CHAPTER VI. AN OLD-FASHIONED CARD-PARTY--THE CLERGYMAN'S VERSES--THESTORY OF THE CONVICT'S RETURN
Several guests who were assembled in the old parlour rose to greet Mr.Pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performanceof the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, Mr. Pickwickhad leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the charactersand pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded--a habit in whichhe, in common with many other great men, delighted to indulge.
A very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown--no less a personagethan Mr. Wardle's mother--occupied the post of honour on the right-handcorner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of her having beenbrought up in the way she should go when young, and of her not havingdeparted from it when old, ornamented the walls, in the form of samplersof ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal antiquity, and crimson silktea-kettle holders of a more modern period. The aunt, the two youngladies, and Mr. Wardle, each vying with the other in paying zealous andunremitting attentions to the old lady, crowded round her easy-chair,one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and punching thepillows which were arranged for her support. On the opposite side sat abald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured, benevolent face--theclergyman of Dingley Dell; and next him sat his wife, a stout, bloomingold lady, who looked as if she were well skilled, not only in the artand mystery of manufacturing home-made cordials greatly to otherpeople's satisfaction, but of tasting them occasionally very much to herown. A little hard-headed, Ripstone pippin-faced man, was conversingwith a fat old gentleman in one corner; and two or three more oldgentlemen, and two or three more old ladies, sat bolt upright andmotionless on their chairs, staring very hard at Mr. Pickwick and hisfellow-voyagers.
'Mr. Pickwick, mother,' said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice.
'Ah!' said the old lady, shaking her head; 'I can't hear you.'
'Mr. Pickwick, grandma!' screamed both the young ladies together.
'Ah!' exclaimed the old lady. 'Well, it don't much matter. He don't carefor an old 'ooman like me, I dare say.'
'I assure you, ma'am,' said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand,and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to hisbenevolent countenance--'I assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights memore than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family,and looking so young and well.'
'Ah!' said the old lady, after a short pause: 'it's all very fine, Idare say; but I can't hear him.'
'Grandma's rather put out now,' said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a lowtone; 'but she'll talk to you presently.'
Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, andentered into a general conversation with the other members of thecircle.
'Delightful situation this,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Delightful!' echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.
'Well, I think it is,' said Mr. Wardle.
'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent, sir,' said the hard-headed man with the pippin--face; 'there ain't indeed, sir--I'm surethere ain't, Sir.' The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as ifhe had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the betterof him at last.
'There ain't a better spot o' ground in all Kent,' said the hard-headedman again, after a pause.
''Cept Mullins's Meadows,' observed the fat man solemnly.
'Mullins's Meadows!' ejaculated the other, with profound contempt.
'Ah, Mullins's Meadows,' repeated the fat man.
'Reg'lar good land that,' interposed another fat man.
'And so it is, sure-ly,' said a third fat man.
'Everybody knows that,' said the corpulent host.
The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in aminority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more.
'What are they talking about?' inquired the old lady of one of hergranddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, shenever seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearingwhat she said herself.
'About the land, grandma.'
'What about the land?--Nothing the matter, is there?'
'No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins'sMeadows.'
'How should he know anything about it?'inquired the old ladyindignantly. 'Miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I saidso.' Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spokenabove a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard-headed delinquent.
'Come, come,' said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to changethe conversation, 'what say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?'
'I should like it of all things,' replied that gentleman; 'but praydon't make up one on my account.'
'Oh, I assure you, mother's very fond of a rubber,' said Mr. Wardle;'ain't you, mother?'
The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other,replied in the affirmative.
'Joe, Joe!' said the gentleman; 'Joe--damn that--oh, here he is; put outthe card-tables.'
The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set outtwo card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. Thewhist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady, Mr. Miller and the fatgentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company.
The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment andsedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled 'whist'--asolemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of 'game'has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-gametable, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially tointerrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so muchabsorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various highcrimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentlemanto a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old ladyin a proportionate degree.
'There!' said the criminal Miller triumphantly, as he took up the oddtrick at the conclusion of a hand; 'that could not have been playedbetter, I flatter myself; impossible to have made another trick!'
'Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn't he, Sir?' said theold lady.
Mr. Pickwick nodded assent.
'Ought I, though?' said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to hispartner.
'You ought, Sir,' said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice.
'Very sorry,' said the crestfallen Miller.
'Much use that,' growled the fat gentleman.
'Two by honours--makes us eight,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Another hand. 'Can you one?' inquired the old lady.
'I can,' replied Mr. Pickwick. 'Double, single, and the rub.'
'Never was such luck,' said Mr. Miller.
'Never was such cards,' said the fat gentleman.
A solemn silence; Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fatgentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous.
'Another double,' said the old lady, triumphantly making a memorandum ofthe circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny underthe candlestick.
'A double, sir,' said Mr. Pickwick.
'Quite aware of the fact, Sir,' replied the fat gentleman sharply.
Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from theunlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of highpersonal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, whenhe retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour andtwenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from hisretirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of aman who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuriessustained. The old lady's hearing decidedly improved and the unluckyMiller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box.
Meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. Isabella Wardle andMr. Trundle 'went partners,' and Emily Wardle and Mr. Snodgrass did the
same; and even Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt established a joint-stock company of fish and flattery. Old Mr. Wardle was in the veryheight of his jollity; and he was so funny in his management of theboard, and the old ladies were so sharp after their winnings, that thewhole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter. There wasone old lady who always had about half a dozen cards to pay for, atwhich everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the old ladylooked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever; on whichthe old lady's face gradually brightened up, till at last she laughedlouder than any of them, Then, when the spinster aunt got 'matrimony,'the young ladies laughed afresh, and the Spinster aunt seemed disposedto be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing her hand under thetable, she brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimonyin reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for;whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially old Mr. Wardle, whoenjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. As to Mr. Snodgrass, he didnothing but whisper poetical sentiments into his partner's ear, whichmade one old gentleman facetiously sly, about partnerships at cards andpartnerships for life, and caused the aforesaid old gentleman to makesome remarks thereupon, accompanied with divers winks and chuckles,which made the company very merry and the old gentleman's wifeespecially so. And Mr. Winkle came out with jokes which are very wellknown in town, but are not all known in the country; and as everybodylaughed at them very heartily, and said they were very capital, Mr.Winkle was in a state of great honour and glory. And the benevolentclergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy faces which surrounded thetable made the good old man feel happy too; and though the merriment wasrather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips;and this is the right sort of merriment, after all.
The evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and whenthe substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and the littleparty formed a social circle round the fire, Mr. Pickwick thought he hadnever felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed toenjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment.
'Now this,' said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great statenext the old lady's arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his--'thisis just what I like--the happiest moments of my life have been passed atthis old fireside; and I am so attached to it, that I keep up a blazingfire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot to bear it.Why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this fireplace uponthat little stool when she was a girl; didn't you, mother?'
The tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of oldtimes and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stoledown the old lady's face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile.
'You must excuse my talking about this old place, Mr. Pickwick,' resumedthe host, after a short pause, 'for I love it dearly, and know no other--the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me; and so doesour little church with the ivy, about which, by the bye, our excellentfriend there made a song when he first came amongst us. Mr. Snodgrass,have you anything in your glass?'
'Plenty, thank you,' replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity hadbeen greatly excited by the last observation of his entertainer. 'I begyour pardon, but you were talking about the song of the Ivy.'
'You must ask our friend opposite about that,' said the host knowingly,indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head.
'May I say that I should like to hear you repeat it, sir?' said Mr.Snodgrass.
'Why, really,' replied the clergyman, 'it's a very slight affair; andthe only excuse I have for having ever perpetrated it is, that I was ayoung man at the time. Such as it is, however, you shall hear it, if youwish.'
A murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentlemanproceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife,the lines in question. 'I call them,' said he,
THE IVY GREEN
Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Ofright choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold.The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed, To pleasure his daintywhim; And the mouldering dust that years have made, Is a merry meal forhim. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the Ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a staunch old hearthas he. How closely he twineth, how tight he clings To his friend thehuge Oak Tree! And slily he traileth along the ground, And his leaves hegently waves, As he joyously hugs and crawleth round The rich mould ofdead men's graves. Creeping where grim death has been, A rare old plantis the Ivy green.
Whole ages have fled and their works decayed, And nations have scatteredbeen; But the stout old Ivy shall never fade, From its hale and heartygreen. The brave old plant in its lonely days, Shall fatten upon thepast; For the stateliest building man can raise, Is the Ivy's food atlast. Creeping on where time has been, A rare old plant is the Ivygreen.