By the time he had unfolded all the peddling schemes he knew upon the cards, it was growing late in the evening; and Mr Pecksniff not making his appearance, the young ladies expressed a wish to return home. But this, Mr Jonas, in his gallantry, would by no means allow, until they had partaken of some bread and cheese and porter; and even then he was excessively unwilling to allow them to depart; often beseeching Miss Charity to come a little closer, or to stop a little longer, and preferring many other complimentary petitions of that nature in his own hospitable and earnest way. When all his efforts to detain them were fruitless, he put on his hat and greatcoat preparatory to escorting them to Todgers’s; remarking that he knew they would rather walk thither than ride; and that for his part he was quite of their opinion.
‘Good night,’ said Anthony. ‘Good night; remember me to – ha, ha, ha! – to Pecksniff. Take care of your cousin, my dears; beware of Jonas; he’s a dangerous fellow. Don’t quarrel for him, in any case!’
‘Oh, the creature!’ cried Mercy. ‘The idea of quarrelling for him! You may take him, Cherry, my love, all to yourself. I make you a present of my share.’
‘What! I’m a sour grape, am I, cousin?’ said Jonas.
Miss Charity was more entertained by this repartee than one would have supposed likely, considering its advanced age and simple character. But in her sisterly affection she took Mr Jonas to task for leaning so very hard upon a broken reed, and said that he must not be so cruel to poor Merry any more, or she (Charity) would positively be obliged to hate him. Mercy, who really had her share of good humour, only retorted with a laugh; and they walked home in consequence without any angry passages of words upon the way. Mr Jonas being in the middle, and having a cousin on each arm, sometimes squeezed the wrong one; so tightly too, as to cause her not a little inconvenience; but as he talked to Charity in whispers the whole time, and paid her great attention, no doubt this was an accidental circumstance. When they arrived at Todgers’s, and the door was opened, Mercy broke hastily from them, and ran upstairs; but Charity and Jonas lingered on the steps talking together for more than five minutes; so, as Mrs Todgers observed next morning, to a third party, ‘It was pretty clear what was going on there, and she was glad of it, for it really was high time that Miss Pecksniff thought of settling.’
And now the day was coming on, when that bright vision which had burst on Todgers’s so suddenly, and made a sunshine in the shady breast of Jinkins, was to be seen no more; when it was to be packed, like a brown paper parcel, or a fish-basket, or an oyster barrel or a fat gentleman, or any other dull reality of life, in a stagecoach and carried down into the country.
‘Never, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,’ said Mrs Todgers, when they retired to rest on the last night of their stay, ‘never have I seen an establishment so perfectly broken-hearted as mine is at this present moment of time. I don’t believe the gentlemen will be the gentlemen they were, or anything like it – no, not for weeks to come. You have a great deal to answer for, both of you.’
They modestly disclaimed any wilful agency in this disastrous state of things, and regretted it very much.
‘Your pious pa, too,’ said Mrs Todgers. ‘There’s a loss! My dear Miss Pecksniffs, your pa is a perfect missionary of peace and love.’
Entertaining an uncertainty as to the particular kind of love supposed to be comprised in Mr Pecksniff’s mission, the young ladies received the compliment rather coldly.
‘If I dared,’ said Mrs Todgers, perceiving this, ‘to violate a confidence which has been reposed in me, and to tell you why I must beg of you to leave the little door between your room and mine open tonight, I think you would be interested. But I mustn’t do it, for I promised Mr Jinkins faithfully, that I would be as silent as the tomb.’
‘Dear Mrs Todgers! What can you mean?’
‘Why, then, my sweet Miss Pecksniffs,’ said the lady of the house; ‘my own loves, if you will allow me the privilege of taking that freedom on the eve of our separation, Mr Jinkins and the gentlemen have made up a little musical party among themselves, and do intend, in the dead of this night, to perform a serenade upon the stairs outside the door. I could have wished, I own,’ said Mrs Todgers, with her usual foresight, ‘that it had been fixed to take place an hour or two earlier; because when gentlemen sit up late they drink, and when they drink they’re not so musical, perhaps, as when they don’t. But this is the arrangement; and I know you will be gratified, my dear Miss Pecksniffs, by such a mark of their attention.’
The young ladies were at first so much excited by the news, that they vowed they couldn’t think of going to bed until the serenade was over. But half an hour of cool waiting so altered their opinion that they not only went to bed, but fell asleep; and were, moreover, not ecstatically charmed to be awakened some time afterwards by certain dulcet strains breaking in upon the silent watches of the night.
It was very affecting – very. Nothing more dismal could have been desired by the most fastidious taste. The gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; Jinkins took the bass; and the rest took anything they could get. The youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute. He didn’t blow much out of it, but that was all the better. If the two Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to surpass the unutterable despair expressed in that one chorus, ‘Go where glory waits thee!’ It was a requiem, a dirge, a moan, a howl, a wail, a lament, an abstract of everything that is sorrowful and hideous in sound. The flute of the youngest gentleman was wild and fitful. It came and went in gusts, like the wind. For a long time together he seemed to have left off, and when it was quite settled by Mrs Todgers and the young ladies that, overcome by his feelings, he had retired in tears, he unexpectedly turned up again at the very top of the tune, gasping for breath. He was a tremendous performer. There was no knowing where to have him; and exactly when you thought he was doing nothing at all, then was he doing the very thing that ought to astonish you most.
There were several of these concerted pieces; perhaps two or three too many, though that, as Mrs Todgers said, was a fault on the right side. But even then, even at that solemn moment, when the thrilling sounds may be presumed to have penetrated into the very depths of his nature, if he had any depths, Jinkins couldn’t leave the youngest gentleman alone. He asked him distinctly, before the second song began – as a personal favour too, mark the villain in that – not to play. Yes; he said so; not to play. The breathing of the youngest gentleman was heard through the key-hole of the door. He didn’t play. What vent was a flute for the passions swelling up within his breast? A trombone would have been a world too mild.
The serenade approached its close. Its crowning interest was at hand. The gentleman of a literary turn had written a song on the departure of the ladies, and adapted it to an old tune. They all joined, except the youngest gentleman in company, who, for the reasons aforesaid, maintained a fearful silence. The song (which was of a classical nature) invoked the oracle of Apollo, and demanded to know what would become of Todgers’s when CHARITY and MERCY were banished from its walls. The oracle delivered no opinion particularly worth remembering, according to the not infrequent practice of oracles from the earliest ages down to the present time. In the absence of enlightenment on that subject, the strain deserted it, and went on to show that the Miss Pecksniffs were nearly related to Rule Britannia, and that if Great Britain hadn’t been an island, there could have been no Miss Pecksniffs. And being now on a nautical tack, it closed with this verse:
‘All hail to the vessel of Pecksniff the sire!
And favouring breezes to fan;
While Tritons flock round it, and proudly admire
The architect, artist, and man!’
As they presented this beautiful picture to the imagination, the gentlemen gradually withdrew to bed to give the music the effect of distance; and so it died away, and Todgers’s was left to its repose.
Mr Bailey reserved his vocal offering until the morning, when he put his head into the room as the young ladies were kneeling before their trunks, packing up, and treated them to an imitation of the voice of a young dog in trying circumstances; when that animal is supposed by persons of a lively fancy, to relieve his feelings by calling for pen and ink.
‘Well, young ladies,’ said the youth, ‘so you’re a-going home, are you, worse luck?’
‘Yes, Bailey, we’re going home,’ returned Mercy.
‘An’t you a-going to leave none of ‘em a lock of your hair?’ inquired the youth. ‘It’s real, an’t it?’
They laughed at this, and told him of course it was.
‘Oh, is it of course, though?’ said Bailey. ‘I know better than that. Hers an’t. Why, I see it hanging up once, on that nail by the winder. Besides, I have gone behind her at dinner-time and pulled it; and she never know’d. I say, young ladies, I’m a-going to leave. I an’t a-going to stand being called names by her, no longer.’
Miss Mercy inquired what his plans for the future might be; in reply to whom Mr Bailey intimated that he thought of going either into top-boots, or into the army.
‘Into the army!’ cried the young ladies, with a laugh.
‘Ah!’ said Bailey, ‘why not? There’s a many drummers in the Tower. I’m acquainted with ‘em. Don’t their country set a valley on ‘em, mind you! Not at all!’
‘You’ll be shot, I see,’ observed Mercy.
‘Well!’ cried Mr Bailey, ‘wot if I am? There’s something gamey in it, young ladies, an’t there? I’d sooner be hit with a cannon-ball than a rolling-pin, and she’s always a-catching up something of that sort, and throwing it at me, when the gentlemans’ appetites is good. Wot,’ said Mr Bailey, stung by the recollection of his wrongs, ‘wot, if they do consume the per-vishuns. It an’t my fault, is it?’
‘Surely no one says it is,’ said Mercy.
‘Don’t they though?’ retorted the youth. ‘No. Yes. Ah! oh! No one mayn’t say it is! but some one knows it is. But I an’t a-going to have every rise in prices wisited on me. I an’t a-going to be killed because the markets is dear. I won’t stop. And therefore,’ added Mr Bailey, relenting into a smile, ‘wotever you mean to give me, you’d better give me all at once, becos if ever you come back agin, I shan’t be here; and as to the other boy, he won’t deserve nothing, I know.’
The young ladies, on behalf of Mr Pecksniff and themselves, acted on this thoughtful advice; and in consideration of their private friendship, presented Mr Bailey with a gratuity so liberal that he could hardly do enough to show his gratitude; which found but an imperfect vent, during the remainder of the day, in divers secret slaps upon his pocket, and other such facetious pantomime. Nor was it confined to these ebullitions; for besides crushing a bandbox, with a bonnet in it, he seriously damaged Mr Pecksniff’s luggage, by ardently hauling it down from the top of the house; and in short evinced, by every means in his power, a lively sense of the favours he had received from that gentleman and his family.
Mr Pecksniff and Mr Jinkins came home to dinner arm-in-arm; for the latter gentleman had made half-holiday on purpose; thus gaining an immense advantage over the youngest gentleman and the rest, whose time, as it perversely chanced, was all bespoke, until the evening. The bottle of wine was Mr Pecksniff’s treat, and they were very sociable indeed; though full of lamentations on the necessity of parting. While they were in the midst of their enjoyment, old Anthony and his son were announced; much to the surprise of Mr Pecksniff, and greatly to the discomfiture of Jinkins.
‘Come to say good-bye, you see,’ said Anthony, in a low voice, to Mr Pecksniff, as they took their seats apart at the table, while the rest conversed among themselves. ‘Where’s the use of a division between you and me? We are the two halves of a pair of scissors, when apart, Pecksniff; but together we are something. Eh?’
‘Unanimity, my good sir,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff, ‘is always delightful.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said the old man, ‘for there are some people I would rather differ from than agree with. But you know my opinion of you.’
Mr Pecksniff, still having ‘hypocrite’ in his mind, only replied by a motion of his head, which was something between an affirmative bow, and a negative shake.
‘Complimentary,’ said Anthony. ‘Complimentary, upon my word. It was an involuntary tribute to your abilities, even at the time; and it was not a time to suggest compliments either. But we agreed in the coach, you know, that we quite understood each other.’
‘Oh, quite!’ assented Mr Pecksniff, in a manner which implied that he himself was misunderstood most cruelly, but would not complain.
Anthony glanced at his son as he sat beside Miss Charity, and then at Mr Pecksniff, and then at his son again, very many times. It happened that Mr Pecksniff’s glances took a similar direction; but when he became aware of it, he first cast down his eyes, and then closed them; as if he were determined that the old man should read nothing there.
‘Jonas is a shrewd lad,’ said the old man.
‘He appears,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff in his most candid manner, ‘to be very shrewd.’
‘And careful,’ said the old man.
‘And careful, I have no doubt,’ returned Mr Pecksniff.
‘Look ye!’ said Anthony in his ear. ‘I think he is sweet upon you daughter.’
‘Tut, my good sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, with his eyes still closed; ‘young people – young people – a kind of cousins, too – no more sweetness than is in that, sir.’
‘Why, there is very little sweetness in that, according to our experience,’ returned Anthony. ‘Isn’t there a trifle more here?’
‘Impossible to say,’ rejoined Mr Pecksniff. ‘Quite impossible! You surprise me.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ said the old man, drily. ‘It may last; I mean the sweetness, not the surprise; and it may die off. Supposing it should last, perhaps (you having feathered your nest pretty well, and I having done the same), we might have a mutual interest in the matter.’
Mr Pecksniff, smiling gently, was about to speak, but Anthony stopped him.
‘I know what you are going to say. It’s quite unnecessary. You have never thought of this for a moment; and in a point so nearly affecting the happiness of your dear child, you couldn’t, as a tender father, express an opinion; and so forth. Yes, quite right. And like you! But it seems to me, my dear Pecksniff,’ added Anthony, laying his hand upon his sleeve, ‘that if you and I kept up the joke of pretending not to see this, one of us might possibly be placed in a position of disadvantage; and as I am very unwilling to be that party myself, you will excuse my taking the liberty of putting the matter beyond a doubt thus early; and having it distinctly understood, as it is now, that we do see it, and do know it. Thank you for your attention. We are now upon an equal footing; which is agreeable to us both, I am sure.’
He rose as he spoke; and giving Mr Pecksniff a nod of intelligence, moved away from him to where the young people were sitting; leaving that good man somewhat puzzled and discomfited by such very plain dealing, and not quite free from a sense of having been foiled in the exercise of his familiar weapons.
But the night-coach had a punctual character, and it was time to join it at the office; which was so near at hand that they had already sent their luggage and arranged to walk. Thither the whole party repaired, therefore, after no more delay than sufficed for the equipment of the Miss Pecksniffs and Mrs Todgers. They found the coach already at its starting-place, and the horses in; there, too, were a large majority of the commercial gentlemen, including the youngest, who was visibly agitated, and in a state of deep mental dejection.
Nothing could equal the distress of Mrs Todgers in parting from the young ladies, except the strong emotions with which she bade adieu to Mr Pecksniff. Never surely was a pocket-handkerchief taken in and out of a flat reticule so often as Mrs Todgers’s was, as she stood upon the pavement by the coach-door supported on either side by a commercial gentleman; and by the sight of the coach-lamps caught such brief snatches and glimpses of the good man’s face, as the constant interposition of Mr Jinkins allowed. For Jinkins, to the last the youngest gentleman’s rock a-head in life, stood upon the coachstep talking to the ladies. Upon the other step was Mr Jonas, who maintained that position in right of his cousinship; whereas the youngest gentleman, who had been first upon the ground, was deep in the booking-office among the black and red placards, and the portraits of fast coaches, where he was ignominiously harassed by porters, and had to contend and strive perpetually with heavy baggage. This false position, combined with his nervous excitement, brought about the very consummation and catastrophe of his miseries; for when in the moment of parting he aimed a flower, a hothouse flower that had cost money, at the fair hand of Mercy, it reached, instead, the coachman on the box, who thanked him kindly, and stuck it in his buttonhole.
They were off now; and Todgers’s was alone again. The two young ladies, leaning back in their separate corners, resigned themselves to their own regretful thoughts. But Mr Pecksniff, dismissing all ephemeral considerations of social pleasure and enjoyment, concentrated his meditations on the one great virtuous purpose before him, of casting out that ingrate and deceiver, whose presence yet troubled his domestic hearth, and was a sacrilege upon the altars of his household gods.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WILL BE SEEN IN THE LONG RUN, IF NOT IN THE SHORT ONE, TO CONCERN MR PINCH AND OTHERS, NEARLY. MR PECKSNIFF ASSERTS THE DIGNITY OF OUTRAGED VIRTUE. YOUNG MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT FORMS A DESPERATE RESOLUTION
Mr Pinch and Martin, little dreaming of the stormy weather that impended, made themselves very comfortable in the Pecksniffian halls, and improved their friendship daily. Martin’s facility, both of invention and execution, being remarkable, the grammar-school proceeded with great vigour; and Tom repeatedly declared, that if there were anything like certainty in human affairs, or impartiality in human judges, a design so new and full of merit could not fail to carry off the first prize when the time of competition arrived. Without being quite so sanguine himself, Martin had his hopeful anticipations too; and they served to make him brisk and eager at his task.
‘If I should turn out a great architect, Tom,’ said the new pupil one day, as he stood at a little distance from his drawing, and eyed it with much complacency, ‘I’ll tell you what should be one of the things I’d build.’
‘Aye!’ cried Tom. ‘What?’
‘Why, your fortune.’
‘No!’ said Tom Pinch, quite as much delighted as if the thing were done. ‘Would you though? How kind of you to say so.’
‘I’d build it up, Tom,’ returned Martin, ‘on such a strong foundation, that it should last your life – aye, and your children’s lives too, and their children’s after them. I’d be your patron, Tom. I’d take you under my protection. Let me see the man who should give the cold shoulder to anybody I chose to protect and patronise, if I were at the top of the tree, Tom!’
‘Now, I don’t think,’ said Mr Pinch, ‘upon my word, that I was ever more gratified than by this. I really don’t.’
‘Oh! I mean what I say,’ retorted Martin, with a manner as free and easy in its condescension to, not to say in its compassion for, the other, as if he were already First Architect in ordinary to all the Crowned Heads in Europe. ‘I’d do it. I’d provide for you.’
‘I am afraid,’ said Tom, shaking his head, ‘that I should be a mighty awkward person to provide for.’
‘Pooh, pooh!’ rejoined Martin. ‘Never mind that. If I took it in my head to say, “Pinch is a clever fellow; I approve of Pinch;” I should like to know the man who would venture to put himself in opposition to me. Besides, confound it, Tom, you could be useful to me in a hundred ways.’
‘If I were not useful in one or two, it shouldn’t be for want of trying,’ said Tom.
‘For instance,’ pursued Martin, after a short reflection, ‘you’d be a capital fellow, now, to see that my ideas were properly carried out; and to overlook the works in their progress before they were sufficiently advanced to be very interesting to me; and to take all that sort of plain sailing. Then you’d be a splendid fellow to show people over my studio, and to talk about Art to ‘em, when I couldn’t be bored myself, and all that kind of thing. For it would be devilish creditable, Tom (I’m quite in earnest, I give you my word), to have a man of your information about one, instead of some ordinary blockhead. Oh, I’d take care of you. You’d be useful, rely upon it!’
To say that Tom had no idea of playing first fiddle in any social orchestra, but was always quite satisfied to be set down for the hundred and fiftieth violin in the band, or thereabouts, is to express his modesty in very inadequate terms. He was much delighted, therefore, by these observations.
‘I should be married to her then, Tom, of course,’ said Martin.
What was that which checked Tom Pinch so suddenly, in the high flow of his gladness; bringing the blood into his honest cheeks, and a remorseful feeling to his honest heart, as if he were unworthy of his friend’s regard?
‘I should be married to her then,’ said Martin, looking with a smile towards the light; ‘and we should have, I hope, children about us. They’d be very fond of you, Tom.’
But not a word said Mr Pinch. The words he would have uttered died upon his lips, and found a life more spiritual in self-denying thoughts.
‘All the children hereabouts are fond of you, Tom, and mine would be, of course,’ pursued Martin. ‘Perhaps I might name one of ‘em after you. Tom, eh? Well, I don’t know. Tom’s not a bad name. Thomas Pinch Chuzzlewit. T. P. C. on his pinafores – no objection to that, I should say?’
Tom cleared his throat, and smiled.
‘She would like you, Tom, I know,’ said Martin.
‘Aye!’ cried Tom Pinch, faintly.
‘I can tell exactly what she would think of you,’ said Martin leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking through the window-glass as if he read there what he said; ‘I know her so well. She would smile, Tom, often at first when you spoke to her, or when she looked at you – merrily too – but you wouldn’t mind that. A brighter smile you never saw.’
‘No, no,’ said Tom. ‘I wouldn’t mind that.’
‘She would be as tender with you, Tom,’ said Martin, ‘as if you were a child yourself. So you are almost, in some things, an’t you, Tom?’
Mr Pinch nodded his entire assent.
‘She would always be kind and good-humoured, and glad to see you,’ said Martin; ‘and when she found out exactly what sort of fellow you were (which she’d do very soon), she would pretend to give you little commissions to execute, and to ask little services of you, which she knew you were burning to render; so that when she really pleased you most, she would try to make you think you most pleased her. She would take to you uncommonly, Tom; and would understand you far more delicately than I ever shall; and would often say, I know, that you were a harmless, gentle, well-intentioned, good fellow.’
How silent Tom Pinch was!
‘In honour of old time,’ said Martin, ‘and of her having heard you play the organ in this damp little church down here – for nothing too – we will have one in the house. I shall build an architectural music-room on a plan of my own, and it’ll look rather knowing in a recess at one end. There you shall play away, Tom, till you tire yourself; and, as you like to do so in the dark, it shall be dark; and many’s the summer evening she and I will sit and listen to you, Tom; be sure of that!’
It may have required a stronger effort on Tom Pinch’s part to leave the seat on which he sat, and shake his friend by both hands, with nothing but serenity and grateful feeling painted on his face; it may have required a stronger effort to perform this simple act with a pure heart, than to achieve many and many a deed to which the doubtful trumpet blown by Fame has lustily resounded. Doubtful, because from its long hovering over scenes of violence, the smoke and steam of death have clogged the keys of that brave instrument; and it is not always that its notes are either true or tuneful.
‘It’s a proof of the kindness of human nature,’ said Tom, characteristically putting himself quite out of sight in the matter, ‘that everybody who comes here, as you have done, is more considerate and affectionate to me than I should have any right to hope, if I were the most sanguine creature in the world; or should have any power to express, if I were the most eloquent. It really overpowers me. But trust me,’ said Tom, ‘that I am not ungrateful – that I never forget – and that if I can ever prove the truth of my words to you, I will.’
‘That’s all right,’ observed Martin, leaning back in his chair with a hand in each pocket, and yawning drearily. ‘Very fine talking, Tom; but I’m at Pecksniff’s, I remember, and perhaps a mile or so out of the high-road to fortune just at this minute. So you’ve heard again this morning from what’s his name, eh?’
‘Who may that be?’ asked Tom, seeming to enter a mild protest on behalf of the dignity of an absent person.
‘You know. What is it? Northkey.’
‘Westlock,’ rejoined Tom, in rather a louder tone than usual.
‘Ah! to be sure,’ said Martin, ‘Westlock. I knew it was something connected with a point of the compass and a door. Well! and what says Westlock?’
‘Oh! he has come into his property,’ answered Tom, nodding his head, and smiling.
‘He’s a lucky dog,’ said Martin. ‘I wish it were mine instead. Is that all the mystery you were to tell me?’
‘No,’ said Tom; ‘not all.’
‘What’s the rest?’ asked Martin.
‘For the matter of that,’ said Tom, ‘it’s no mystery, and you won’t think much of it; but it’s very pleasant to me. John always used to say when he was here, “Mark my words, Pinch. When my father’s executors cash up” – he used strange expressions now and then, but that was his way.’
‘Cash-up’s a very good expression,’ observed Martin, ‘when other people don’t apply it to you. Well! – What a slow fellow you are, Pinch!’
‘Yes, I am I know,’ said Tom; ‘but you’ll make me nervous if you tell me so. I’m afraid you have put me out a little now, for I forget what I was going to say.’
‘When John’s father’s executors cashed up,’ said Martin impatiently.
‘Oh yes, to be sure,’ cried Tom; ‘yes. “Then,” says John, “I’ll give you a dinner, Pinch, and come down to Salisbury on purpose.” Now, when John wrote the other day – the morning Pecksniff left, you know – he said his business was on the point of being immediately settled, and as he was to receive his money directly, when could I meet him at Salisbury? I wrote and said, any day this week; and I told him besides, that there was a new pupil here, and what a fine fellow you were, and what friends we had become. Upon which John writes back this letter’ – Tom produced it – ‘fixes to-morrow; sends his compliments to you; and begs that we three may have the pleasure of dining together; not at the house where you and I were, either; but at the very first hotel in the town. Read what he says.’
‘Very well,’ said Martin, glancing over it with his customary coolness; ‘much obliged to him. I’m agreeable.’
Tom could have wished him to be a little more astonished, a little more pleased, or in some form or other a little more interested in such a great event. But he was perfectly self-possessed; and falling into his favourite solace of whistling, took another turn at the grammar-school, as if nothing at all had happened.
Mr Pecksniff’s horse being regarded in the light of a sacred animal, only to be driven by him, the chief priest of that temple, or by some person distinctly nominated for the time being to that high office by himself, the two young men agreed to walk to Salisbury; and so, when the time came, they set off on foot; which was, after all, a better mode of travelling than in the gig, as the weather was very cold and very dry.
Better! A rare strong, hearty, healthy walk – four statute miles an hour – preferable to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking, scraping, creaking, villanous old gig? Why, the two things will not admit of comparison. It is an insult to the walk, to set them side by side. Where is an instance of a gig having ever circulated a man’s blood, unless when, putting him in danger of his neck, it awakened in his veins and in his ears, and all along his spine, a tingling heat, much more peculiar than agreeable? When did a gig ever sharpen anybody’s wits and energies, unless it was when the horse bolted, and, crashing madly down a steep hill with a stone wall at the bottom, his desperate circumstances suggested to the only gentleman left inside, some novel and unheard-of mode of dropping out behind? Better than the gig!
The air was cold, Tom; so it was, there was no denying it; but would it have been more genial in the gig? The blacksmith’s fire burned very bright, and leaped up high, as though it wanted men to warm; but would it have been less tempting, looked at from the clammy cushions of a gig? The wind blew keenly, nipping the features of the hardy wight who fought his way along; blinding him with his own hair if he had enough to it, and wintry dust if he hadn’t; stopping his breath as though he had been soused in a cold bath; tearing aside his wrappings-up, and whistling in the very marrow of his bones; but it would have done all this a hundred times more fiercely to a man in a gig, wouldn’t it? A fig for gigs!