MR. PICKWICK’S CHRISTMAS
 
BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PICKWICKIANS’ CHRISTMAS AT THE MANOR FARM, OF THE ADVENTURES THERE; THE TALE OF THE GOBLIN WHO STOLE A SEXTON, AND OF THE FAMOUS SPORTS ON THE ICE

To begin with nothing and end with something as great as Pickwick is an achievement given to few men to realise. Yet it seems that in this most haphazard way Pickwick was created.

At the age of twenty-three Charles Dickens opened his door in Furnival’s Inn to the managing partner of the firm of “Chapman and Hall.”

The idea then propounded to Dickens was that a monthly publication should be the vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Robert Seymour, an admirable humourist-artist of great popularity. These were to deal with a Nimrod Club and their adventures, fishing, hunting, and so forth, rendered intensely humorous by exposing the lack of experience and dexterity of the members. Dickens was requested to contribute a letter-press vito these pictures, but he objected on the grounds that he was not familiar enough with sports or the sportsman’s life to produce such material and also because the idea was not fresh. He thought the results would be much happier if he wrote more freely of the English people and their customs, and, too, it would be infinitely better were the plates to be inspired by the text. The suggestions were accepted and “I then wrote,” says Dickens, “the first number and from the proofsheets Mr. Seymour made the drawing of the Pickwick Club, producing that happy portrait of the founder by which he was made a reality.”

In March, 1836, the first monthly number of the “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” made its appearance and “... in less than six months from this time the whole reading world was talking about them; the names of Winkle, Wardle, Weller, Snodgrass, Dodson, and Fogg had become familiar in our mouths as household words. ‘Pickwick chintzes’ figured in linen-drapers’ windows, and ‘Weller corduroys’ in breechesmakers’ viiadvertisements; ‘Boz cabs’ might be seen rattling through the streets, and the portrait of the author of Pelham and Crichton was scraped down or pasted over to make room for that of the new popular favourite in the omnibuses.”

It was only natural that a work so launched, with the author pressed for copy for each part, should be lacking in any definite form or plot. Dickens writes in the preface to the original edition:

“The publication of the book in monthly numbers, containing only thirty-two pages in each, rendered it an object of paramount importance that, while the different incidents were linked together by a chain of interest strong enough to prevent their appearing unconnected or impossible, the general design should be so simple as to sustain no injury from this detached and desultory form of publication, extending over no fewer than twenty months. In short, it was necessary—or it appeared so to the author—that every number should be, to a certain extent, complete in viiiitself, and yet that the whole twenty numbers, when collected, should form one tolerably harmonious whole, each leading to the other by a gentle and not unnatural progress of adventure.

“It is obvious that in a work published with a view to such considerations, no artfully interwoven or ingeniously complicated plot can with reason be expected. The author ventures to express a hope that he has successfully surmounted the difficulties of his undertaking. And if it be objected to the Pickwick Papers, that they are a mere series of adventure, in which the scenes are ever changing, and the characters come and go like the men and women we encounter in the real world, he can only content himself with the reflection that they claim to be nothing else, and that the same objection has been made to the works of some of the greatest novelists in the English language.”

The publishers of the present volume felt that the very manner in which “Pickwick” was first issued justifies the separate reprinting of those ixchapters which deal with the Christmas festivities at the Manor farm. Aside from this there is an especial interest attached to the Christmas sentiment contained in these chapters, because it marks the first formal expression of that Christmas feeling to which Dickens afterwards devoted a considerable series of delightful works.

It is perfectly natural that Pickwick should be the character to inspire Dickens to those warm, whole-souled thoughts at a season when our enthusiasm is always more perceptible. A quotation from a preface prepared for an edition of his writings, which was designated in the dedication to John Forster as the best edition of his works, will allow us to realise the importance of Pickwick as such a vehicle. Dickens says:

“It has been observed of Mr. Pickwick, that there is a decided change in his character, as these pages proceed, and that he becomes more good and more sensible. I do not think this change will appear forced or unnatural to my readers, if they will reflect that in real life the xpeculiarities and oddities of a man who has anything whimsical about him generally impress us first, and that it is not until we are better acquainted with him that we usually begin to look below these superficial traits, and to know the better part of him.”

So here at the Manor Farm we find ourselves joining in those wholesome sports and human interests that make these Christmas chapters so contagious. “As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the 22nd of December.” Who can resist such enthusiasm and not feel the purport of these lines.

“And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families whose members have been dispersed and scattered, far and wide, in the restless struggles of life are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight and xione so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations and the rude traditions of the roughest savages alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence provided for the blessed and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken!

“We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped have grown old; the eyes we sought have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday! Happy, happy Christmas, xiithat can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; and transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and quiet home.”

What wonder that the idea to present Pickwick pictorially should appeal to Robert Seymour and inspire that famous plate, “Pickwick addressing the Club”! This is a happy portrait and has fixed for all time the indelible image of its subject upon the world’s mind.

In this matter of pictorial embellishment Dickens’s writings have always held a unique position. Dickens himself preferred to have his works appear unadorned by pictures, but the demand made by his public called into service the most talented pencils from George Cruikshank to Frederick Barnard. Hence, beside the plates for the original editions, we have innumerable engravings for subsequent editions and for special forms of reproduction.

Forster, the biographer of Dickens, informs us xiiithat rarely, if ever, did anything but disappointment await the novelist so far as the illustrations were concerned; a fact easily determined by tracing the dissatisfaction he evinced through his intimate and friendly intercourse with the pictorial interpreters of his text.

The artist of the earlier part of the nineteenth century seldom resorted to the use of the living model in preparing their pictures, and this in no small way accounts for the puppet-like appearance of many of their figures. The only guide was the vivid descriptions of the author, an artist who drew all his inspiration from life.

However, in the early sixties there arose a new school of illustrators who lavished the same care upon the preparation of an illustration as a painter does upon his canvases. The result was a series of pictures filled with human interest,—pictures not relying upon exaggeration of details and facial expression to convey their meaning. The only claim that can be made for the early plates as compared to these later ones is their charm of xivassociation. Work of men such as Frederick Barnard and Charles Green far surpasses technically these earlier productions and gives to us an interpretation more human and living.

In the illustration of the original edition of “Pickwick” we are concerned with three artists, Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Hablôt K. Browne, better known as “Phiz.”

Seymour’s services were prematurely ended by his suicide. His successor, Buss, was also of short duration and evidently not satisfactory to the author or publisher, for there follows a long list of applicants desiring to fill the vacant post, among them Wm. M. Thackeray. In responding to a toast of “Literature,” at the Royal Academy banquet years after, the latter said, “I can remember when Mr. Dickens was a very young man and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works, of which I cannot mention the name but which were coloured light green and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his xvwritings, and I recollect walking up to his chambers with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable. But for that unfortunate blight which came over my artistical existence it would have been my pride and my pleasure to have endeavoured one day to find a place on these walls for one of my performances.” Later he alluded to the rejection of his services as “Mr. Pickwick’s lucky escape.”

In the end Browne was accepted and of all the illustrators of those early editions he is the one par excellence, excepting only Luke Fildes R. A., the illustrator of the first edition of “Edwin Drood.”

When Fildes interviewed Dickens preparatory to taking up this commission, he informed the author that although he appreciated the honour of being selected to illustrate “Edwin Drood,” he felt compelled to forego most reluctantly the pleasure of it if the designs had to be of a comic and wholly humorous nature after the manner of Phiz and his predecessors. He reminded xviDickens that his writings possessed an intensely serious as well as a jocular side and would lend themselves admirably to a graver style of handling. Dickens replied that he was rather tired of having his illustrators consider him entirely as a humourist and caricaturist. While there is a vast difference between “Pickwick” and “Edwin Drood,” yet there is much of serious life depicted in the various escapades of the club, and it is the keen appreciation of this quality that seems to have escaped entirely the earlier artists.

We turn to Charles Green and find in his series of large water-colours one entitled, “The Pickwick Club,” and our intimate friend clothed, not in caricature, but in all the atmosphere of reality, losing thereby none of his jovial and comic characteristics. The real Winkle, the real Snodgrass, the real Tupman, are listening to his address, and the unnatural elements of the first plates have given way to a more suitable form of expression though retaining the quaint humour of the text.

Who does not find here the Pickwick we xviihave always sought—the Pickwick created by Dickens?

The writer has endeavoured to produce in this series of pictures the true atmosphere, human in the blending of the serious and the comic, and to give to them the semblance of reality produced in our minds by the text.

A GOOD-HUMOURED CHRISTMAS CHAPTER, CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF A WEDDING, AND SOME OTHER SPORTS BESIDE, WHICH ALTHOUGH IN THEIR WAY, EVEN AS GOOD CUSTOMS AS MARRIAGE ITSELF, ARE NOT QUITE SO RELIGIOUSLY KEPT UP, IN THESE DEGENERATE TIMES.

As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of December, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his 26friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming.

And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight, and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future state of existence, provided for the blest and happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken!

We write these words now, many miles distant 27from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstance connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday. Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days, that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home!

But we are so taken up, and occupied, with the good qualities of Christmas, who, by the way, is quite a country gentleman of the old 28school, that we are keeping Mr. Pickwick and his friends waiting in the cold, on the outside of the Muggleton coach, which they have just attained, well wrapped up, in great-coats, shawls, and comforters. The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed away, and Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring to insinuate into the fore-boot a huge cod-fish several sizes too large for it, which is snugly packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer of straw over the top, and which has been left to the last, in order that he may repose in safety on the half-dozen barrels of real native oysters, all the property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been arranged in regular order, at the bottom of the receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick’s countenance is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the guard try to squeeze the cod-fish into the boot, first head first, and then tail first, and then top upwards, and then bottom upwards, and then sideways, and then longways, all of which artifices the implacable cod-fish 29sturdily resists, until the guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into the boot, and with him, the head and shoulders of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of the cod-fish, experiences a very unexpected shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters and bystanders. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles with great good humour, and drawing a shilling from his waistcoat pocket, begs the guard, as he picks himself out of the boot, to drink his health in a glass of hot brandy and water, at which, the guard smiles too, and Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, all smile in company. The guard and Mr. Weller disappear for five minutes, most probably to get the hot brandy and water, for they smell very strongly of it, when they return, the coachman mounts to the box, Mr. Weller jumps up behind, the Pickwickians pull their coats round their legs, and their shawls over their noses; the 30helpers pull the horse-cloths off, the coachman shouts out a cheery “All right,” and away they go.

They have rumbled through the streets, and jolted over the stones, and at length reach the wide and open country. The wheels skim over the hard and frosty ground; and the horses, bursting into a canter at a smart crack of the whip, step along the road as if the load behind them, coach, passengers, cod-fish, oyster barrels, and all, were but a feather at their heels. They have descended a gentle slope, and enter upon a level, as compact and dry as a solid block of marble, two miles long. Another crack of the whip, and on they speed, at a smart gallop, the horses tossing their heads and rattling the harness as if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion, while the coachman, holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his forehead, partly because he has a habit of doing it, and 31partly because it’s as well to shew the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as he has. Having done this very leisurely (otherwise the effect would be materially impaired), he replaces his handkerchief, pulls on his hat, adjusts his gloves, squares his elbows, cracks the whip again, and on they speed, more merrily than before.

A few small houses, scattered on either side of the road, betoken the entrance to some town or village. The lively notes of the guard’s key-bugle vibrate in the clear cold air, and wake up the old gentleman inside, who carefully letting down the window-sash half way, and standing sentry over the air, takes a short peep out, and then carefully pulling it up again, informs the other inside that they’re going to change directly; on which the other inside wakes himself up, and determines to postpone his next nap until after the stoppage. Again the bugle sounds lustily forth, and rouses the cottager’s 32wife and children, who peep out at the house-door, and watch the coach till it turns the corner, when they once more crouch round the blazing fire, and throw on another log of wood against father comes home, while father himself, a full mile off, has just exchanged a friendly nod with the coachman, and turned round, to take a good long stare at the vehicle as it whirls away.

And now the bugle plays a lively air as the coach rattles through the ill-paved streets of a country town; and the coachman, undoing the buckle which keeps his ribands together, prepares to throw them off the moment he stops. Mr. Pickwick emerges from his coat collar, and looks about him with great curiosity; perceiving which, the coachman informs Mr. Pickwick of the name of the town, and tells him it was market-day yesterday, both which pieces of information Mr. Pickwick retails to his fellow-passengers, whereupon they emerge from their coat collars too, and look about them also. Mr. 33Winkle, who sits at the extreme edge, with one leg dangling in the air, is nearly precipitated into the street, as the coach twists round the sharp corner by the cheesemonger’s shop, and turns into the market-place; and before Mr. Snodgrass, who sits next to him, has recovered from his alarm, they pull up at the inn yard, where the fresh horses, with cloths on, are already waiting. The coachman throws down the reins and gets down himself, and the other outside passengers drop down also, except those who have no great confidence in their ability to get up again, and they remain where they are, and stamp their feet against the coach to warm them; looking with longing eyes and red noses at the bright fire in the inn bar, and the sprigs of holly with red berries which ornament the window.

34But the guard has delivered at the corn-dealer’s shop, the brown paper packet he took out of the little pouch which hangs over his shoulder by a leathern strap, and has seen the horses carefully put to, and has thrown on the pavement the saddle which was brought from London on the coach-roof, and has assisted in the conference between the coachman and the hostler about the grey mare that hurt her off-fore-leg last Tuesday, and he and Mr. Weller are all right behind, and the coachman is all right in front, and the old gentleman inside, who has kept the window down full two inches all this time, has pulled it up again, and the cloths are off, and they are all ready for starting, except the “two stout gentlemen,” whom the coachman enquires after with some impatience. Hereupon the coachman, and the guard, and Sam Weller, and Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass, and all the hostlers, and every one of the idlers, who are more in number than all the others put together, shout for the missing 35gentleman as loud as they can bawl. A distant response is heard from the yard, and Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman come running down it, quite out of breath, for they have been having a glass of ale a-piece, and Mr. Pickwick’s fingers are so cold that he has been full five minutes before he could find the sixpence to pay for it. The coachman shouts an admonitory “Now, then, gen’lm’n,” the guard re-echoes it—the old gentleman inside, thinks it a very extraordinary thing that people will get down when they know there isn’t time for it—Mr. Pickwick struggles up on one side, Mr. Tupman on the other, Mr. Winkle cries “All right,” and off they start. Shawls are pulled up, coat collars are re-adjusted, the pavement ceases, the houses disappear; and they are once again dashing along the open road, with the fresh clear air blowing in their faces, and gladdening their very hearts within them.

Such was the progress of Mr. Pickwick and his friends by the Muggleton Telegraph, on 36their way to Dingley Dell; and at three o’clock that afternoon, they all stood, high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty, upon the steps of the Blue Lion, having taken on the road quite enough of ale and brandy, to enable them to bid defiance to the frost that was binding up the earth in its iron fetters, and weaving its beautiful net-work upon the trees and hedges. Mr. Pickwick was busily engaged in counting the barrels of oysters, and superintending the disinterment of the cod-fish, when he felt himself gently pulled by the skirts of the coat; and looking round, he discovered that the individual who resorted to this mode of catching his attention, was no other than Mr. Wardle’s favourite page, better known to the readers of this unvarnished history by the distinguishing appellation of the fat boy.

37“Aha!” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Aha!” said the fat boy.

And as he said it, he glanced from the cod-fish to the oyster barrels, and chuckled joyously. He was fatter than ever.

“Well, you look rosy enough, my young friend,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“I’ve been asleep, right in front of the tap-room fire,” replied the fat boy, who had heated himself to the colour of a new chimney-pot, in the course of an hour’s nap. “Master sent me over with the chay-cart, to carry your luggage up to the house. He’d ha’ sent some saddle horses, but he thought you’d rather walk, being a cold day.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Pickwick, hastily, for he remembered how they had travelled over nearly the same ground on a previous occasion. “Yes, we would rather walk. Here, Sam.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Weller.

“Help Mr. Wardle’s servant to put the packages into the cart, and then ride on with him. We will walk forward at once.”

38Having given this direction, and settled with the coachman, Mr. Pickwick and his three friends struck into the footpath across the fields, and walked briskly away, leaving Mr. Weller and the fat boy confronted together for the first time. Sam looked at the fat boy with great astonishment, but without saying a word; and began to stow the things rapidly away in the cart, while the fat boy stood quietly by, and seemed to think it a very interesting sort of thing to see Mr. Weller working by himself.

“There,” said Sam, throwing in the last carpet bag. “There they are.”

“Yes,” said the fat boy, in a very satisfied tone, “there they are.”

“Vell, young twenty stun,” said Sam, “you’re a nice specimen of a prize boy, you are.”

“Thankee,” said the fat boy.

“You ain’t got nothin’ on your mind, as makes you fret yourself, have you?” inquired Sam.

“Not as I knows on,” replied the boy.

39“I should rayther ha’ thought, to look at you, that you was a labourin’ under an unrequited attachment to some young ’ooman,” said Sam.

The fat boy shook his head.

“Vell,” said Sam, “I’m glad to hear it. Do you ever drink anythin’?”

“I likes eating, better,” replied the boy.

“Ah,” said Sam, “I should ha’ s’posed that; but what I mean is, should you like a drop of anythin’ as’d warm you? but I s’pose you never was cold, with all them elastic fixtures, was you?”

“Sometimes,” replied the boy; “and I likes a drop of something, when it’s good.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” said Sam, “come this vay, then.”

The Blue Lion tap was soon gained, and the fat boy swallowed a glass of liquor without so much as winking,—a feat which considerably advanced him in Mr. Weller’s good opinion. Mr. Weller having transacted a similar piece of business on his own account, they got into the cart.

40“Can you drive?” said the fat boy.

“I should rayther think so,” replied Sam.

“There, then,” said the fat boy, putting the reins in his hand, and pointing up a lane, “It’s as straight as you can go; you can’t miss it.”

With these words, the fat boy laid himself affectionately down by the side of the cod-fish, and placing an oyster-barrel under his head for a pillow, fell asleep instantaneously.

“Vell,” said Sam, “of all the cool boys ever I set my eyes on, this here young gen’lm’n is about the coolest. Come, vake up, young dropsy.”

But as young dropsy evinced no symptoms of returning animation, Sam Weller sat himself down in front of the cart, and starting the old horse with a jerk of the rein, jogged steadily on, towards Manor Farm.

Meanwhile, Mr. Pickwick and his friends having walked their blood into active circulation, proceeded cheerfully on; the paths were hard, the grass was crisp and frosty, the air had a fine, dry, bracing coldness, and the rapid approach of 41the grey twilight (slate-coloured is a better term in frosty weather) made them look forward with pleasant anticipation to the comforts which awaited them at their hospitable entertainer’s. It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their great coats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety; and we firmly believe that had Mr. Tupman at that moment proffered “a back,” Mr. Pickwick would have accepted his offer with the utmost avidity.

However, Mr. Tupman did not volunteer any such personal accommodation, and the friends walked on, conversing merrily. As they turned into a lane which they had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before they had even had time to form a guess as to whom they belonged, they walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their arrival—a fact which was first notified to the Pickwickians, by the loud “Hurrah,” which burst from old Wardle’s lips, when they appeared in sight.

42First, there was Wardle himself, looking, if that were possible, more jolly than ever; then there were Bella and her faithful Trundle; and, lastly, there were Emily and some eight or ten young ladies, who had all come down to the wedding which was to take place next day, and were in as happy and important a state as young ladies usually are, on such momentous occasions; and they were, one and all, startling the fields and lanes far and wide with their frolic and laughter.

43

Emily Wardle.

45

The ceremony of introduction, under such circumstances, was very soon performed, or we should rather say that the introduction was soon over, without any ceremony at all; and in two minutes thereafter, Mr. Pickwick was joking with the young ladies who wouldn’t come over the stile while he looked, or who, having pretty feet and unexceptionable ankles, preferred standing on the top-rail for five minutes or so, and declaring that they were too frightened to move, with as much ease and absence of reserve or constraint, as if he had known them for life. It is worthy of remark too, that Mr. Snodgrass offered Emily far more assistance than the absolute terrors of the stile (although it was full three feet high, and 46had only a couple of stepping-stones) would seem to require; while one black-eyed young lady in a very nice little pair of boots with fur round the top, was observed to scream very loudly, when Mr. Winkle offered to help her over.

All this was very snug and pleasant: and when the difficulties of the stile were at last surmounted, and they once more entered on the open field, old Wardle informed Mr. Pickwick how they had all been down in a body to inspect the furniture and fittings-up of the house, which the young couple were to tenant, after the Christmas holidays; at which communication Bella and Trundle both coloured up, as red as the fat boy after the tap-room fire; and the young lady with the black eyes and the fur round the boots, whispered something in Emily’s ear, and then glanced archly at Mr. Snodgrass, to which Emily responded that she was a foolish girl, but turned very red, notwithstanding; and Mr. Snodgrass, who was as modest as all great geniuses usually are, felt the crimson rising to the crown of his head, and 47devoutly wished, in the inmost recesses of his own heart, that the young lady aforesaid, with her black eyes, and her archness, and her boots with the fur round the top, were all comfortably deposited in the adjacent county.

But if they were social and happy, outside the house, what was the warmth and cordiality of their reception when they reached the farm! The very servants grinned with pleasure at sight of Mr. Pickwick: and Emma bestowed a half-demure, half-impudent, and all pretty look of recognition on Mr. Tupman, which was enough to make the statue of Bonaparte in the passage, unfold his arms, and clasp her within them.

The old lady was seated in customary state in the front parlour, but she was rather cross, and by consequence, most particularly deaf. She never went out herself, and like a great many other old ladies of the same stamp, she was apt to consider it an act of domestic treason, if any body else took the liberty of doing what she 48couldn’t. So, bless her old soul, she sat as upright as she could, in her great chair, and looked as fierce as might be—and that was benevolent after all.

“Mother,” said Wardle, “Mr. Pickwick. You recollect him.”

“Never mind,” replied the old lady with great dignity. “Don’t trouble Mr. Pickwick about an old creetur like me. Nobody cares about me now, and it’s very nat’ral they shouldn’t.” Here the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her lavender-coloured silk dress, with trembling hands.

“Come, come, Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, “I can’t let you cut an old friend in this way. I have 49come down expressly to have a long talk, and another rubber with you; and we’ll show these boys and girls how to dance a minuet, before they’re eight-and-forty hours older.”

The old lady was rapidly giving way, but she did not like to do it all at once; so she only said, “Ah! I can’t hear him.”

“Nonsense, mother,” said Wardle. “Come, come, don’t be cross, there’s a good soul. Recollect Bella; come, you must keep her spirits up, poor girl.”

The good old lady heard this, for her lip quivered as her son said it. But age has its little infirmities of temper, and she was not quite brought round yet. So, she smoothed down the lavender-coloured dress again, and turning to Mr. Pickwick said, “Ah, Mr. Pickwick, young people was very different, when I was a girl.”

“No doubt of that, Ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, “and that’s the reason why I would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock,”—and saying this, Mr. Pickwick gently pulled 50Bella towards him, and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her grandmother’s feet. Whether the expression of her countenance, as it was raised towards the old lady’s face, called up a thought of old times, or whether the old lady was touched by Mr. Pickwick’s affectionate good nature, or whatever was the cause, she was fairly melted; so, she threw herself on her grand-daughter’s neck, and all the little ill-humour evaporated in a gush of silent tears.

A happy party they were, that night. Sedate and solemn were the score of rubbers in which Mr. Pickwick and the old lady played together; and uproarious was the mirth of the round table. Long after the ladies had retired, did the hot elder wine, well qualified with brandy and spice, go round, and round, and round again; and sound was the sleep, and pleasant were the dreams that followed. It is a remarkable fact, that those of Mr. Snodgrass bore constant reference to Emily Wardle; and that the principal figure in Mr. 51Winkle’s visions, was a young lady with black eyes, an arch smile, and a pair of remarkably nice boots, with fur round the tops.

Mr. Pickwick was awakened early in the morning, by a hum of voices and pattering of feet, sufficient to rouse even the fat boy from his heavy slumbers. He sat up in bed, and listened. The female servants and female visitors were running constantly to and fro; and there were such multitudinous demands for warm water, such repeated outcries for needles and thread, and so many half-suppressed entreaties of “Oh, do come and tie me, there’s a dear,” that Mr. Pickwick in his innocence began to imagine that something dreadful must have occurred, when he grew more awake, and remembered the wedding. The occasion being an important one, he dressed himself with peculiar care, and descended to the breakfast room.

There were all the female servants in a bran new uniform of pink muslin gowns with white bows in their caps, running about the house in a 52state of excitement and agitation, which it would be impossible to describe. The old lady was dressed out, in a brocaded gown, which had not seen the light for twenty years, saving and excepting such truant rays as had stolen through the chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, during the whole time. Mr. Trundle was in high feather and spirits, but a little nervous withal. The hearty old landlord was trying to look very cheerful and unconcerned, but failing signally in the attempt. All the girls were in tears and white muslin, except a select two or three, who were being honoured with a private view of the bride and bridesmaids, up stairs. All the Pickwickians were in most blooming array; and there was a terrific roaring on the grass in front of the house, occasioned by all the men, boys, and hobbledehoys attached to the farm, each of whom had got a white bow in his buttonhole, and all of whom were cheering with might and main: being incited thereto, and stimulated therein, by the precept and example of Mr. Samuel Weller, who had 53managed to become mighty popular already, and was as much at home as if he had been born on the land.

A wedding is a licensed subject to joke upon, but there really is no great joke in the matter after all; we speak merely of the ceremony, and beg it to be distinctly understood that we indulge in no hidden sarcasm upon a married life. Mixed up with the pleasure and joy of the occasion, are the many regrets at quitting home, the tears of parting between parent and child, the consciousness of leaving the dearest and kindest friends of the happiest portion of human life, to encounter its cares and troubles with others still untried, and little known—natural feelings which we would not render this chapter mournful by describing, and which we should be still more unwilling to be supposed to ridicule.

Let us briefly say, then, that the ceremony was performed by the old clergyman, in the parish church of Dingley Dell, and that Mr. 54Pickwick’s name is attached to the register, still preserved in the vestry thereof; that the young lady with the black eyes signed her name in a very unsteady and tremulous manner; and that Emily’s signature, as the other bridesmaid, is nearly illegible; that it all went off in very admirable style; that the young ladies generally, thought it far less shocking than they expected; and that although the owner of the black eyes and the arch smile informed Mr. Winkle that she was sure she could never submit to anything so dreadful, we have the very best reasons for thinking she was mistaken. To all this, we may add, that Mr. Pickwick was the first who saluted the bride: and that in so doing, he threw over her neck, a rich gold watch and chain, which no mortal eyes but the jeweller’s had ever beheld before. Then the old church bell rang as gaily as it could, and they all returned to breakfast.

“Vere does the mince-pies go, young opium eater?” said Mr. Weller to the fat boy, as he 55assisted in laying out such articles of consumption as had not been duly arranged on the previous night.

The fat boy pointed to the destination of the pies.

“Wery good,” said Sam, “stick a bit o’ Christmas in ’em. T’other dish opposite. There; now ve look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy’s head off, to cure him o’ squintin’.”

As Mr. Weller made the comparison, he fell back a step or two, to give full effect to it, and surveyed the preparations with the utmost satisfaction.

“Wardle,” said Mr. Pickwick, almost as soon as they were all seated, “a glass of wine, in honour of this happy occasion!”

“I shall be delighted, my boy,” said Wardle. “Joe—damn that boy, he’s gone to sleep.”

“No, I ain’t, Sir,” replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys—the immortal Horner—he 56had been devouring a Christmas pie, though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterised that young gentleman’s proceedings.

“Fill Mr. Pickwick’s glass.”

“Yes, sir.”

The fat boy filled Mr. Pickwick’s glass, and then retired behind his master’s chair, from whence he watched the play of the knives and forks, and the progress of the choice morsels, from the dishes, to the mouths of the company, with a kind of dark and gloomy joy that was most impressive.

“God bless you, old fellow,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Same to you, my boy,” replied Wardle; and they pledged each other, heartily.

“Mrs. Wardle,” said Mr. Pickwick, “we old folks must have a glass of wine together, in honour of this joyful event.”

57

Then the old church bell rang ... and they all returned to breakfast.

59The old lady was in a state of great grandeur just then, for she was sitting at the top of the table in her brocaded gown, with her newly-married grand-daughter on one side, and Mr. Pickwick on the other, to do the carving. Mr. Pickwick had not spoken in a very loud tone, but she understood him at once, and drank off a full glass of wine to his long life and happiness; after which the worthy old soul launched forth into a minute and particular account of her own wedding, with a dissertation on the fashion of wearing high-heeled shoes, and some particulars concerning the life and adventures of the beautiful Lady Tollimglower, deceased, at all of which the old lady herself laughed very heartily indeed, and so did the young ladies too, for they were wondering among themselves what on earth grandma was talking about. When they laughed, the old lady laughed ten times more heartily: and said that they always had been considered capital stories, which caused them all to laugh again, and put the old lady into the very best of humours. Then the cake was cut, and passed through the ring; and the young ladies saved pieces to put under their 60pillows to dream of their future husbands on; and a great deal of blushing and merriment was thereby occasioned.

“Mr. Miller,” said Mr. Pickwick to his old acquaintance, the hard-headed gentleman, “a glass of wine?”

“With great satisfaction Mr. Pickwick,” replied the hard-headed gentleman, solemnly.

“You’ll take me in?” said the benevolent old clergyman.

“And me,” interposed his wife.

“And me, and me,” said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the table, who had eaten and drank very heartily, and laughed at every thing.

Mr. Pickwick expressed his heartfelt delight at every additional suggestion; and his eyes beamed with hilarity and cheerfulness.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly rising—

“Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!” said Mr. Weller, in the excitement of his feelings.

61“Call in all the servants,” cried old Wardle, interposing to prevent the public rebuke which Mr. Weller would otherwise most indubitably have received from his master. “Give them a glass of wine each, to drink the toast in. Now, Pickwick.”

Amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women servants, and the awkward embarrassment of the men, Mr. Pickwick proceeded.

“Ladies and gentlemen—no, I won’t say ladies and gentlemen, I’ll call you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so great a liberty”—

Here Mr. Pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear Mr. Pickwick, whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn’t be done by deputy, to which the young lady with the black eyes replied, “Go away”—and accompanied the request 62with a look which said as plainly as a look could do—“if you can.”

“My dear friends,” resumed Mr. Pickwick, “I am going to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom—God bless ’em (cheers and tears). My young friend Trundle, I believe to be a very excellent and manly fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father’s house. (Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish,” added Mr. Pickwick, “I wish I was young enough to be her sister’s husband, (cheers), but, failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride’s father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and I am proud to know him (great uproar). He is a kind, 63excellent, independent-spirited, fine-hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the last two). That his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is, I am persuaded, our united wish. So, let us drink their healths, and wish them prolonged life, and every blessing.”

Mr. Pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under Mr. Weller’s command, brought into active and efficient operation. Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Pickwick; and Mr. Pickwick proposed the old lady. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. Wardle, and Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Snodgrass. One of the poor relations proposed Mr. Tupman, and the other poor relation proposed Mr. Winkle; and all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of both the poor relations beneath 64the table, warned the party that it was time to adjourn.

At dinner they met again, after a five and twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle’s recommendation, to get rid of the effects of the wine at breakfast; the poor relations had lain in bed all day, with the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping.

The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts. Then came the tea and coffee; and then, the ball.

65

A five and twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle’s recommendation.

67The best sitting room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark pannelled room with a high chimney piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens, were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burnt bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth; and merry voices and light-hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels.

If any thing could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick’s appearing without his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends.

“You mean to dance?” said Wardle.

“Of course I do,” replied Mr. Pickwick, “Don’t you see I am dressed for the purpose?” and Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled silk stockings, and smartly tied pumps.

68“You in silk stockings!” exclaimed Mr. Tupman, jocosely.

“And why not Sir—why not?” said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him.

“Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn’t wear them,” responded Mr. Tupman.

“I imagine not Sir—I imagine not,” said Mr. Pickwick in a very peremptory tone.

Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a very pretty pattern.

“I hope they are,” said Mr. Pickwick fixing his eyes upon his friend. “You see nothing extraordinary in these stockings, as stockings, I trust Sir?”

“Certainly not—oh certainly not,” replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away; and Mr. Pickwick’s countenance resumed its customary benign expression.

“We are all ready, I believe,” said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with the old lady at the 69top of the dance, and had already made four false starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence.

“Then begin at once,” said Wardle. “Now.”

Up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went Mr. Pickwick into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands, and a cry of “Stop, stop.”

“What’s the matter?” said Mr. Pickwick, who was only brought to, by the fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other earthly power, if the house had been on fire.

“Where’s Arabella Allen?” said a dozen voices.

“And Winkle!” added Mr. Tupman.

“Here we are!” exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty companion from the corner; and, as he did so, it would have been hard to tell which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black eyes.

“What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle,” said Mr. Pickwick, rather pettishly, “that you couldn’t have taken your place before.”

70“Not at all extraordinary,” said Mr. Winkle.

“Well,” said Mr. Pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes rested on Arabella, “well, I don’t know that it was extraordinary, either, after all.”

However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick—hands across, down the middle to the very end of the room, and half way up the chimney, back again to the door—poussette everywhere—loud stamp on the ground—ready for the next couple—off again—all the figure over once more—another stamp to beat out the time—next couple, and the next, and the next again—never was such going; and at last, after they had reached the bottom of the dance, and full fourteen couple after the old lady had retired in an exhausted state, and the clergyman’s wife had been substituted in her stead, did that gentleman, when there was no demand whatever on his exertions, keep perpetually dancing in his place, to keep time to 71the music, smiling on his partner all the while with a blandness of demeanour which baffles all description.

Long before Mr. Pickwick was weary of dancing, the newly-married couple had retired from the scene. There was a glorious supper down stairs, notwithstanding, and a good long sitting after it; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke, late the next morning, he had a confused recollection of having, severally and confidentially, invited somewhere about five-and-forty people to dine with him at the George and Vulture, the very first time they came to London; which Mr. Pickwick rightly considered a pretty certain indication of his having taken something besides exercise, on the previous night.

“And so your family has games in the kitchen to-night, my dear, has they?” inquired Sam of Emma.

“Yes, Mr. Weller,” replied Emma; “we always have on Christmas eve. Master wouldn’t neglect to keep it up on any account.”

72“Your master’s a wery pretty notion of keepin’ anythin’ up, my dear,” said Mr. Weller; “I never see such a sensible sort of man as he is, or such a reg’lar gen’l’m’n.”

“Oh, that he is!” said the fat boy, joining in the conversation; “don’t he breed nice pork!” and the fat youth gave a semi-cannibalic leer at Mr. Weller, as he thought of the roast legs and gravy.

“Oh, you’ve woke up, at last, have you?” said Sam.

The fat boy nodded.

“I’ll tell you what it is, young boa constructer,” said Mr. Weller, impressively, “if you don’t sleep a little less, and exercise a little more, ven you comes to be a man you’ll lay yourself open to the same sort o’ personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen’lm’n as wore the pig-tail.”

“What did they do to him?” inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice.

“I’m a goin’ to tell you,” replied Mr. Weller; “he was one o’ the largest patterns as was ever 73turned out—reg’lar fat man, as hadn’t caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty years.”

“Lor!” exclaimed Emma.

“No, that he hadn’t, my dear,” said Mr. Weller, “and if you’d put an exact model of his own legs on the dinin’ table afore him, he wouldn’t ha’ known ’em. Well, he always walks to his office with a wery handsome gold watch-chain hanging out, about a foot and a half; and a gold watch in his fob pocket as was worth—I’m afraid to say how much, but as much as a watch can be—a large, heavy, round manufacturer, as stout for a watch, as he was for a man, and with a big face in proportion. ‘You’d better not carry that ’ere watch,’ says the old gen’l’m’n’s friends, ‘you’ll be robbed on it,’ says they. ‘Shall I?’ says he. ‘Yes, will you,’ says they. ‘Vell,’ says he, ‘I should like to see the thief as could get this here watch out, for I’m blessed if I ever can; it’s such a tight fit,’ says he, ‘and venever I vants to know what’s o’clock, I’m obliged to stare into the bakers’ shops,’ he says. Well, then he laughs as 74hearty as if he was a goin’ to pieces, and out he walks agin’ with his powdered head and pig-tail, and rolls down the Strand vith the chain hangin’ out furder than ever, and the great round watch almost bustin’ through his grey kersey smalls. There warn’t a pickpocket in all London as didn’t take a pull at that chain, but the chain ’ud never break, and the watch ’ud never come out, so they soon got tired o’ dragging such a heavy old gen’l’m’n along the pavement, and he’d go home and laugh till the pig-tail wibrated like the penderlum of a Dutch clock. At last, one day the old gen’l’m’n was a rollin’ along, and he sees a pickpocket as he know’d by sight, a-comin’ up, arm in arm vith a little boy vith a wery large head. ‘Here’s a game,’ says the old gen’l’m’n to himself, ‘they’re a goin’ to have another try, but it won’t do.’ So he begins a chucklin’ wery hearty, ven, all of a sudden, the little boy leaves hold of the pickpocket’s arm, and rushes headforemost straight into the old gen’l’m’n’s stomach, and for a moment doubled him right up vith 75the pain. ‘Murder!’ says the old gen’l’m’n. ‘All right, Sir,’ says the pickpocket, a whisperin’ in his ear. And ven he come straight agin’, the watch and chain was gone, and what’s worse than that, the old gen’l’m’n’s digestion was all wrong ever artervards, to the wery last day of his life; so just you look about you, young feller, and take care you don’t get too fat.”

As Mr. Weller concluded this moral tale, with which the fat boy appeared much affected, they all three wended their way to the large kitchen, in which the family were by this time assembled, according to annual custom on Christmas eve, observed by old Wardle’s forefathers from time immemorial.

From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just suspended with his own hands a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which Mr. Pickwick with a gallantry which would have done honour 76to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum. The old lady submitted to this piece of practical politeness with all the dignity which befitted so important and serious a solemnity, but the younger ladies not being so thoroughly imbued with a superstitious veneration of the custom, or imagining that the value of a salute is very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to obtain it, screamed and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened and remonstrated, and did every thing but leave the room, until some of the less adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when they all at once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted to be kissed with a good grace. Mr. Winkle kissed the young lady with the black eyes, and Mr. Snodgrass kissed Emily; and Mr. Weller, not being particular about the form of being under the mistletoe, kissed Emma and the other female servants, just as he caught them. As to the poor relations, they 77kissed everybody, not even excepting the plainer portion of the young-lady visitors, who, in their excessive confusion, ran right under the mistletoe, directly it was hung up, without knowing it! Wardle stood with his back to the fire, surveying the whole scene, with the utmost satisfaction; and the fat boy took the opportunity of appropriating to his own use, and summarily devouring, a particularly fine mince pie, that had been carefully put by, for somebody else.

Now the screaming had subsided, and faces were in a glow and curls in a tangle, and Mr. Pickwick, after kissing the old lady as before-mentioned, was standing under the mistletoe, looking with a very pleased countenance on all that was passing around him, when the young lady with the black eyes, after a little whispering with the other young ladies, made a sudden dart forward, and, putting her arm round Mr. Pickwick’s neck, saluted him affectionately on the left cheek; and before Mr. Pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded 78by the whole body, and kissed by every one of them.

It was a pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick in the centre of the group, now pulled this way, and then that, and first kissed on the chin and then on the nose, and then on the spectacles, and to hear the peals of laughter which were raised on every side; but it was a still more pleasant thing to see Mr. Pickwick, blinded shortly afterwards, with a silk-handkerchief, falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man’s buff, with the utmost relish for the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations; and then had to evade the blind-man himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught just the people whom they thought would like it; and when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When they were all tired of blind-man’s buff, there was a great game at snapdragon, and when fingers enough were burned 79with that, and all the raisins gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look, and a jolly sound, that were perfectly irresistible.

“This,” said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, “this is, indeed, comfort.”

“Our invariable custom,” replied Mr. Wardle. “Everybody sits down with us on Christmas eve, as you see them now—servants and all; and here we wait till the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and wile away the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire.”

Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred, and the deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the furthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.

“Come,” said Wardle, “a song—a Christmas song. I’ll give you one, in default of a better.”

80“Bravo,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Fill up,” cried Wardle. “It will be two hours good, before you see the bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up all round, and now for the song.”

Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, commenced without more ado—

This song was tumultuously applauded, for friends and dependents make a capital audience; and the poor relations especially were in perfect 84extasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassail round.

“How it snows!” said one of the men, in a low tone.

“Snows, does it?” said Wardle.

“Rough, cold night, Sir,” replied the man; “and there’s a wind got up that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud.”

“What does Jem say?” inquired the old lady. “There ain’t any thing the matter, is there?”

“No, no, mother,” replied Wardle; “he says there’s a snow-drift, and a wind that’s piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney.”

“Ah!” said the old lady, “there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect—just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub.”

“The story about what?” said Mr. Pickwick.

85“Oh, nothing—nothing,” replied Wardle. “About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins.”

“Suppose!” ejaculated the old lady. “Is there any body hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven’t you heard ever since you were a child, that he was carried away by the goblins, and don’t you know he was?”

“Very well, mother, he was, if you like,” said Wardle, laughing. “He was carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there’s an end of the matter.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Pickwick, “not an end of it, I assure you; for I must hear how, and why, and all about it.”

Wardle smiled, as every head was bent forward to hear; and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to Mr. Pickwick, and began as follows—

But bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed into! We had 86quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we solemnly declare. So here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new one. A clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, if you please.

THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON

“In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago—so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great grandfathers implicitly believed it—there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the church-yard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world, and I once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, 88and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off a good stiff glass of grog without stopping for breath. But notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow—a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket; and who eyed each merry face as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse for.

“A little before twilight one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old church-yard, for he had got a grave to finish by next morning, and feeling very low he thought it might raise his spirits perhaps, if he went on 89with his work at once. As he wended his way up the ancient street, he saw the cheerful light of the blazing fires gleam through the old casements, and heard the loud laugh and the cheerful shouts of those who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for next day’s good cheer, and smelt the numerous savoury odours consequent thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. All this was gall and wormwood to the heart of Gabriel Grub; and as groups of children bounded out of the houses, tripped across the road, and were met, before they could knock at the opposite door, by half a dozen curly-headed little rascals who crowded round them as they flocked up stairs to spend the evening in their Christmas games, Gabriel smiled grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he thought of measles, scarlet-fever, thrush, hooping-cough, and a good many other sources of consolation beside.

“In this happy frame of mind, Gabriel strode 90along, returning a short, sullen growl to the good-humoured greetings of such of his neighbours as now and then passed him, until he turned into the dark lane which led to the church-yard. Now Gabriel had been looking forward to reaching the dark lane, because it was, generally speaking, a nice gloomy mournful place, into which the towns-people did not much care to go, except in broad daylight, and when the sun was shining; consequently he was not a little indignant to hear a young urchin roaring out some jolly song about a merry Christmas, in this very sanctuary, which had been called Coffin Lane ever since the days of the old abbey, and the time of the shaven-headed monks. As Gabriel walked on, and the voice drew nearer, he found it proceeded from a small boy, who was hurrying along, to join one of the little parties in the old street, and who, partly to keep himself company, and partly to prepare himself for the occasion, was shouting out the song at the highest pitch of his lungs. So Gabriel waited till the boy came up, and then dodged him into a corner, and rapped him over the head with his lantern five or six times, just to teach him to modulate his voice. And as the boy hurried away with his hand to his head, singing quite a different sort of tune, Gabriel Grub chuckled very heartily to himself, and entered the church-yard, locking the gate behind him.

91

As he wended his way up the ancient street he saw the cheerful light of the blazing fires.

93“He took off his coat, set down his lantern, and getting into the unfinished grave, worked at it for an hour or so, with right good-will. But the earth was hardened with the frost, and it was no very easy matter to break it up, and shovel it out; and although there was a moon, it was a very young one, and shed little light upon the grave, which was in the shadow of the church. At any other time, these obstacles would have made Gabriel Grub very moody and miserable, but he was so well pleased with having stopped the small boy’s singing, that he took little heed of the scanty progress he had made, and looked down into the grave when 94he had finished work for the night, with grim satisfaction, murmuring as he gathered up his things—

“‘Ho! ho!’ laughed Gabriel Grub, as he sat himself down on a flat tombstone which was a favourite resting place of his and drew forth his wicker bottle. ‘A coffin at Christmas—a Christmas Box. Ho! ho! ho!’

“‘Ho! ho! ho!’ repeated a voice which sounded close behind him.

“Gabriel paused in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle to his lips, and looked round. The bottom of the oldest grave about him, was not more still and quiet, than the church-yard in the pale moonlight. The cold hoar frost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems among the stone carvings of 95the old church. The snow lay hard and crisp upon the ground, and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover, that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding sheets. Not the faintest rustle broke the profound tranquillity of the solemn scene. Sound itself appeared to be frozen up, all was so cold and still.

“‘It was the echoes,’ said Gabriel Grub, raising the bottle to his lips again.

“‘It was not,’ said a deep voice.

“Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror; for his eyes rested on a form which made his blood run cold.

“Seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange unearthly figure, whom Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world. His long fantastic legs which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare, and his hands rested on his knees. On his 96short round body he wore a close covering, ornamented with small slashes; and a short cloak dangled at his back; the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at the toes into long points. On his head he wore a broad-brimmed sugar loaf hat, garnished with a single feather. The hat was covered with the white frost, and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone very comfortably, for two or three hundred years. He was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up.

“‘It was not the echoes,’ said the goblin.

“Gabriel Grub was paralysed, and could make no reply.

“‘What do you do here on Christmas eve?’ said the goblin, sternly.

“‘I came to dig a grave Sir,’ stammered Gabriel Grub.

97

Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror.

99“‘What man wanders among graves and church-yards on such a night as this?’ said the goblin.

“‘Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!’ screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the church-yard. Gabriel looked fearfully round—nothing was to be seen.

“‘What have you got in that bottle?’ said the goblin.

“‘Hollands, Sir,’ replied the sexton, trembling more than ever; for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that perhaps his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins.

“‘Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a church-yard, on such a night as this?’ said the goblin.

“‘Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!’ exclaimed the wild voices again.

“The goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then raising his voice, exclaimed—

“‘And who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?’

“To this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, 100in a strain that sounded like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty swell of the old church organ—a strain that seemed borne to the sexton’s ears upon a gentle wind, and to die away as its soft breath passed onward—but the burden of the reply was still the same, ‘Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!’

“The goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said, ‘Well, Gabriel, what do you say to this?’

“The sexton gasped for breath.

“‘What do you think of this, Gabriel?’ said the goblin, kicking up his feet in the air on either side the tombstone, and looking at the turned-up points with as much complacency as if he had been contemplating the most fashionable pair of Wellingtons in all Bond Street.

“‘It’s—it’s—very curious, Sir,’ replied the sexton, half dead with fright, ‘very curious, and very pretty, but I think I’ll go back and finish my work, Sir, if you please.’

“‘Work!’ said the goblin, ‘what work?’

101“‘The grave, Sir, making the grave,’ stammered the sexton.

“‘Oh, the grave, eh?’ said the goblin, ‘who makes graves at a time when all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?’

“Again the mysterious voices replied, ‘Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!’

“‘I’m afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,’ said the goblin, thrusting his tongue further into his cheek than ever—and a most astonishing tongue it was—‘I’m afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,’ said the goblin.

“‘Under favour, Sir,’ replied the horror-struck sexton, ‘I don’t think they can, Sir; they don’t know me, Sir, I don’t think the gentlemen have ever seen me, Sir.’

“‘Oh yes they have,’ replied the goblin; ‘we know the man with the sulky face and the grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying spade the tighter. We know the man that struck the boy in the envious 102malice of his heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not. We know him, we know him.’

“Here the goblin gave a loud shrill laugh, that the echoes returned twenty-fold, and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of the tombstone, from whence he threw a summerset with extraordinary agility, right to the sexton’s feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board.

“‘I—I—am afraid I must leave you, Sir,’ said the sexton, making an effort to move.

“‘Leave us!’ said the goblin, ‘Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho! ho!’

“As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed for one instant a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one, poured into 103the church-yard, and began playing at leap-frog with the tombstones, never stopping for an instant to take breath, but overing the highest among them, one after the other, with the most marvellous dexterity. The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper, and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they had been so many street posts.

“At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played quicker and quicker, and the goblins leaped faster and faster, coiling themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, 104and bounding over the tombstones like foot-balls. The sexton’s brain whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes, when the goblin king suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth.

“When Gabriel Grub had had time to fetch his breath, which the rapidity of his descent had for the moment taken away, he found himself in what appeared to be a large cavern, surrounded on all sides by crowds of goblins, ugly and grim; in the centre of the room, on an elevated seat, was stationed his friend of the church-yard; and close beside him stood Gabriel Grub himself, without the power of motion.

“‘Cold to-night,’ said the king of the goblins, ‘very cold. A glass of something warm, here.’

“At this command, half a dozen officious goblins, with a perpetual smile upon their faces, whom Gabriel Grub imagined to be courtiers, on that account, hastily disappeared, and presently 105returned with a goblet of liquid fire, which they presented to the king.

“‘Ah!’ said the goblin, whose cheeks and throat were quite transparent, as he tossed down the flame, ‘This warms one, indeed: bring a bumper of the same, for Mr. Grub.’

“It was in vain for the unfortunate sexton to protest that he was not in the habit of taking anything warm at night; for one of the goblins held him while another poured the blazing liquid down his throat, and the whole assembly screeched with laughter as he coughed and choked, and wiped away the tears which gushed plentifully from his eyes, after swallowing the burning draught.

“‘And now,’ said the king, fantastically poking the taper corner of his sugar-loaf hat into the sexton’s eye, and thereby occasioning him the most exquisite pain—‘And now, show the man of misery and gloom a few of the pictures from our own great storehouse.’

“As the goblin said this, a thick cloud which 106obscured the further end of the cavern, rolled gradually away, and disclosed, apparently at a great distance, a small and scantily furnished, but neat and clean apartment. A crowd of little children were gathered round a bright fire, clinging to their mother’s gown, and gambolling round her chair. The mother occasionally rose, and drew aside the window-curtain as if to look for some expected object; a frugal meal was ready spread upon the table, and an elbow chair was placed near the fire. A knock was heard at the door: the mother opened it, and the children crowded round her, and clapped their hands for joy, as their father entered. He was wet and weary, and shook the snow from his garments, as the children crowded round him, and seizing his cloak, hat, stick, and gloves, with busy zeal, ran with them from the room. Then as he sat down to his meal before the fire, the children climbed about his knee, and the mother sat by his side, and all seemed happiness and comfort.

“But a change came upon the view, almost 107imperceptibly. The scene was altered to a small bed-room, where the fairest and youngest child lay dying; the roses had fled from his cheek, and the light from his eye; and even as the sexton looked upon him with an interest he had never felt or known before, he died. His young brothers and sisters crowded round his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy; but they shrunk back from its touch, and looked with awe on his infant face; for calm and tranquil as it was, and sleeping in rest and peace as the beautiful child seemed to be, they saw that he was dead, and they knew that he was an angel looking down upon, and blessing them, from a bright and happy Heaven.”

Again the light cloud passed across the picture, and again the subject changed. The father and mother were old and helpless now, and the number of those about them was diminished more than half; but content and cheerfulness sat on every face, and beamed in every eye, as they crowded round the fireside, and told and listened 108to old stories of earlier and bygone days. Slowly and peacefully the father sank into the grave, and, soon after, the sharer of all his cares and troubles followed him to a place of rest and peace. The few, who yet survived them, knelt by their tomb, and watered the green turf which covered it with their tears; then rose and turned away, sadly and mournfully, but not with bitter cries, or despairing lamentations, for they knew that they should one day meet again; and once more they mixed with the busy world, and their content and cheerfulness were restored. The cloud settled upon the picture, and concealed it from the sexton’s view.

“‘What do you think of that?’ said the goblin, turning his large face towards Gabriel Grub.

“Gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty, and looked somewhat ashamed, as the goblin bent his fiery eyes upon him.

“‘You a miserable man!’ said the goblin, in a 109tone of excessive contempt. ‘You!’ He appeared disposed to add more, but indignation choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aid, administered a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him without mercy, according to the established and invariable custom of courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty hugs.

“‘Show him some more,’ said the king of the goblins.

“At these words the cloud was again dispelled, and a rich and beautiful landscape was disclosed to view—there is just such another to this day, within half a mile of the old abbey town. The sun shone from out the clear blue sky, the water sparkled beneath his rays, and the trees looked greener, and the flowers more gay, beneath his cheering influence. The water rippled on, with a pleasant sound, the trees rustled in the light 110wind that murmured among their leaves, the birds sang upon the boughs, and the lark carolled on high, her welcome to the morning. Yes, it was morning, the bright, balmy morning of summer; the minutest leaf, the smallest blade of grass, was instinct with life. The ant crept forth to her daily toil, the butterfly fluttered and basked in the warm rays of the sun; myriads of insects spread their transparent wings, and revelled in their brief but happy existence. Man walked forth, elated with the scene; and all was brightness and splendour.

“‘You a miserable man!’ said the king of the goblins, in a more contemptuous tone than before. And again the king of the goblins gave his leg a flourish; again it descended on the shoulders of the sexton; and again the attendant goblins imitated the example of their chief.

111

A rich and beautiful landscape was disclosed to view.

113“Many a time the cloud went and came, and many a lesson it taught to Gabriel Grub, who although his shoulders smarted with pain from the frequent applications of the goblin’s feet thereunto, looked on with an interest which nothing could diminish. He saw that men who worked hard, and earned their scanty bread with lives of labour, were cheerful and happy; and that to the most ignorant, the sweet face of nature was a never-failing source of cheerfulness and joy. He saw those who had been delicately nurtured, and tenderly brought up, cheerful under privations, and superior to suffering, that would have crushed many of a rougher grain, because they bore within their own bosoms the materials of happiness, contentment, and peace. He saw that women, the tenderest and most fragile of all God’s creatures, were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore in their own hearts an inexhaustible wellspring of affection and devotedness. Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a 114very decent and respectable sort of world after all. No sooner had he formed it, than the cloud which had closed over the last picture, seemed to settle on his senses, and lull him to repose. One by one, the goblins faded from his sight, and as the last one disappeared, he sunk to sleep.”

The day had broken when Gabriel Grub awoke, and found himself lying at full length on the flat gravestone in the church-yard, with the wicker bottle lying empty by his side, and his coat, spade, and lantern, all well whitened by the last night’s frost, scattered on the ground. The stone on which he had first seen the goblin seated, stood bolt upright before him, and the grave at which he had worked, the night before, was not far off. At first he began to doubt the reality of his adventures, but the acute pain in his shoulders when he attempted to rise, assured him that the kicking of the goblins was certainly not ideal. He was staggered again, by observing no traces of footsteps in the snow on which the goblins had played at leap-frog with the gravestones, but he 115speedily accounted for this circumstance when he remembered that being spirits, they would leave no visible impression behind them. So Gabriel Grub got on his feet as well as he could, for the pain in his back; and brushing the frost off his coat, put it on, and turned his face towards the town.

But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved. He hesitated for a few moments; and then turned away to wander where he might, and seek his bread elsewhere.

The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle, were found that day in the church-yard. There were a great many speculations about the sexton’s fate at first, but it was speedily determined that he had been carried away by the goblins; and there were not wanting some very credible witnesses who had distinctly seen him whisked through the air on the back of a chestnut horse blind of one eye, with the hind quarters of a lion, 116and the tail of a bear. At length all this was devoutly believed; and the new sexton used to exhibit to the curious for a trifling emolument, a good-sized piece of the church weathercock which had been accidentally kicked off by the aforesaid horse in his aërial flight, and picked up by himself in the church-yard, a year or two afterwards.

“Unfortunately these stories were somewhat disturbed by the unlooked-for reappearance of Gabriel Grub himself, some ten years afterwards, a ragged, contented, rheumatic old man. He told his story to the clergyman, and also to the mayor; and in course of time it began to be received as a matter of history, in which form it has continued down to this very day. The believers in the weathercock tale, having misplaced their confidence once, were not easily prevailed upon to part with it again, so they looked as wise as they could, shrugged their shoulders, touched their foreheads, and murmured something about Gabriel Grub’s having drunk all the Hollands, and then fallen asleep on the flat tombstone; and 117they affected to explain what he supposed he had witnessed in the goblin’s cavern, by saying that he had seen the world, and grown wiser. But this opinion, which was by no means a popular one at any time, gradually died off; and be the matter how it may, as Gabriel Grub was afflicted with rheumatism to the end of his days, this story has at least one moral, if it teach no better one—and that is, that if a man turns sulky and drinks by himself at Christmas time, he may make up his mind to be not a bit the better for it, let the spirits be ever so good, or let them be even as many degrees beyond proof, as those which Gabriel Grub saw, in the goblin’s cavern.”

HOW THE PICKWICKIANS MADE AND CULTIVATED THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A COUPLE OF NICE YOUNG MEN BELONGING TO ONE OF THE LIBERAL PROFESSIONS; HOW THEY DISPORTED THEMSELVES ON THE ICE; AND HOW THEIR VISIT CAME TO A CONCLUSION.

“Well, Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick as that favoured servitor entered his bed-chamber with his warm water, on the morning of Christmas Day, “Still frosty?”

“Water in the wash-hand basin’s a mask o’ ice, Sir,” responded Sam.

“Severe weather, Sam,” observed Mr. Pickwick.

“Fine time for them as is well wropped up, as the Polar Bear said to himself, ven he was practising his skaiting,” replied Mr. Weller.

“I shall be down in a quarter of an hour, Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick, untying his nightcap.

119“Wery good, Sir,” replied Sam. “There’s a couple o’ Sawbones down stairs.”

“A couple of what!” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, sitting up in bed.

“A couple o’ Sawbones,” said Sam.

“What’s a Sawbones?” inquired Mr. Pickwick, not quite certain whether it was a live animal, or something to eat.

“What! don’t you know what a Sawbones is, Sir?” inquired Mr. Weller; “I thought every body know’d as a Sawbones was a Surgeon.”

“Oh, a Surgeon, eh?” said Mr. Pickwick with a smile.

“Just that Sir,” replied Sam. “These here ones as is below, though, ain’t reg’lar thoroughbred Sawbones; they’re only in trainin’.”

“In other words they’re Medical Students, I suppose?” said Mr. Pickwick.

Sam Weller nodded assent.

“I am glad of it,” said Mr. Pickwick, casting his nightcap energetically on the counterpane, “They are fine fellows; very fine fellows, with 120judgments matured by observation and reflection; and tastes refined by reading and study. I am very glad of it.”

“They’re a smokin’ cigars by the kitchen fire,” said Sam.

“Ah!” observed Mr. Pickwick, rubbing his hands, “overflowing with kindly feelings and animal spirits. Just what I like to see!”

“And one on ’em,” said Sam, not noticing his master’s interruption, “one on ’em ’s got his legs on the table, and is a drinkin’ brandy neat, vile the t’other one—him in the barnacles—has got a barrel o’ oysters atween his knees, vich he’s a openin’ like steam, and as fast as he eats ’em, he takes a aim vith the shells at young dropsy, who’s a settin’ down fast asleep, in the chimbley corner.”

“Eccentricities of genius, Sam,” said Mr. Pickwick. “You may retire.”

Sam did retire accordingly; and Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of the quarter of an hour, went down to breakfast.

121“Here he is at last,” said old Wardle. “Pickwick, this is Miss Allen’s brother, Mr. Benjamin Allen—Ben we call him, and so may you if you like. This gentleman is his very particular friend, Mr. ——”

“Mr. Bob Sawyer,” interposed Mr. Benjamin Allen, whereupon Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen laughed in concert.

Mr. Pickwick bowed to Bob Sawyer, and Bob Sawyer bowed to Mr. Pickwick; Bob and his very particular friend then applied themselves most assiduously to the eatables before them; and Mr. Pickwick had an opportunity of glancing at them both.

Mr. Benjamin Allen was a coarse, stout, thickset young man, with black hair cut rather short, and a white face cut rather long. He was 122embellished with spectacles, and wore a white neckerchief. Below his single-breasted black surtout, which was buttoned up to his chin, appeared the usual number of pepper-and-salt coloured legs, terminating in a pair of imperfectly polished boots. Although his coat was short in the sleeves, it disclosed no vestige of a linen wristband; and although there was quite enough of his face to admit of the encroachment of a shirt collar, it was not graced by the smallest approach to that appendage. He presented altogether rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas.

Mr. Bob Sawyer, who was habited in a coarse blue coat, which, without being either greatcoat or surtout, partook of the nature and qualities of both, had about him that sort of slovenly smartness, and swaggering gait, which is peculiar to young gentlemen who smoke in the streets by day, shout and scream in the same by night, call waiters by their christian names, and do various other acts and deeds of an equally facetious 123description. He wore a pair of plaid trousers, and a large rough double-breasted waistcoat; and out of doors, carried a thick stick with a big top. He eschewed gloves, and looked, upon the whole, something like a dissipated Robinson Crusoe.

Such were the two worthies to whom Mr. Pickwick was introduced, as he took his seat at the breakfast table on Christmas morning.

“Splendid morning, gentlemen,” said Mr. Pickwick.

Mr. Bob Sawyer slightly nodded his assent to the proposition, and asked Mr. Benjamin Allen for the mustard.

“Have you come far this morning, gentlemen?” inquired Mr. Pickwick.

“Blue Lion at Muggleton,” briefly responded Mr. Allen.

“You should have joined us last night,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“So we should,” replied Bob Sawyer, “but the brandy was too good to leave in a hurry: wasn’t it, Ben?”

124“Certainly,” said Mr. Benjamin Allen; “and the cigars were not bad, or the pork chops either: were they, Bob?”

“Decidedly not,” said Bob. And the particular friends resumed their attack upon the breakfast, more freely than before, as if the recollection of last night’s supper had imparted a new relish to the meal.

“Peg away, Bob,” said Mr. Allen to his companion, encouragingly.

“So I do,” replied Bob Sawyer. And so, to do him justice, he did.

“Nothing like dissecting, to give one an appetite,” said Mr. Bob Sawyer, looking round the table.

Mr. Pickwick slightly shuddered.

“By the bye, Bob,” said Mr. Allen, “have you finished that leg yet?”

“Nearly,” replied Sawyer, helping himself to half a fowl as he spoke. “It’s a very muscular one for a child’s.”

“Is it?” inquired Mr. Allen, carelessly.

125“Very,” said Bob Sawyer, with his mouth full.

“I’ve put my name down for an arm, at our place,” said Mr. Allen. “We’re clubbing for a subject, and the list is nearly full, only we can’t get hold of any fellow that wants a head. I wish you’d take it.”

“No,” replied Bob Sawyer; “can’t afford expensive luxuries.”

“Nonsense!” said Allen.

“Can’t indeed,” rejoined Bob Sawyer. “I wouldn’t mind a brain, but I couldn’t stand a whole head.”

“Hush, hush, gentlemen, pray,” said Mr. Pickwick, “I hear the ladies.”

As Mr. Pickwick spoke, the ladies, gallantly escorted by Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman, returned from an early walk.

“Lor, Ben!” said Arabella, in a tone which expressed more surprise than pleasure at the sight of her brother.

“Come to take you home to-morrow,” replied Benjamin.

126Mr. Winkle turned pale.

“Don’t you see Bob Sawyer, Arabella?” enquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, somewhat reproachfully. Arabella gracefully held out her hand, in acknowledgment of Bob Sawyer’s presence. A thrill of hatred struck to Mr. Winkle’s heart, as Bob Sawyer inflicted on the proffered hand a perceptible squeeze.

“Ben, dear!” said Arabella, blushing; “have—have—you been introduced to Mr. Winkle?”

“I have not been, but I shall be very happy to be, Arabella,” replied her brother gravely. Here Mr. Allen bowed grimly to Mr. Winkle, while Mr. Winkle and Mr. Bob Sawyer glanced mutual distrust out of the corners of their eyes.

The arrival of the two new visitors, and the consequent check upon Mr. Winkle and the young lady with the fur round her boots, would in all probability have proved a very unpleasant interruption to the hilarity of the party, had not the cheerfulness of Mr. Pickwick, and the good humour of the host, been exerted to the very utmost 127for the common weal. Mr. Winkle gradually insinuated himself into the good graces of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and even joined in a friendly conversation with Mr. Bob Sawyer; who, enlivened with the brandy, and the breakfast, and the talking, gradually ripened into a state of extreme facetiousness, and related with much glee an agreeable anecdote, about the removal of a tumour on some gentleman’s head, which he illustrated by means of an oyster-knife and a half-quartern loaf, to the great edification of the assembled company. Then the whole train went to church, where Mr. Benjamin Allen fell fast asleep; while Mr. Bob Sawyer abstracted his thoughts from worldly matters, by the ingenious process of carving his name on the seat of the pew, in corpulent letters of about four inches long.

“Now,” said Wardle, after a substantial lunch, with the agreeable items of strong-beer and cherry-brandy, had been done ample justice to; “what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time.”

128“Capital!” said Mr. Benjamin Allen.

“Prime!” ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.

“You skait, of course, Winkle?” said Wardle.

“Ye—yes; oh, yes;” replied Mr. Winkle. “I—I—am rather out of practice.”

“Oh, do skait, Mr. Winkle,” said Arabella. “I like to see it so much.”

“Oh, it is so graceful,” said another young lady.

A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was “swanlike.”

“I should be very happy, I’m sure,” said Mr. Winkle, reddening; “but I have no skaits.”

This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had got a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more, down stairs, whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable.

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer 129adjusted his skaits with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight; and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies; which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which they called a reel.

All this time, Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skaits on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skaits than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skaits were firmly screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.

“Now, then, Sir,” said Sam, in an encouraging 130tone; “off vith you, and show ’em how to do it.”

“Stop, Sam, stop,” said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam’s arms with the grasp of a drowning man. “How slippery it is, Sam!”

“Not an uncommon thing upon ice, Sir,” replied Mr. Weller. “Hold up, Sir.”

This last observation of Mr. Weller’s bore reference to a demonstration Mr. Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice.

“These—these—are very awkward skaits; ain’t they, Sam?” inquired Mr. Winkle, staggering.

“I’m afeerd there’s orkard gen’lm’n in ’em, Sir,” replied Sam.

“Now, Winkle,” cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that there was anything the matter. “Come; the ladies are all anxiety.”

“Yes, yes,” replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. “I’m coming.”

131

“How slippery it is, Sam!”

133“Just a goin’ to begin,” said Sam, endeavouring to disengage himself. “Now, Sir, start off.”

“Stop an instant, Sam,” gasped Mr. Winkle, clinging most affectionately to Mr. Weller. “I find I’ve got a couple of coats at home, that I don’t want, Sam. You may have them, Sam.”

“Thankee, Sir,” replied Mr. Weller.

“Never mind touching your hat, Sam,” said Mr. Winkle, hastily. “You needn’t take your hand away, to do that. I meant to have given you five shillings this morning for a Christmas box, Sam. I’ll give it you this afternoon, Sam.”

“You’re wery good, Sir,” replied Mr. Weller.

“Just hold me at first, Sam; will you?” said Mr. Winkle. “There—that’s right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam. Not too fast, Sam; not too fast.”

Mr. Winkle, stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swan-like manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank—

134“Sam!”

“Sir?” said Mr. Weller.

“Here. I want you.”

“Let go, Sir,” said Sam. “Don’t you hear the governor a callin’? Let go, Sir.”

With a violent effort, Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the agonized Pickwickian; and, in so doing, administered a considerable impetus to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. Winkle struck wildly against him, 135and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind in skaits. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance.

“Are you hurt?” inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.

“Not much,” said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.

“I wish you’d let me bleed you,” said Mr. Benjamin with great eagerness.

“No, thank you,” replied Mr. Winkle, hurriedly.

“I really think you had better,” said Allen.

“Thank you,” replied Mr. Winkle; “I’d rather not.”

“What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?” inquired Bob Sawyer.

Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr. Weller, and said in a stern voice, “Take his skaits off.”

136“No; but really I had scarcely begun,” remonstrated Mr. Winkle.

“Take his skaits off,” repeated Mr. Pickwick firmly.

The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in silence.

“Lift him up,” said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise.

Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and, beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttered in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words:

“You’re a humbug, Sir.”

“A what!” said Mr. Winkle, starting.

“A humbug, Sir. I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, Sir.”

With these words, Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends.

While Mr. Pickwick was delivering himself of the sentiment just recorded, Mr. Weller and the fat boy, having by their joint endeavours cut out 137a slide, were exercising themselves thereupon, in a very masterly and brilliant manner. Sam Weller, in particular, was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy sliding which is currently denominated “knocking at the cobbler’s door,” and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot, and occasionally giving a two-penny postman’s knock upon it with the other. It was a good long slide, and there was something in the motion which Mr. Pickwick, who was very cold with standing still, could not help envying.

“It looks a nice warm exercise that, doesn’t it?” he enquired of Wardle, when that gentleman was thoroughly out of breath, by reason of the indefatigable manner in which he had converted his legs into a pair of compasses, and drawn complicated problems on the ice.

“Ah, it does, indeed,” replied Wardle. “Do you slide?”

“I used to do so, on the gutters, when I was a boy,” replied Mr. Pickwick.

“Try it now,” said Wardle.

138“Oh, do, please Mr. Pickwick,” cried all the ladies.

“I should be very happy to afford you any amusement,” replied Mr. Pickwick, “but I haven’t done such a thing these thirty years.”

“Pooh! pooh! nonsense!” said Wardle, dragging off his skaits with the impetuosity which characterised all his proceedings. “Here; I’ll keep you company; come along.” And away went the good-tempered old fellow down the slide, with a rapidity which came very close upon Mr. Weller, and beat the fat boy all to nothing.

Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat, took two or three short runs, baulked himself as often, and at last took another run and went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all the spectators.

139

Went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart.

141“Keep the pot a bilin’, Sir,” said Sam; and down went Wardle again, and then Mr. Pickwick, and then Sam, and then Mr. Winkle, and then Mr. Bob Sawyer, and then the fat boy, and then Mr. Snodgrass, following closely upon each other’s heels, and running after each other with as much eagerness as if all their future prospects in life depended on their expedition.

It was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in which Mr. Pickwick performed his share in the ceremony: to watch the torture of anxiety with which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up: to see him gradually expend the painful force which he had put on at first, and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started: to contemplate the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance, and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so, and ran after his predecessor, his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow, and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. And 142when he was knocked down (which happened upon the average every third round), it was the most invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief, with a glowing countenance, and resume his station in the rank, with an ardour and enthusiasm which nothing could abate.

The sport was at its height, the sliding was at the quickest, the laughter was at the loudest, when a sharp smart crack was heard. There was a quick rush towards the bank, a wild scream from the ladies, and a shout from Mr. Tupman. A large mass of ice disappeared, the water bubbled up over it, and Mr. Pickwick’s hat, gloves, and handkerchief were floating on the surface: and this was all of Mr. Pickwick that anybody could see.

Dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance; the males turned pale, and the females fainted; Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle grasped each other by the hand, and gazed at 143the spot where their leader had gone down, with frenzied eagerness; while Mr. Tupman, by way of rendering the promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming “Fire!” with all his might and main.

It was at this very moment, when old Wardle and Sam Weller were approaching the hole with cautious steps, and Mr. Benjamin Allen was holding a hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer, on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice—it was at this very moment that a face, head, and shoulders emerged from beneath the water, and disclosed the features and spectacles of Mr. Pickwick.

“Keep yourself up for an instant—for only one instant,” bawled Mr. Snodgrass.

“Yes, do; let me implore you—for my sake,” roared Mr. Winkle, deeply affected. The adjuration 144was rather unnecessary; the probability being, that if Mr. Pickwick had declined to keep himself up for anybody else’s sake, it would have occurred to him that he might as well do so, for his own.

“Do you feel the bottom there, old fellow?” said Wardle.

“Yes, certainly,” replied Mr. Pickwick, wringing the water from his head and face, and gasping for breath. “I fell upon my back. I couldn’t get on my feet at first.”

The clay upon so much of Mr. Pickwick’s coat as was yet visible, bore testimony to the accuracy of this statement; and as the fears of the spectators were still further relieved by the fat boy’s suddenly recollecting that the water was nowhere more than five feet deep, prodigies of valour were performed to get him out. After a vast quantity of splashing, and cracking, and struggling, Mr. Pickwick was at length fairly extricated from his unpleasant position, and once more stood on dry land.

145“Oh, he’ll catch his death of cold,” said Emily.

“Dear old thing!” said Arabella. “Let me wrap this shawl round you, Mr. Pickwick.”

“Ah, that’s the best thing you can do,” said Wardle; “and when you’ve got it on, run home as fast as your legs can carry you, and jump into bed directly.”

A dozen shawls were offered on the instant; and three or four of the thickest having been selected, Mr. Pickwick was wrapped up, and started off, under the guidance of Mr. Weller; presenting the singular phenomenon of an elderly gentleman dripping wet, and without a hat, with his arms bound down to his sides, skimming over the ground without any clearly defined purpose, at the rate of six good English miles an hour.

But Mr. Pickwick cared not for appearances in such an extreme case, and urged on by Sam Weller, he kept at the very top of his speed until he reached the door of Manor Farm, where Mr. Tupman had arrived some five minutes before, 146and had frightened the old lady into palpitations of the heart, by impressing her with the unalterable conviction that the kitchen chimney was on fire—a calamity which always presented itself in the most glowing colours to the old lady’s mind, when anybody about her evinced the smallest agitation.

Mr. Pickwick paused not an instant until he was snug in bed. Sam Weller lighted a blazing fire in the room, and took up his dinner; a bowl of punch was carried up afterwards, and a grand carouse held in honour of his safety. Old Wardle would not hear of his rising, so they made the bed the chair, and Mr. Pickwick presided. A second and a third bowl were ordered in; and when Mr. Pickwick awoke next morning, there was not a symptom of rheumatism about him, which proves, as Mr. Bob Sawyer very justly observed, that there is nothing like hot punch in such cases, and that if ever hot punch did fail to act as a preventive, it was merely because the patient fell into the vulgar error of not taking enough of it.

147The jovial party broke up next morning. Breakings up are capital things in our school days, but in after life they are painful enough. Death, self-interest, and fortune’s changes, are every day breaking up many a happy group and scattering them far and wide; and the boys and girls never come back again. We do not mean to say that it was exactly the case in this particular instance; all we wish to inform the reader is, that the different members of the party dispersed to their several homes; that Mr. Pickwick and his friends once more took their seats on the top of the Muggleton coach; and that Arabella Allen repaired to her place of destination, wherever it might have been—we dare say Mr. Winkle knew, but we confess we don’t—under the care and guardianship of her brother Benjamin, and his most intimate and particular friend, Mr. Bob Sawyer.

Before they separated, however, that gentleman and Mr. Benjamin Allen drew Mr. Pickwick aside with an air of some mystery; and Mr. Bob 148Sawyer thrusting his forefinger between two of Mr. Pickwick’s ribs, and thereby displaying his native drollery, and his knowledge of the anatomy of the human frame, at one and the same time, enquired—

“I say, old boy, where do you hang out?”

Mr. Pickwick replied that he was at present suspended at the George and Vulture.

“I wish you’d come and see me,” said Bob Sawyer.

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” replied Mr. Pickwick.

“There’s my lodgings,” said Mr. Bob Sawyer, producing a card, “Lant Street, Borough; it’s near Guy’s, and handy for me you know. Little distance after you’ve passed Saint George’s Church—turns out of the High Street on the right hand side the way.”

“I shall find it,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Come on Thursday week, and bring the other chaps with you,” said Mr. Bob Sawyer, “I’m going to have a few medical fellows that night.”

149Mr. Pickwick expressed the pleasure it would afford him to meet the medical fellows; and after Mr. Bob Sawyer had informed him that he meant to be very cosey, and that his friend Ben was to be one of the party, they shook hands and separated.

We feel that in this place we lay ourself open to the enquiry whether Mr. Winkle was whispering, during this brief conversation, to Arabella Allen, and if so, what he said; and furthermore, whether Mr. Snodgrass was conversing apart with Emily Wardle, and if so, what he said. To this, we reply, that whatever they might have said to the ladies, they said nothing at all to Mr. Pickwick or Mr. Tupman for eight-and-twenty miles, and that they sighed very often, refused ale and brandy, and looked gloomy. If our observant lady readers can deduce any satisfactory inferences from these facts, we beg them by all means to do so.

150