.


Source Description

Title (from title page): Bleak House
Author: Charles Dickens
Extent: 79 p., ill.
London:
Bradbury & Evans, Bouverie Street.
1853
Dickens 21 c.2 (Rare Book Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Encoding Description

Editorial Declarations

The text has been entered using double-keying and verified against the original.
The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 4 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.
Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved. Encountered typographical errors have been preserved, and appear in red type.
Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as ” and “ respectively.
All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as ’ and ‘ respectively.
All em dashes are encoded as —
Indentation in lines has not been preserved.
Running titles have not been preserved.
Spell-check and verification made against printed text using Author/Editor (SoftQuad) and Microsoft Word spell check programs.

Keywords

Languages Used


Revision History


          


Title Page Image
[Title Page Image]

          


[Title Page Verso Image]


No. XI.

JANUARY.

Price 1s.

BLEAK
HOUSE

BY

CHARLES DICKENS.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. K. BROWNE.

LONDON:

BRADBURY & EVANS, BOUVERIE STREET.

AGENTS: J. MENZIES, EDINBURGH; MURRAY AND SON, GLASGOW; J. M'GLASHAN, DUBLIN.
The Author of this Work notifies that it is his intention to reserve the
right of translating it



page verso

WILLIAM S. BURTON'S
GENERAL FURNISHING IRONMONGERY WAREHOUSE

           39, OXFORD STREET,
(CORNER OF NEWMAN STREET);
Nos. 1 & 2, Newman Street; and 4 & 5, Perry's Place, London.

THE BEST SHOW OF IRON BEDSTEADS in the KINGDOM is
WILLIAM S. BURTON'S.

           He has added to his SHOW-ROOMS Two very large ones, which are devoted to the exclusive show of IRON and BRASS BEDSTEADS and CHILDREN'S COTS, with appropriate Bedding and Mattresses. Many of these are quite new, and all are marked in plain figures, at prices proportionate with those that have tended to make his Establishment the most distinguished in this country. Common Iron Bedsteads, 15s. 6d; Portable Folding Bedsteads, from 13s. 6d.; Patent Iron Bedsteads, fitted with dove-tail joints and patent iron sacking, from 19s. 9d.; and Cots from 21s. each. Handsome Ornamental Iron and Brass Bedsteads in great variety, from £3 5s. to £31.

           LAMPS OF ALL SORTS AND PATTERNS,
The largest, as well as the choicest, Assortment in existence of PALMER'S MAGNUM and other LAMPS, CAMPHINE, ARGAND, SOLAR, and MODERATEUR LAMPS, with all the latest Improvements, and of the newest and most recherché patterns in ormulu, Bohemian, and plain glass, or papier mâché, is at WILLIAM S. BURTON'S; and they are arranged in one large room, so that patterns, sizes, and sorts can be instantly selected.

           PALMER'S CANDLES, 7½d. per lb.—PALMER'S PATENT CANDLES, all marked “PALMER.”

          

Single or double wicks 7½d. per lb.
Middle size, three wicks 8½d. per lb.
Magnums, three or four wicks 9d. per lb.
English's Patent Camphine, in scaled cans 4s. 9d. per gallon.
Best French Colza Oil 4s. per gallon.

The Perfect Substitute for Silver.

THE REAL NICKEL SILVER,

           Introduced twenty years ago by WILLIAM S. BURTON, when plated by the patent process of Messrs. Elkington & Co., is beyond all comparison the very best article next to sterling silver that can be employed as such, either usefully or ornamentally, as by no possible test can it be distinguished from real silver.

          

  Fiddle Pattern. Thread or Brunswick Pattern. King's Pattern.
Tea Spoons, per dozen 18s. 23s. 36s.
Dessert Forks 30s. 42s. 58s.
Dessert Spoons 30s. 42s. 62s.
Table Forks 40s. 55s. 70s.
Table Spoons 40s. 55s. 75s.

           Tea and Coffee Sets, Waiters, Candlesticks, &c., at proportionate prices. All kinds of re-plating done by the patent process.

          

CHEMICALLY PURE NICKEL NOT PLATED.

  Fiddle. Thread. King's.
Table Spoons and Forks, full size, per doz. 12s. 28s. 30s.
Dessert Spoons and Forks 10s. 21s. 25s.
Tea Spoons 5s. 11s. 12s.

WILLIAM S. BURTON
HAS TEN LARGE SHOW ROOMS

           (all communicating), exclusive of the shop, devoted solely to the show of
GENERAL FURNISHING IRONMONGERY,
including Cullery, Nickel Silver, Plated, and Japanned Wares, Iron and Brass Bedsteads, so arranged and classified that purchasers may easily and at once make their selections.

           Catalogues, with Engravings, sent (per post) free. The money returned for
every article not approved of.



page 3 Crown 8vo. cloth, 3s. 6d., uniform with the “Pickwick Papers,” &c.,

MR. DICKENS'S CHRISTMAS BOOKS,

           Complete in One Volume; containing,

           A Christmas Carol—The Chimes—The Cricket on the Hearth—

           The Battle of Life—and, The Haunted Man.

           WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY LEECH.

Second Edition, with Corrections and Additions,
3 vols. 8vo, 42s.,

NIEBUHR'S LIFE AND
LETTERS.

           Edited and Translated by SUSANNA WINKWORTH.

           With Essays on his Character and Influence, by the Chevalier BUNSEN and Professors BRANDIS and LOEBELL.

           “One of the most valuable contributions to our biographical literature which has been made in recent times.”—Edinburgh Review.

At all the Libraries, 3 vols, post 8vo.

AGATHA'S HUSBAND.

           A NOVEL.

           By the Author of “OLIVE,” “THE HEAD OF THE
FAMILY,” &c.

2 vols. post 8vo, cloth, 21s.

VILLAGE LIFE IN EGYPT.

           By BAYLE ST. JOHN,
Author of “Adventures in the Libyan Desert.” “Two
Years Residence in a Levantine Family.”

           “An attractive addition to the library of Eastern travel.”—Athenæum.

2 vols. post 8vo,

THE BLITHEDALE
ROMANCE.

           By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,
Author of “The Scarlet Letter,” “The House of the
Seven Gables,” &c.

           “The ‘Blithedale Romance’ is the intellectual exercise of a true poet, of one who is eager to read whatever Nature has to teach, and who has the faculty of uttering in words the spiritual instruction derived from his royal mistress. . . . . The book is overflowing with energy and thought.”—Times.

n fcap. 8vo,

READING for TRAVELLERS,
A New Library of Railway Literature.

           No. 1.—OLD ROADS AND NEW ROADS, 1s.

           No. 2.—MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT, 1s.

           CHEAP EDITION OF THE
Works of Mr. Charles Dickens.

           Uniformly printed in crown 8vo, Corrected and Revised throughout, with new Prefaces by the Author.

           THE PICKWICK PAPERS.

           With a Frontispiece by C. R. LESLIE, R. A. Cloth, 5s.

           NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.

           With a Frontispiece by T. WEBSTER, R.A. Cloth, 5s.

           THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP.

           With a Frontispiece by GEORGE CATTERMOLE. Cloth 4s.

           BARNABY RUDGE.

           With a Frontispiece by H. K. BROWNE. Cloth, 4s.

           MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.

           With a Frontispiece by FRANK STONE. Cloth, 5s.

           OLIVER TWIST.

           With a Frontispiece by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Cloth, 3s. 6d.

           AMERICAN NOTES.

           With a Frontispiece by CLARESON STANFIELD, R. A. Cloth, 2s. 6d.

           SKETCHES BY BOZ.

           With a Frontispiece by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Cloth, 3s. 6d.

           CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

           With a Frontispiece by JOHN LEECH. Cloth, 3s. 6d.

NEW NOVEL. At all the Libraries,

THE FORTUNES OF FRANCIS
CROFT.

           AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

           In 3 vols. post 8vo.

           “To recommend it to general perusal is at once a pleasure to the critic and a duty to the public.”—Observer.

2 vols. post 8vo. cloth, 18s.

THE LIFE OF BERNARD
PALISSY, OF SAINTES;

           His Labours and Discoveries in Art and Science, with an Outline of his Philosophical Doctrines, and Illustrative Selections from his Works.

           By HENRY MORLEY,
Author of “How to make Home unhealthy,” &c.

           “A Masterly full-length of the potter in his habit as he lived—the truth and vividness of actual existence animating every line of the portrait . . . We have not been more interested by a biography for many days.”—Examiner.

RUTH. BY THE AUTHOR OF “MARY BARTON,”

           Is published this day, in Three Vols. post 8vo, and may be had at all the Libraries.

LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.


page [17]

           On January 31st will be published, price One Shilling, the First Number of
HANDLEY CROSS;
OR,
MR. JORROCKS'S HUNT.

           BY THE AUTHOR OF
“MR. SPONGE'S TOUR.”

           Illustrated with Coloured Plates and Numerous Woodcuts by JOHN LEECH
UNIFORMLY WITH “SPONGE'S TOUR.”

           BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET.



page [1]

          


           Mr. Smallweed breaks the pipe of peace.



page [2]

          


           The old man of the name of Tulkinghorn.



page [3] In Weekly Numbers, price 2d., or stamped for post, 3d.; in Monthly Parts, and in Half-Yearly Volumes,

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

           A Weekly Journal, conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.

           DESIGNED FOR THE INSTRUCTION AND AMUSEMENT OF ALL CLASSES OF READERS, AND TO ASSIST
IN THE DISCUSSION OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF THE TIME.

           FIVE VOLUMES are published, price 5s. 6d. each, in cloth boards, and are always on sale.

           A ROUND OF STORIES BY THE CHRISTMAS FIRE.

           Being the Extra Christmas Number of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS” for 1852, and containing the amount of one regular number and a half, price 3d., or stamped 4d., has just been issued. The Christmas Numbers for the years 1850-51, price 2d. each, may still be had.




page 321

CHAPTER XXXIII.
INTERLOPERS.

           Now do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons who attended the last Coroner's Inquest at the Sol's Arms, reappear in the precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly fetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute perquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and write with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note down, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the most intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and horrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be remembered, that some time back a painful sensation was created in the public mind, by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the first floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general marine store-shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits, far advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable coincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be recollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a well-conducted tavern, immediately adjoining the premises in question, on the west side, and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr. James George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible), how during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was observed by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical occurrence which forms the subject of that present account transpired; and which odour was at one time so powerful, that Mr. Swills, a comic vocalist, professionally engaged by Mr. J.G. Bogsby, has himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M. Melvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called Harmonic Assemblies or Meetings, which it would appear are held at the Sol's Arms, under Mr. Bogsby's direction, pursuant to the Act of George the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously affected by the impure state of the atmosphere; his jocose expression, at the time, being, “that he was like an empty post-office, for he hadn't a single note in him.” How this account of Mr. Swills is entirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in the same court, and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins; both of whom observed the fœtid effluvia, and regarded them as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook, the unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more, the two gentlemen, who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy catastrophe, write down on the spot; and the boy population of the court (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's Arm's parlor, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about it.

           The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the ill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued from



page 322 her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a bed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts its door, all night; for any kind of public excitement makes good for the Sol, and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house has not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves, or in brandy and water warm, since the Inquest. The moment the potboy heard what had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his shoulders, and said, “There'll be a run upon us!” In the first outcry, Young Piper dashed off for the fire-engines; and returned in triumph at a jolting gallop, perched up aloft on the Phœnix, and holding on to that fabulous creature with all his might, in the midst of helmets and torches. One helmet remains behind, after careful investigation of all chinks and crannies; and slowly paces up and down before the house, in company with one of the two policemen who have been likewise left in charge thereof. To this trio, everybody in the court, possessed of sixpence, has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid form.

           Mr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol, and are worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains, if they will only stay there. “This is not a time,” says Mr. Bogsby, “to haggle about money,” though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter; “give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever you put a name to.”

           Thus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names to so many things, that in course of time they find it difficult to put a name to anything quite distinctly; though they still relate, to all new comers, some version of the night they have had of it, and of what they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile, one or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing it open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from outer gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well know what they are up to, in there.

           Thus, night pursues its leaden course; finding the court still out of bed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated, still conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little money left it unexpectedly. Thus, night at length with slow-retreating steps departs, and the lamplighter going his rounds, like an executioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire that have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus, the day cometh, whether or no.

           And the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court has been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen drowsily on tables, and the heels that lie prone on hard floors instead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court itself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood waking up, and beginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half-dressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who are far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do to keep the door.

           “Good gracious, gentlemen!” says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. “What's this I hear!”

           “Why, it's true,” returns one of the policemen. “That's what it is. Now move on here, come!”

           “Why, good gracious, gentlemen,” says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat



page 323 promptly backed away, “I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven o'clock, in conversation with the young man who lodges here.”

           “Indeed?” returns the policeman. “You will find the young man next door then. Now move on here, some of you.”

           “Not hurt, I hope?” says Mr. Snagsby.

           “Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!”

           Mr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this, or any other question, in his troubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms, and finds Mr. Weevle languishing over tea and toast; with a considerable expression on him of exhausted excitement, and exhausted tobacco-smoke.

           “And Mr. Guppy likewise!” quoth Mr. Snagsby. “Dear, dear, dear! What a Fate there seems in all this! And my lit—”

           Mr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the words “my little woman.” For, to see that injured female walk into the Sol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the beer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit, strikes him dumb.

           “My dear,” says Mr. Snagsby, when his tongue is loosened, “will you take anything? A little—not to put too fine a point upon it—drop of shrub?”

           “No,” says Mrs. Snagsby.

           “My love, you know these two gentlemen?”

           “Yes!” says Mrs. Snagsby; and in a rigid manner acknowledges their presence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye.

           The devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs. Snagsby by the hand, and leads her aside to an adjacent cask.

           “My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do it.”

           “I can't help my looks,” says Mrs. Snagsby, “and if I could I wouldn't.”

           Mr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins,—“Wouldn't you really, my dear?” and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble, and says, “This is a dreadful mystery, my love!” still fearfully disconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye.

           “It is,” returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, “a dreadful mystery.”

           “My little woman,” urges Mr. Snagsby, in a piteous manner, “don't, for goodness sake, speak to me with that bitter expression, and look at me in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good lord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?”

           “I can't say,” returns Mrs. Snagsby.

           On a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby “can't say,” either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have had something to do with it. He has had something—he don't know what—to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious, that it is possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the present transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his handkerchief, and gasps.

           “My life,” says the unhappy stationer, “would you have any objections to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your conduct, you come into a Wine Vaults before breakfast?”



page 324

           “Why do you come here?” inquires Mrs. Snagsby.

           “My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has happened to the venerable party who has been—combusted.” Mr. Snagsby has made a pause to suppress a groan. “I should then have related them to you, my love, over your French roll.”

           “I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby.”

           “Every—my lit—?”

           “I should be glad,” says Mrs. Snagsby, after contemplating his increased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, “if you would come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than anywhere else.”

           “My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to go.”

           Mr. Snagsby casts his eyes forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs. Weevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with which he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the Sol's Arms. Before night, his doubt whether he may not be responsible for some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of the whole neighbourhood, is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs. Snagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are so great, that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up to justice, and requiring to be cleared, if innocent, and punished with the utmost rigor of the law, if guilty.

           Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into Lincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square, and clear as many of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may.

           “There can be no more favorable time than the present, Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the square, “for a word or two between us, upon a point on which we must, with very little delay, come to an understanding.”

           “Now, I tell you what, William G!” returns the other, eyeing his companion with a bloodshot eye. “If it's a point of conspiracy, you needn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, and I ain't going to have any more. We shall have you taking fire next, or blowing up with a bang.”

           This supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy that his voice quakes, as he says in a moral way, “Tony, I should have thought that what we went through last night, would have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived.” To which Mr. Weevle returns, “William, I should have thought it would have been a lesson to you never to conspire any more as long as you lived.” To which Mr. Guppy says, “Who's conspiring?” To which Mr. Jobling replies, “Why, you are!” To which Mr. Guppy retorts, “No, I am not.” To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, “Yes, you are!” To which Mr. Guppy retorts, “Who says so?” To which Mr. Jobling retorts, “I say so!” To which Mr. Guppy retorts, “Oh, indeed?” To which Mr. Jobling retorts, “Yes, indeed!” And both being now in a heated state, they walk on silently for a while, to cool down again.

           “Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, then, “if you heard your friend out, instead of flying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is hasty, and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all that is calculated to charm the eye—”



page 325

           “Oh! Blow the eye!” cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. “Say what you have got to say!”

           Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of injury in which he recommences:

           “Tony, when I say there is a point on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is professionally arranged beforehand, in all cases that are tried, what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it, or is it not, desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove, on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old Mo— gentleman?” (Mr. Guppy was going to say, Mogul, but thinks gentleman better suited to the circumstances.)

           “What facts? The facts.”

           “The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are—” Mr. Guppy tells them off on his fingers.—“what we knew of his habits; when you saw him last; what his condition was then; the discovery that we made, and how we made it.”

           “Yes,” says Mr. Weevle. “Those are about the facts.”

           “We made the discovery, in consequence of his having, in his eccentric way, an appointment with you for twelve o'clock at night, when you were to explain some writing to him, as you had often done before, on account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with you, was called down—and so forth. The inquiry being only into the circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?”

           “No!” returns Mr. Weevle. “I suppose not.”

           “And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?” says the injured Guppy.

           “No,” returns his friend; “if it's nothing worse than this, I withdraw the observation.”

           “Now, Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again, and walking him slowly on, “I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?”

           “What do you mean?” says Tony, stopping.

           “Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?” repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on again.

           “At what place? That place?” pointing in the direction of the rag and bottle shop.

           Mr. Guppy nods.

           “Why, I wouldn't pass another night there, for any consideration that you could offer me,” says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring.

           “Do you mean it though, Tony?”

           “Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that” says Mr. Weevle, with a very genuine shudder.

           “Then the possibility, or probability—for such it must be considered—of your never being disturbed in possession of those effects, lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no relation in the world; and the certainty of your being able to find out what he really had got stored up there; don't weigh with you at all against last night,



page 326 Tony, if I understand you?” says Mr. Guppy, biting his thumb with the appetite of vexation.

           “Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?” cries Mr. Weevle, indignantly. “Go and live there yourself.”

           “O! I, Tony!” says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. “I have never lived there, and couldn't get a lodging there now; whereas you have got one.”

           “You are welcome to it,” rejoins his friend, “and—ugh!—you may make yourself at home in it.”

           “Then you really and truly at this point,” says Mr. Guppy, “give up the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?”

           “You never,” returns Tony, with a most convincing stedfastness, “said a truer word in all your life. I do!”

           While they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square, on the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to the public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the multitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach stops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs. Smallweed, accompanied by their grand-daughter Judy. An air of haste and excitement pervades the party; and as the tall hat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed the elder pokes his head out of window, and bawls to Mr. Guppy, “How de do, sir! How de do!”

           “What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, I wonder!” says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar.

           “My dear sir,” cries Grandfather Smallweed, “would you do me a favor? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, sir?”

           Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, “the public-house in the court?” And they prepare to bear the venerable burden to the Sol's Arms.

           “There's your fare!” says the Patriarch to the coachman with a fierce grin, and shaking his incapable fist at him. “Ask me for a penny more, and I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't squeeze you tighter than I can help. O Lord! O dear me! O my bones!”

           It is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an apoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of divers croaking sounds, expressive of obstructed respiration, he fulfils his share of the porterage, and the benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlor of the Sol's Arms.

           “O Lord!” gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from an arm-chair. “O dear me! O my bones and back! O my aches and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling poll parrot! Sit down!”

           This little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a propensity on the part of that unlucky old lady, whenever she finds herself on her feet, to amble about, and “set” to inanimate objects, accompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A nervous affection has probably as much to do with these demonstrations, as any imbecile



page 327 intention in the poor old woman; but on the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion with a Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is seated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held her down in it: her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with great volubility, the endearing epithet of “a pig-headed Jackdaw,” repeated a surprising number of times.

           “My dear sir,” Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr. Guppy, “there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either of you?”

           “Heard of it, sir! Why we discovered it.”

           “You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, they discovered it!” The two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the compliment.

           “My dear friends,” whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his hands, “I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother.”

           “Eh?” says Mr. Guppy.

           “Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend—her only relation. We were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never would be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric—he was very eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I have come down,” repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, “to look after the property.”

           “I think, Small,” says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, “you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle.”

           “You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to be the same,” returns that old bird, with a secretly glistening eye. “Besides, I wasn't proud of him.”

           “Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or not,” says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.

           “He never saw me in his life, to know me,” observes Small; “I don't know why I should introduce him, I am sure!”

           “No, he never communicated with us—which is to be deplored,” the old gentleman strikes in; “but I have come to look after the property—to look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don't grow under his feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age.”

           Mrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head, and pipe up, “Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank notes!”

           “Will somebody give me a quart pot?” exclaims her exasperated husband, looking helplessly about him, and finding no missile within his reach. “Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody hand



page 328 me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker!” Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the highest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her grandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin at the old lady with such force as he can muster, and then dropping into his chair in a heap.

           “Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good,” says the voice from within the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. “I have come to look after the property. Shake me up; and call in the police on duty at the next house, to be explained to about the property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch the property!” As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and put him through the usual restorative process of shaking and punching, he still repeats like an echo, “the—the property! The property!—property!”

           Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other; the former as having relinquished the whole affair; the latter with a discomfited countenance, as having entertained some lingering expectations yet. But there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed interest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in the chambers, to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is answerable for its being all correct about the next of kin, and that the papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due time and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert his supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next house, and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks like a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary.

           The arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court, still makes good for the Sol, and keeps the court upon its mettle. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there really is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be made him out of the estate. Young Piper and Young Perkins, as members of that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the foot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump and under the archway, all day long; where wild yells and hootings take place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson enter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that these unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals and non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up “The popular song of KING DEATH! with chorus by the whole strength of the company,” as the great Harmonic feature of the week; and announces in the bill that “J. G. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense, in consequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the bar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a late melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation.” There is one point connected with the deceased, upon which the court is particularly anxious; namely that the fiction of a full-sized coffin should be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the undertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day, that he has received orders to construct “a six-footer,” the general solicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr. Smallweed's conduct does him great honour.

           Out of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable



page 329 excitement too; for men of science and philosophy come to look, and carriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same intent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and phosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence for such deaths, reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown, on English Medical Jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so, and was occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the testimony of Messrs. Foderé and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who would investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a case occurred, and even to write an account of it;—still they regard the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy, in going out of the world by any such byeway, as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the court understands of all this, the more the court likes it; and the greater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms. Then, there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground and figures ready drawn for anything, from a wreck on the Cornish coast to a review in Hyde Park, or a meeting at Manchester,—and in Mrs. Perkins's own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws in upon the block, Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact, considerably larger, making a very Temple of it. Similarly, being permitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts that apartment as three quarters of a mile long, by fifty yards high; at which the court is particularly charmed. All this time, the two gentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house, and assist at the philosophical disputations,—go everywhere, and listen to everybody,—and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour, and writing with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.

           At last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that the coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way, and tells the gentlemen of the Jury, in his private capacity, that “that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't account for!” After which the six-footer comes into action, and is much admired.

           In all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when he gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual, and can only haunt the secret house on the outside; where he has the mortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of bitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings draw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the catastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady Dedlock.

           For which reason, with a sinking heart, and with that hangdog sense of guilt upon him, which dread and watching, enfolded in the Sol's Arms, have produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at the town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening, and requests



page 330 to see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner; don't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage at the door; but he wants to see my lady too.

           Mercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a fellow gentleman in waiting, “to pitch into the young man;” but his instructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the young man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young man in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him.

           Mr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering everywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or wood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it—? No, it's no ghost; but fair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.

           “I have to beg your ladyship's pardon,” Mr. Guppy stammers, very downcast. “This is an inconvenient time——”

           “I told you, you could come at any time.” She takes a chair, looking straight at him as on the last occasion.

           “Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.”

           “You can sit down.” There is not much affability in her tone.

           “I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I mentioned when I had the honor of waiting on your ladyship.”

           “Have you come merely to say so?”

           “Merely to say so, your ladyship.” Mr. Guppy, besides being depressed, disappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the splendour and beauty of her appearance. She knows its influence perfectly; has studied it too well to miss a grain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide, in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts; but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her.

           She will not speak, it is plain. So he must.

           “In short, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy, like a meanly penitent thief, “the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and——” He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence.

           “And the letters are destroyed with the person?”

           Mr. Guppy would say no, if he could—as he is unable to hide.

           “I believe so, your ladyship.”

           If he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he could see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly put him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.

           He falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.

           “Is this all you have to say?” inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard him out—or as nearly out as he can stumble.

           Mr. Guppy thinks that's all.

           “You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me; this being the last time you will have the opportunity.”

           Mr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present, by any means.

           “That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!” and she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy out.



page 331

           But in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old man of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his quiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the handle of the door—comes in—and comes face to face with the young man as he is leaving the room.

           One glance between the old man and the lady; and for an instant the blind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks out. Another instant; close again.

           “I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!”

           “Stay!” She negligently calls him back. “Remain here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!”

           The disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes that Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.

           “Aye, aye?” says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent brows; though he has no need to look again—not he. “From Kenge and Carboy's, surely?”

           “Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.”

           “To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!”

           “Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession.”

           “Thank you, Mr. Guppy!”

           Mr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his old-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her down the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and rubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
A TURN OF THE SCREW.

           “Now, what,” says Mr. George, “may this be? Is it blank cartridge, or ball? A flash in the pan, or a shot?”

           An open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, brings it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them; still, cannot satisfy himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it every now and then, to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won't do. “Is it,” Mr. George still muses, “blank cartridge or ball?”

           Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the distance whitening the targets; softly whistling, in quick-march time, and in drum-and-fife manner, that he must and he will go back again to the girl he left behind him.



page 332

           “Phil!” The trooper beckons as he calls him.

           Phil approaches in his usual way; sidling off at first as if he were going anywhere else, and then bearing down upon his commander like a bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of his brush.

           “Attention, Phil! Listen to this.”

           “Steady, commander, steady.”

           “ ‘Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months’ date, drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become due tomorrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same on presentation. Yours, JOSHUA SMALLWEED.’ — What do you make of that, Phil?”

           “Mischief, guv'ner.”

           “Why?”

           “I think,” replies Phil, after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle in his forehead with the brush-handle, “that mischeevious consequences is always meant when money's asked for.”

           “Lookye, Phil,” says the trooper, sitting on the table. “First and last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal, in interest and one thing and another.”

           Phil intimates, by sidling back a pace or two, with a very unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the transaction as being made more promising by this incident.

           “And lookye further, Phil,” says the trooper, staying his premature conclusions with a wave of his hand. “There has always been an understanding that this bill was to be what they call Renewed. And it has been renewed, no end of times. What do you say now?”

           “I say that I think the times is come to a end at last.”

           “You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself.”

           “Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?”

           “The same.”

           “Guv'ner,” says Phil, with exceeding gravity, “he's a leech in his dispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his twistings, and a lobster in his claws.”

           Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of him, gets back, by his usual series of movements, to the target he has in hand; and vigorously signifies, through his former musical medium, that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George having folded the letter walks in that direction.

           “There is a way, commander,” says Phil, looking cunningly at him, “of settling this.”

           “Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could.”

           Phil shakes his head. “No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There is a way,” says Phil, with a highly artistic turn of his brush—“what I'm a doing at present.”

           “Whitewashing?”

           Phil nods.

           “A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become



page 333 of the Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my old scores? You're a moral character,” says the trooper, eyeing him in his large way with no small indignation, “upon my life you are, Phil!”

           Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush, and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility, and would not so much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family, when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at his master, hobbles up, saying, “Here's the guv'ner, Mrs. Bagnet! Here he is!” and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet, appears.

           The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from another quarter of the globe, in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of the old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no color known in this life, and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a metallic object let into its prow or beak, resembling a little model of a fan-light over a street door, or one of the oval glasses out of a pair of spectacles: which ornamental object has not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article long associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist, and seems to be in need of stays—an appearance that is possibly referable to its having served, through a series of years, at home as a cupboard, and on journeys as a carpet bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her well-proved cloak with its capacious hood; but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing, or to arrest the attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs. Bagnet now arrives, fresh-colored and bright, in George's Shooting Gallery.

           “Well, George, old fellow,” says she, “and how do you do, this sunshiny morning?”

           Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long breath after her walk, and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-wagons, and in other such positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench, unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms, and looks perfectly comfortable.

           Mr. Bagnet, in the mean time, has shaken hands with his old comrade, and with Phil: on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod and smile.

           “Now, George,” says Mrs. Bagnet, briskly, “here we are, Lignum and myself;” she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitæ having been his old regimental



page 334 nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment to the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy; “just looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he'll sign it like a man.”

           “I was coming to you this morning,” observes the trooper, reluctantly.

           “Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out early, and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters, and came to you instead—as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close now, and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what's the matter, George?” asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk. “You don't look yourself.”

           “I am not quite myself,” returns the trooper; “I have been a little put out, Mrs. Bagnet.”

           Her quick bright eye catches the truth directly. “George!” holding up her forefinger. “Don't tell me there's anything wrong about that security of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the children!”

           The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage.

           “George,” says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis, and occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. “If you have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, and if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of being sold up—and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as print—you have done a shameful action, and have deceived us cruelly. I tell you, cruelly, George. There!”

           Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immoveable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his large right hand on the top of his bald head, as if to defend it from a shower-bath, and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet.

           “George!” says that old girl. “I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed of you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have done it! I always knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss; but I never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a hardworking, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta and Woolwich are—and I never did think you would, or could, have had the heart to serve us so. O George!” Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her cloak to wipe her eyes on, in a very genuine manner, “How could you do it?”

           Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if the shower-bath were over, and looks disconsolately at Mr. George; who has turned quite white, and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and straw bonnet.

           “Mat,” says the trooper, in a subdued voice, addressing him, but still looking at his wife; “I am sorry you take it so much to heart, because I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have, this morning, received this letter;” which he reads aloud; “but I hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you say is true. I am a rolling stone; and I never rolled in anybody's way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it's impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family better than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust you'll look upon me as forgivingly as you can. Don't think I've kept anything from you. I haven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour.”



page 335

           “Old girl!” murmurs Mr. Bagnet, after a short silence, “will you tell him my opinion?”

           “Oh! Why didn't he marry,” Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and half crying, “Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he wouldn't have got himself into these troubles.”

           “The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “puts it correct—why didn't you?”

           “Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope,” returns the trooper. “Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, not married to Joe Pouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me. It's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off every morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum wanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe that I'll leave you or yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself first. I only wish,” says the trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, “that I knew of anyone who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores.”

           “Old girl,” murmurs Mr. Bagnet, “give him another bit of my mind.”

           “George,” says the old girl, “you are not so much to be blamed, on full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the means.”

           “And that was like me!” observes the penitent trooper, shaking his head. “Like me, I know.”

           “Silence! The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “is correct—in her way of giving my opinions—hear me out!”

           “That was when you never ought to have asked for the security, George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an honourable and straight-forward fellow, as far as lays in your power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what it's natural in us to be anxious, with such a thing hanging over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and forgive all round!”

           Mrs. Bagnet giving him one of her honest hands, and giving her husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his, and holds them while he speaks.

           “I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together, has gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough here, Phil and I. But the Gallery don't quite do what was expected of it, and it's not—in short, it's not the Mint. It was wrong in me to take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step, and I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself.” With these concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he holds, and, relinquishing them, backs a pace or two, in a broad-chested upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession, and were immediately going to be shot with all military honours.

           “George, hear me out!” says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. “Old girl, go on!”

           Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay; that it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr. Smallweed in person; and that the primary object is to save and hold harmless



page 336 Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George entirely assenting, puts on his hat, and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to the enemy's camp.

           “Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George,” says Mrs. Bagnet, patting him on the shoulder. “I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am sure you'll bring him through it.”

           The trooper returns, that this is kindly said, and that he will bring Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak, basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of her family; and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of mollifying Mr. Smallweed.

           Whether there are two people in England less likely to come satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr. George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet, may be very reasonably questioned. Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are, within the same limits, two more simple and unaccustomed children, in all the Smallweedy affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer to Mrs. Bagnet's late sally.

           “George, you know the old girl—she's as sweet and as mild as milk. But touch her on the children—or myself—and she's off like gunpowder.”

           “It does her credit, Mat!”

           “George,” says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, “the old girl—can't do anything—that don't do her credit. More or less. I never say so. Discipline must be maintained.”

           “She's worth her weight in gold,” returns the trooper.

           “In gold?” says Mr. Bagnet. “I'll tell you what. The old girl's weight—is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight—in any metal—for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's metal is far more precious—than the preciousest metal. And she's all metal!”

           “You are right, Mat!”

           “When she took me—and accepted of the ring—she 'listed under me and the children—heart and head; for life. She's that earnest,” says Mr. Bagnet, “and that true to her colours—that, touch us with a finger—and she turns out—and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires wide—once in a way—at the call of duty—look over it, George. For she's loyal!”

           “Why bless her, Mat!” returns the trooper, “I think the higher of her for it!”

           “You are right!” says Mr. Bagnet, with the warmest enthusiasm, though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. “Think as high of the old girl—as the rock of Gibraltar—and still you'll be thinking low—of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.”

           These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant, and to Grandfather Smallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who, having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favor, but indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there, while she consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred to



page 337 give consent, from the circumstance of her returning with the words on her honey lips “that they can come in if they want to it.” Thus privileged they come in, and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a paper footbath, and Mrs. Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing.

           “My dear friend,” says Grandfather Smallweed, with those two lean, affectionate arms of his stretched forth. “How de do? How de do? Who is our friend, my dear friend?”

           “Why this,” returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at first, “is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, you know.”

           “Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!” The old man looks at him under his hand. “Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air, sir!”

           No chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet, and one for himself. They sit down; Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of bending himself, except at the hips for that purpose.

           “Judy,” says Mr. Smallweed, “bring the pipe.”

           “Why, I don't know,” Mr. George interposes, “that the young woman need give herself that trouble, for, to tell you the truth, I am not inclined to smoke it to-day.”

           “Ain't you?” returns the old man. “Judy, bring the pipe.”

           “The fact is, Mr. Smallweed,” proceeds George, “that I find myself in rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your friend in the city has been playing tricks.”

           “O dear no!” says Grandfather Smallweed. “He never does that!”

           “Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be his doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter.”

           Grandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way, in recognition of the letter.

           “What does it mean?” asks Mr. George.

           “Judy,” says the old man. “Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did you say what does it mean, my good friend?”

           “Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed,” urges the trooper, constraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he can, holding the open letter in one hand, and resting the broad knuckles of the other on his thigh; “a good lot of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly, and to keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning; because here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of the money—”

           “I don't know it, you know,” says the old man, quietly.

           “Why, con-found you—it, I mean—I tell you so; don't I?”

           “Oh, yes, you tell me so,” returns Grandfather Smallweed. “But I don't know it.”

           “Well!” says the trooper, swallowing his fire. “I know it.”

           Mr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, “Ah! that's quite another thing!” And adds, “but it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's situation is all one, whether or no.”



page 338

           The unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair comfortably, and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his own terms.

           “That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too; for, whereas I'm a harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought, that more kicks than half-pence come natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now, Mr. Smallweed,” says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds in this soldierly mode of doing business; “although you and I are good friends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I can't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely.”

           “O dear, you are too modest. You can ask me anything, Mr. George.” (There is an Ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed to-day.)

           “And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!”

           “Ha ha ha!” echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner, and with eyes so particularly green, that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity is much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man.

           “Come!” says the sanguine George, “I am glad to find we can be pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend Bagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend Bagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal, if you'll just mention to him what our understanding is.”

           Here some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, “O good gracious! O!”—unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found to be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin has received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr. Bagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound.

           “But I think you asked me, Mr. George;” old Smallweed, who all this time has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now; “I think you asked me, what did the letter mean?”

           “Why, yes, I did,” returns the trooper, in his off-hand way: “but I don't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant.”

           Mr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's head, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces.

           “That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble you. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!”

           The two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity has now attained its profoundest point.

           “Go to the devil!” repeats the old man. “I'll have no more of your pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon, too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before), and show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend, there's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these blusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!”

           He vociferates this so loudly, that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on the shoulders of his comrade, before the latter can recover from his amazement, gets him on the outside of the street door; which is instantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr. George



page 339 awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect abyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlor window, like a sentry, and looks in, every time he passes; apparently revolving something in his mind.

           “Come, Mat!” says Mr. George, when he has recovered himself, “we must try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?”

           Mr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlor, replies, with one shake of his head directed at the interior, “If my old girl had been here—I'd have told him!” Having so discharged himself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step, and marches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder.

           When they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn is engaged, and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them; for when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell being rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings forth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has nothing to say to them, and they had better not wait. They do wait, however, with the perseverance of military tactics; and at last the bell rings again, and the client in possession comes out of Mr. Tulkinghorn's room.

           The client is a handsome old lady; no other than Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a fair old-fashioned curtsey, and softly shuts the door. She is treated with some distinction there; for the clerk steps out of his pew to show her through the outer office, and to let her out. The old lady is thanking him for his attention, when she observes the comrades in waiting.

           “I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?”

           The clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George not turning round from the almanack over the fire-place, Mr. Bagnet takes upon himself to reply, “Yes, ma'am. Formerly.”

           “I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you, gentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman; but I had a son once who went for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!”

           “Same to you, ma'am!” returns Mr. Bagnet, with right good will.

           There is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's voice, and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But Mr. George is so occupied with the almanack over the fire-place (calculating the coming months by it perhaps), that he does not look round until she has gone away, and the door is closed upon her.

           “George,” Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers, when he does turn from there almanack at last. “Don't be cast down! ‘Why soldiers, why—should we be melancholly boys?’ Cheer up, my hearty!”

           The clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there and Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility, “Let 'em come in then!” they pass into the great room with the painted ceiling, and find him standing before the fire.

           “Now, you men, what do you want? Serjeant, I told you the last time I saw you that I don't desire your company here.”

           Serjeant replies—dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual



page 340 manner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage—that he has received this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has been referred there.

           “I have nothing to say to you,” rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. “If you get into debt, you must pay your debts, or take the consequences. You have no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?”

           Serjeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money.

           “Very well! Then the other man—this man, if this is he—must pay it for you.”

           Serjeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the money either.

           “Very well! Then you must pay it between you, or you must both be sued for it, and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it. You are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence, and escape scot free.”

           The lawyer sits down in his easy chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George hopes he will have the goodness to—

           “I tell you, Serjeant, I have nothing to say to you. I don't like your associates, and don't want you here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice, and is not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs to me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn.”

           “I must make an apology to you, sir,” says Mr. George, “for pressing myself upon you with so little encouragement—which is almost as unpleasant to me as it can be to you; but would you let me say a private word to you?”

           Mr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets, and walks into one of the window recesses. “Now! I have no time to waste.” In the midst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp look at the trooper; taking care to stand with his own back to the light, and to have the other with his face towards it.

           “Well, sir,” says Mr. George, “this man with me is the other party implicated in this unfortunate affair—nominally, only nominally—and my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account. He is a most respectable man with a wife and family; formerly in the Royal Artillery—.”

           “My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal Artillery establishment—officers, men, tumbrils, wagons, horses, guns, and ammunition.”

           “ 'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any other consideration, what you wanted of me the other day.”

           “Have you got it here?”

           “I have got it here, sir.”

           “Serjeant,” the lawyer proceeds in his dry, passionless manner, far more hopeless in the dealing with, than any amount of vehemence, “make up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it. Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you have brought here, if you choose; you can take it away at once, if you choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you—I can replace this



page 341 matter on its old footing, and I can go so far besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded against to the utmost—that your means shall be exhausted before the creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you decided?”

           The trooper puts his hand into his breast, and answers with a long breath, “I must do it, sir.”

           So Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes the undertaking; which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who has all this time been staring at the ceiling, and who puts his hand on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow. “ 'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from him.”

           Look at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression, and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn when he opens and reads the letter! He re-folds it, and lays it in his desk, with a countenance as imperturbable as Death.

           Nor has he anything more to say or do, but to nod once in the same frigid and discourteous manner, and to say briefly, “You can go. Show these men out, there!” Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's residence to dine.

           Boiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former repast of boiled pork and greens; and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal in the same way, and seasons it with the best of temper: being that rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a hint that it might be Better; and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow of Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first Mrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to restore him; but finding those young ladies sensible that their existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry, and leaves him to deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.

           But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr. Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his pipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay, by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.

           Therefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the invigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls “Old girl!” and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter.

           “Why, George!” says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. “How low you are!”

           “Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not.”

           “He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!” cries little Malta.

           “Because he ain't well, I think, mother!” adds Quebec.

           “Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!” returns the trooper, kissing the young damsels. “But it's true,” with a sigh—“true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!”



page 342

           “George,” says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, “if I thought you cross enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife—who could have bitten her tongue off afterwards, and ought to have done it almost—said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you now.”

           “My kind soul of a darling,” returns the trooper. “Not a morsel of it.”

           “Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say, was that I trusted Lignum to you, and was sure you'd bring him through it. And you have brought him through it, noble!”

           “Thank'ee, my dear,” says George. “I am glad of your good opinion.”

           In giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly shake—for she took her seat beside him—the trooper's attention is attracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she plies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in the corner, and beckons that fifer to him.

           “See there, my boy,” says George, very gently smoothing the mother's hair with his hand, “there's a good loving forehead for you! All bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the weather through following your father about and taking care of you, but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree.”

           Mr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies, the highest approbation and acquiescence.

           “The time will come, my boy,” pursues the trooper, “when this hair of your mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and re-crossed with wrinkles—and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, ‘I never whitened a hair of her dear head, I never marked a sorrowful line in her face!’ For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have that by you, Woolwich!”

           Mr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside his mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him, that he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit.

CHAPTER XXXV.
ESTHER'S NARRATIVE.

           I LAY ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life became like an old remembrance. But, this was not the effect of time, so much as of the change in all my habits, made by the helplessness and inaction of a sick room. Before I had been confined to it many days, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance, where there was little or no separation between the various stages of my life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I seemed to have crossed a dark lake, and to have left all my experiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy shore.

           My housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to think that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest of the old duties at Greenleaf, or the summer afternoons when I went home from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish shadow at



page 343 my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before how short life really was, and into how small a space the mind could put it.

           While I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became confused with one another, distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a child, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I was not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each station, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile them. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can quite understand what I mean, or what painful unrest arose from this source.

           For the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my disorder—it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both nights and days in it—when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever striving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in a garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew perfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was in my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew her very well; yet I would find myself complaining “O more of these never-ending stairs, Charley,—more and more—piled up to the sky, I think!” and labouring on again.

           Dare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in great black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry circle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my only prayer was to be taken off from the rest, and when it was such inexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing?

           Perhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious and the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recal them to make others unhappy, or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering them. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions, we might be better able to alleviate their intensity.

           The repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful rest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself, and could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying; with no other emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind—this state can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when I first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and knew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough, that I should see again.

           I had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her calling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her praying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me, and to leave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak, “Never, my sweet girl, never!” and I had over and over again reminded Charley that she was to keep my darling from the room, whether I lived or died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with her little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast.

           But now, my sight strengthening, and the glorious light coming every day more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my dear wrote to me every morning and evening, and could put them to my lips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could see my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two rooms setting every thing in order, and speaking cheerfully to Ada from the open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house, and the thoughtfulness



page 344 it expressed on the part of all those who had always been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of my heart, and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my strength.

           By and by, my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so strange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done for some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little, and so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to myself, and interested, and attached to life again.

           How well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed with pillows for the first time, to enjoy a great tea-drinking with Charley! The little creature—sent into the world, surely, to minister to the weak and sick—was so happy, and so busy, and stopped so often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and fondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so glad! that I was obliged to say, “Charley, if you go on in this way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I was!” So Charley became as quiet as a mouse, and took her bright face here and there, across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into the divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I watched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and the pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its white cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and beautifully arranged for me by Ada down-stairs, was ready at the bed-side, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley that was not new to my thoughts.

           First, I complimented Charley on the room; and indeed, it was so fresh and airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had been lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was brighter than before.

           “Yet, Charley,” said I looking round, “I miss something, surely, that I am accustomed to?”

           Poor little Charley looked round too, and pretended to shake her head, as if there were nothing absent.

           “Are the pictures all as they used to be?” I asked her.

           “Every one of them, miss,” said Charley.

           “And the furniture, Charley?”

           “Except where I have moved it about, to make more room, miss.”

           “And yet,” said I, “I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it is, Charley! It's the looking-glass.”

           Charley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten something, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there.

           I had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could thank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back; and when she came—at first pretending to smile, but as she drew nearer to me, looking grieved—I took her in my arms, and said, “It matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face very well.

           I was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great chair, and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on Charley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too; but what I had to bear, was none the harder to bear for that.

           My guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was now



page 345 no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came one morning; and when he first came in, could only hold me in his embrace, and say, “My dear, dear girl!” I had long known—who could know better!—what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his heart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to fill such a place in it? “O yes!” I thought. “He has seen me, and he loves me better than he did; he has seen me, and is even fonder of me than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!”

           He sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a little while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed it, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there never can be, a pleasanter manner.

           “My little woman,” said he, “what a sad time this has been. Such an inflexible little woman, too, through all!”

           “Only for the best, guardian,” said I.

           “For the best?” he repeated, tenderly. “Of course, for the best. But here have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has your friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has everyone about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has even poor Rick been writing—to me too—in his anxiety for you!”

           I had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him so.

           “Why no, my dear,” he replied. “I have thought it better not to mention it to her.”

           “And you speak of his writing to you,” said I, repeating his emphasis. “As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as if he could write to a better friend!”

           “He thinks he could, my love,” returned my guardian, “and to many a better. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest, while unable to write to you with any hope of an answer—wrote coldly, haughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we must look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has warped him out of himself, and perverted me in his eyes. I have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two angels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their nature.”

           “It has not changed yours, guardian.”

           “Oh yes, it has, my dear,” he said, laughingly. “It has made the south wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and suspects me—goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect me. Hears I have conflicting interests; claims clashing against his, and what not. Whereas, Heaven knows, that if I could get out of the mountains of Wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so long bestowed (which I can't), or could level them by the extinction of my own original right (which I can't, either, and no human power ever can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do it this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature, than be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart and soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the Accountant-General—and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into a pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendant wickedness.”

           “Is it possible, guardian,” I asked, amazed, “that Richard can be suspicious of you?”



page 346

           “Ah, my love, my love,” he said, “it is in the subtle poison of such abuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects lose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not his fault.”

           “But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian.”

           “It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within the influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By little and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed, and it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything around him. But again, I say, with all my soul, we must be patient with poor Rick, and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts, like his, have I seen in my time turned by the same means!”

           I could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that his benevolent disinterested intentions had prospered so little.

           “We must not say so, Dame Durden,” he cheerfully replied; “Ada is the happier, I hope; and that is much. I did think that I and both these young creatures might be friends, instead of distrustful foes, and that we might so far counteract the suit, and prove too strong for it. But it was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of Rick's cradle.”

           “But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach him what a false and wretched thing it is?”

           “We will hope so, my Esther,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “and that it may not teach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There are not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men too, who, if they were thrown into this same court as suitors, would not be vitally changed and depreciated within three years—within two—within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so unfortunate,” here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking aloud, “cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it is. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his interests, and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates, disappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and patience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers after it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well, well, well! Enough of this, my dear!”

           He had supported me, as at first, all this time; and his tenderness was so precious to me, that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and loved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in this little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong, and try to set him right.

           “There are better subjects than these,” said my guardian, “for such a joyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a commission to broach one of them, as soon as I should begin to talk. When shall Ada come to see you, my love?”

           I had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the absent mirrors, but not much; for I knew my loving girl would be changed by no change in my looks.

           “Dear guardian,” said I, “as I have shut her out so long—though indeed, indeed, she is like the light to me——”

           “I know it well, Dame Durden, well.”

           He was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and affection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my heart,



page 347 that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. “Yes, yes, you are tired,” said he. “Rest a little.”

           “As I have kept Ada out so long,” I began afresh after a short while, “I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian. It would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley and I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and if I had a week there, in which to grow stronger and to be revived by the sweet air, and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with me again, I think it would be better for us.”

           I hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used to my altered self, before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so ardently to see; but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was sure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew he would pass it over.

           “Our spoilt little woman,” said my guardian, “shall have her own way even in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears down-stairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry, breathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before, that if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already turned out of it expressly for that purpose, by Heaven and by earth he'll pull it down, and not leave one brick standing on another!”

           And my guardian put a letter in my hand; without any ordinary beginning such as “My dear Jarndyce,” but rushing at once into the words, “I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one o'clock, p.m.,” and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most emphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had quoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less, for laughing heartily over it; and we settled that I should send him a letter of thanks on the morrow, and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable one to me; for of all the places I could have thought of, I should have liked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold.

           “Now, little housewife,” said my guardian, looking at his watch, “I was strictly timed before I came up-stairs, for you must not be tired too soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one other petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were ill, made nothing of walking down here—twenty miles, poor soul, in a pair of dancing shoes—to inquire. It was Heaven's mercy we were at home, or she would have walked back again.”

           The old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it!

           “Now, pet,” said my guardian, “if it would not be irksome to you to admit the harmless little creature one afternoon, before you save Boythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you would make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I—though my eminent name is Jarndyce—could do in a lifetime.”

           I have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image of the poor afflicted creature, that would fall like a gentle lesson on my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not tell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always pitied her; never so much as now. I had always been glad of my



page 348 little power to soothe her under her calamity; but never, never, half so glad before.

           We arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach, and share my early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon my couch, and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such blessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to undergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday, when I had aspired to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could, came back into my mind with a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed, and all the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I were weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the old childish prayer in its old childish words, and found that its old peace had not departed from it.

           My guardian now came every day. In a week or so more, I could walk about our rooms, and hold long talks with Ada from behind the window-curtain. Yet I never saw her; for I had not as yet the courage to look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without her seeing me.

           On the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran into my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and, crying from her very heart of hearts, “My dear Fitz Jarndyce!” fell upon my neck and kissed me twenty times.

           “Dear me!” said she, putting her hand into her reticule, “I have nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a pocket-handkerchief.”

           Charley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it, for she held it to her eyes with both hands, and sat so shedding tears for the next ten minutes.

           “With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce,” she was careful to explain. “Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at having the honor of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I do attend court regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket-handkerchiefs——”

           Miss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the place where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me, and looked unwilling to pursue the suggestion.

           “Ve-ry right!” said Miss Flite, “ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a little—rambling you know,” said Miss Flite, touching her forehead. “Nothing more.”

           “What were you going to tell me?” said I, smiling, for I saw she wanted to go on. “You have roused my curiosity, and now you must gratify it.”

           Miss Flite looked to Charley for advice in this important crisis, who said, “If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then,” and therein gratified Miss Flite beyond measure.

           “So sagacious, our young friend,” said she to me, in her mysterious way. “Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow us down



page 349 the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very ungenteel bonnet——”

           “Jenny, if you please, miss,” said Charley.

           “Just so!” Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. “Jenny. Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend, but that there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz Jarndyce's health, and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little keepsake, merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!”

           “If you please, miss,” said Charley, to whom I looked in some astonishment, “Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the baby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby.”

           “Diminutive,” whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about her own forehead to express intellect in Charley. “But ex-ceedingly sagacious! And so clear! My love, she's clearer than any Counsel I ever heard!”

           “Yes, Charley,” I returned. “I remember it. Well?”

           “Well, miss,” said Charley, “and that's the handkerchief the lady took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away with it herself for a heap of money, but that the lady took it, and left some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please, miss?”

           “Why, who can she be?” said I.

           “My love,” Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear, with her most mysterious look, “in my opinion—don't mention this to our diminutive friend—she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married, you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his lordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the jeweller!”

           I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride, and looked hungry; and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did honor to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else.

           When we had finished, and had our little dessert before us, embellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the superintendence of everything prepared for me to no one; Miss Flite was so very chatty and happy, that I thought I would lead her to her own history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began by saying “You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss Flite?”

           “O many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. Shortly.”

           There was an anxiety even in her hopefulness, that made me doubtful if I had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no more about it.

           “My father expected a Judgment,” said Miss Flite. “My brother. My sister. They all expected a Judgment. The same that I expect.”



page 350

           “They are all——”

           “Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear,” said she.

           As I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable to her by meeting the theme, rather than avoiding it.

           “Would it not be wiser,” said I, “to expect this Judgment no more?”

           “Why, my dear,” she answered promptly, “of course it would!”

           “And to attend the court no more?”

           “Equally of course,” said she. “Very wearing to be always in expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I assure you, to the bone!”

           She slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed.

           “But, my dear,” she went on, in her mysterious way, “there's a dreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our diminutive friend, when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With good reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You can't leave it. And you must expect.”

           I tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently and smilingly, but was ready with her own answer.

           “Aye, aye, aye! You think so, because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years, and I have noticed. It's the Mace and Seal upon the table.”

           What could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her.

           “Draw,” returned Miss Flite. “Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. Cold and glittering devils!”

           She tapped me several times upon the arm, and nodded good-humouredly, as if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to fear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful secrets to me.

           “Let me see,” said she. “I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever drew me—before I had ever seen them—what was it I used to do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business. We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father was drawn—slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years, he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt, without a kind word or a kind look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was drawn to a debtor's prison. There he died. Then our brother was drawn—swiftly—to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill, and in misery; and heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the Monster. And then I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there.”

           Having got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she had spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon her, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance.

           “You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well well! You will, some day. I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the Mace and



page 351 Seal, in these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As my sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge, and the rest of them, say to the new faces, ‘Here's little Miss Flite. O you are new here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!’ Ve-ry good. Proud I am sure to have the honor! And we all laugh. But, Fitz Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do, when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love,” speaking low again, “I saw them beginning in our friend the Ward in Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin.”

           She looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually softening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy, and seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said, politely, as she sipped her glass of wine, “Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I expect a Judgment. Shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, and confer estates.”

           I was much impressed by her allusion to Richard, and by the sad meaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its way through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite complacent again now, and beamed with nods and smiles.

           “But, my dear,” she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon mine. “You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not once, yet!”

           I was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant.

           “My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean the judgment that will dissolve the spell upon me of the Mace and Seal.”

           “Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now,” said I, “that I thought the time for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite.”

           “But, my child,” she returned, “is it possible that you don't know what has happened?”

           “No,” said I.

           “Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce?”

           “No,” said I. “You forget how long I have been here.”

           “True! My dear, for the moment—true. I blame myself. But my memory has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned. Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those East-Indian seas.”

           “Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!”

           “Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave, through everything. Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet, when they got to the land, and blessed him. The whole country rings with it. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you shall read it, you shall read it!”



page 352

           And I did read all the noble history; though very slowly and imperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the words, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down the long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so triumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and gallant deeds; I felt such glowing exultation in his renown; I so admired and loved what he had done; that I envied the storm-worn people who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver. I could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him, in my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that no one—mother, sister, wife—could honor him more than I. I did, indeed!

           My poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when, as the evening began to close in, she rose to take her leave, lest she should miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full of the ship-wreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to understand in all its details.

           “My dear,” said she, as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves, “my brave physician ought to have a Title bestowed upon him. And no doubt he will. You are of that opinion?”

           That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no.

           “Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?” she asked, rather sharply.

           I said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great; unless occasionally, when they consisted of the accumulation of some very large amount of money.

           “Why, good gracious,” said Miss Flite, “how can you say that? Surely you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England, in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every sort, are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and consider. You must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the land!”

           I am afraid she believed what she said; for there were moments when she was very mad indeed.

           And now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to keep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me; and that if he had been richer, he would perhaps have told me that he loved me, before he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done so, I should have been glad of it. But, how much better it was now, that this had never happened! What should I have suffered, if I had had to write to him, and tell him that the poor face he had known as mine was quite gone from me, and that I freely released him from his bondage to one whom he had never seen!

           O, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully spared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all he had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone: no chain for me to break, or for him to drag; and I could go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than he had thought me when I found some favor in his eyes, at the journey's end.



page [1]

NEW SPORTING NEWSPAPER.

           On the 1st of JANUARY will be published, price Sixpence, to be continued Weekly,
The First Number of
THE FIELD,
OR,
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S NEWSPAPER.

           With occasional Illustrations;
DEVOTED ESPECIALLY TO
HUNTING,
RACING,
FISHING,
SHOOTING,
COURSING,
ARCHERY,
YACHTING,
CRICKETING,
FARMING,
GARDENING, AND POULTRY KEEPING;
Agricultural and Health-giving pursuits generally. With a COMPREHENSIVE SUMMARY OF THE WEEK'S NEWS; Law and Police Reports, Lists of Markets, Theatricals, Fashionable Intelligence, Reviews of Books, Veterinary Information, &c. &c.

           The Paper may be obtained through all respectable News Agents throughout the kingdom.

           PUBLISHING OFFICE, 4, BRYDGES STREET, COVENT GARDEN,
Where Advertisements and Communications to the Editor can be addressed.



page [2]

NEW WORKS
PUBLISHED THIS SEASON.

           MR. BARTLETT'S NEW CHRISTMAS BOOK.

           On November 15th, in super-royal 8vo, uniform with the “Nile Boat,”
PICTURES FROM SICILY.

           BY THE AUTHOR OF “FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT,” ETC.

           This work will contain Thirty-one beautiful Vignette Illustrations engraved on Steel, several Woodcuts, and upwards of 200 pages of Letter-press, handsomely printed and bound.

           II.
NEW WORK BY THE REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D.

           EXPOSITORY READINGS on the BOOK of REVELATION.

           EXPOSITIONS OF THE CHAPTER READ, ON SABBATH EVENINGS, IN THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL CHURCH,
CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN.

           Forming a Continuous and Complete Commentary on the Apocalypse.

           III.
MEMORIALS OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY.

           PRESENTING IN A GRAPHIC, COMPACT, AND POPULAR FORM SOME OF THE MEMORABLE EVENTS OF EARLY
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

           By the Rev. J. G. MIALL, author of “Footsteps of our Forefathers.”
In post 8vo, with Illustrations.

           IV.
A Second Series o
PILGRIMAGES TO ENGLISH SHRINES.

           BY MRS. S. C. HALL.

           With Notes and Illustrations by F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A.

           In 8vo, handsomely bound and gilt.

           V.
NEW WORK BY THE AUTHOR OF “MARY POWELL.”

           Ye COLLOQUIES OF EDWARD OSBORNE.

           CITIZEN AND CLOTH WORKER OF LONDON.

           Uniform with “The Household of Sir Thomas More,” &c. In post 8vo, with Frontispiece, &c.,
cloth antique.

           VI.
THE OLD FOREST RANGER;
OR,
WILD SPORTS OF INDIA ON THE NEILGHERRY HILLS, IN THE JUNGLES, AND ON THE PLAINS
BY MAJOR WALTER CAMPBELL, OF SKIPNESS.

           New Edition, in post 8vo, with Illustrations on Steel.

           ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, & CO., 25, PATERNOSTER ROW.

           SOLD BY J. MENZIES, EDINBURGH; J. M'GLASHAN, DUBLIN.



page [20] (ad)

KAYE'S INFANT'S RESTORATIVE.

           THE MOTHER'S BLESSING—THE NURSE'S FRIEND.

           There is scarcely a more interesting sight upon earth than an affectionate mother bending with anxiety over a beloved babe, upon whose tender and delicate frame disease has laid its withering hand. It may be her first or the last born, or it may be one of many; it may be well proportioned, or it may be deformed; no matter—it is her child; and the ordinary pleasures of life become burdensome, and the customary duties of the household are neglected: and all her thoughts and anxieties are directed to this one object, the recovery—the health of her child. With what eagerness does she listen to every piece of advice that is given her by those who are supposed to have experience, and how readily does she apply every remedy that may be recommended, in the earnest hope that her darling may be saved!

           A REMEDY, however, has been devised, which is well worthy the attention of all who desire the health of children. A remedy which, while it is singularly efficacious, is perfectly free from all those stupefying and dangerous ingredients which are so freely dispensed under the name of soothing cordials, and by the use of which many a mistaken mother extinguishes the feeble flame of infant life, while she fondly imagines that she is cherishing and strengthening it.

           This remedy, efficacious, palatable, and even pleasant, to infants and young children, is KAYE'S INFANT'S RESTORATIVE. It contains a combination of agents which cannot fail to remove the causes of all the complaints to which children are subject. It corrects acidity in the stomach, cools and purifies the blood, allays griping or irritation in the bowels, and removes every obstruction from the system. It is peculiarly serviceable during the trying period of teething, in all eruptions of the skin, measles, nettle-rash, chicken-pock, and other diseases of that class; as also hooping-cough, frog, thrush, croup, rickets, slight fevers, convulsions, fits, &c.

           As a proof of its perfect efficacy in obstinate cases of HOOPING-COUGH, the following has just been received:—“A respectable person residing in Worthing, had her children ill with the hooping-cough. After trying several things without doing them any good, she was strongly recommended to try KAYE'S INFANT'S RESTORATIVE. She did so; and, after giving them only three doses, they were quite cured. She is willing that reference should be made to her by any person similarly afflicted.” What mother, that can obtain such a remedy, will endure to see a beloved child torn and tormented by this distressing malady!

           Mothers and attendants are filled with alarm whenever an infant or young child utters the frightful noise peculiar to the CROUP. It is a dangerous symptom. But Mr. James Banns, of Bosbury, Herefordshire, writing to Mr. Kaye on another subject, says, “Having been told of your Infant's Restorative, and having at the same time a child ill with the croup, I purchased a bottle and administered a dose. In the course of an hour afterwards, the child was greatly revived, and at length recovered. In many other families to which I had recommended your medicine, great good has resulted.”

           The period of teething is, generally, one of great pain to infants, and of much anxiety to mothers. In many instances the whole body is disordered, and frightfully convulsed. But Mr. John Freeman, City Missionary, residing in Somers Town, London, writes—“Having given your Infant's Restorative a fair trial, I can confidently recommend it as a most invaluable remedy, especially for the pain to which children are subject during the period of teething. It soothes them, and relieves them from the many irregularities which almost invariably accompany that critical period.”

           Numerous other cases might be given, but as our limited space precludes the possibility, we beg to refer to the number of cases accompanying each bottle.

           Parents and nurses know well how difficult it is to administer medicine to infants in the form of pills or powder; but Kaye's Infant's Restorative is in a convenient form, and may be given with case and perfect safety to the most tender and delicate babe.

           Prepared by JOHN KAYE, Esq., of Dalton-hall, near Huddersfield, and St. John's Wood Park, London; and sold in bottles at 1s. 1½d, 2s. 9d., and 4s. 6d. each, with ample directions for use; in London, at the Wholesale Depot, No. 80, Fleet-street; and by all respectable Medicine Vendors throughout the United Kingdom.

           N.B.—A considerable saving will be effected by purchasing the larger-sized bottles.



page [26] ON JANUARY 1ST, 1853,
Will be Published, in Foolscap Folio Sheets, price 6d each, No. 1 (to be
continued weekly) of

MARSLAND'S
NEW AND ELEGANT
REGISTERED DESIGNS,

           IN
CROCHET, GUIPURE,
LACÊT, AND EMBROIDERY WORK.

Also, on the 1st of JANUARY, 1853, in Demy Quarto, (to be continued
on the 1st of every subsequent month) Part I. price 1s. of

MARSLAND'S MANUAL
OF
CROCHET, GUIPURE,
LACÊT AND EMBROIDERY DESIGNS.

           MARSLAND, SON and Co., have been induced to publish the above works, for the purpose of supplying THE VERY BEST PATTERNS, AT THE LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE.

           Each Part of their “MANUAL” will contain TWELVE NEW AND ORIGINAL DESIGNS, with NOTES and EXPLANATIONS, by Artists of acknowledged talent, PRACTICALLY acquainted with the various branches of work illustrated and who have been engaged by them for this special purpose.

           The various Designs which will appear in the above Works, are secured by MARSLAND, SON and CO., under the “Registration of Designs Act,” 5 and 6 Vict., Cap. 65.

           May be had at ALL BERLIN WOOL DEALERS THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM; and at
BRIDGE MILLS, BLACKFRIARS, MANCHESTER.

           A LIBERAL ALLOWANCE TO THE TRADE