Bleak House

  "We have here among us, my friends," says Chadband, "a Gentile and a Heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends," and Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail, bestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw him an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down, "a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver, and of precious stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these possessions? Why? Why is he?" Mr. Chadband states the question as if he were propounding an entirely new riddle, of much ingenuity and merit, to Mr. Snagsby, and entreating him not to give it up.

  Mr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received just now from his little woman--at about the period when Mr. Chadband mentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly remarking, "I don't know, I'm sure, sir." On which interruption, Mrs. Chadband glares, and Mrs. Snagsby says, "For shame!"

  "I hear a voice," says Chadband; "is it a still small voice, my friends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so--"

  ("Ah-h!" from Mrs. Snagsby.)

  "Which says, I don't know. Then I will tell you why. I say this brother, present here among us, is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones, because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you what is that light?"

  Mr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not to be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband leaning forward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow, directly into Mr. Snagsby, with the thumb-nail already mentioned.

  "It is," says Chadband, "the ray of rays, sun of suns, the moon of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth."

  Mr. Chadband draws himself up again, and looks triumphantly at Mr. Snagsby, as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that.

  "Of Terewth," says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. "Say not to me it is not the lamp of lamps. I say to you, it is. I say to you a million times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you shall be flawed, you shall be smashed."

  The present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its general power by Mr. Chadband's followers--being not only to make Mr. Chadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby in the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of brass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet more disconcerted; and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and false position, when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him.

  "My friends," he resumes, after dabbing his fat head for some time--and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his pocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--"to pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to which I have alluded. For, my young friends," suddenly addressing the 'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, "if I am told by the doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, l may naturally ask what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of that, before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young friends, what is this Terewth, then? Firstly (in a spirit of love), what is the common sort of Terewth--the working clothes--the everyday wear, my young friends? Is it deception?"

  ("Ah--h!" from Mrs. Snagsby.)

  "Is it suppression?"

  (A shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby.)

  "Is it reservation?"

  (A shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby--very long and very tight.)

  "No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names belongs to it. When this young Heathen now among us--who is now, my friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for his sake--when this young hardened Heathen told us a story of a Cock, and of a Bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was that the Terewth? No. Or, if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my friends, no!"

  If Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look, as it enters at his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole tenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops.

  "Or, my juvenile friends," says Chadband, descending to the level of their comprehension, with a very obtrusive demonstration, in his greasily meek smile, of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose, "if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call untoe him the mistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for I have seen an elephant!' would that be Terewth?"

  Mrs. Snagsby in tears.

  "Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and returning said, 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,' would that be Terewth?"

  Mrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly.

  "Or put it, my juvenile friends," said Chadband, stimulated by the sound, "that the unnatural parents of this slumbering Heathen--for parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and poultry, would that be Terewth?"

  Mrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms; not an unresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's Court re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she has to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After unspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is pronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though much exhausted; in which state of affairs Mr. Snagsby, trampled and crushed in the pianoforte removal, and extremely timid and feeble, ventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room.

  All this time, Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever picking his cap, and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate, and that it's no good his trying to keep awake, for he won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common men, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without their modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from it yet!

  Jo never heard of any such book. Its compilers, and the Reverend Chadband, are all one to him--except that he knows the Reverend Chadband, and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him talk for five minutes. "It an't no good my waiting here no longer," thinks Jo. "Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me tonight." And downstairs he shuffles .

  But downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of the kitchen stairs, and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same having been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own supper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo; with whom she ventures to interchange a word or so, for the first time.

  "Here's something to eat, poor boy," says Guster.

  "Thank'ee mum," says Jo.

  "Are you hungry?"

  "Jist!" says Jo.

  "What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?"

  Jo stops in the middle of a bite, and looks petrified. For this orphan charge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting, has patted him on the shoulder; a
nd it is the first time in his life that any decent hand has been so laid upon him.

  "I never know'd nothink about 'em," says Jo.

  "No more didn't I of mine," cries Guster. She is repressing symptoms favorable to the fit, when she seems to take alarm at something, and vanishes down the stairs.

  "Jo," whispers the law-stationer softly, as the boy lingers on the step.

  "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!"

  "I didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, Jo. It was quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when we were out together. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet, Jo."

  "I am fly, master!"

  And so, good-night.

  A ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, followed the law-stationer to the room he came from, and glides higher up. And henceforth he begins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his own, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his own. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may pass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs. Snagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of his shadow.

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  XXVI

  Sharpshooters

  Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighborhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high, and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper storey and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewelery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen of the green baize road who could discourse, from personal experience, of foreign galleys and home tread-mills; spies of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron, beneath their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, and more crime than is in Newgate. For, howsoever bad the devil can be in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or color, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes, than in any other form he wears. And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading the tributary channels of Leicester Square.

  But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. George of the Shooting Gallery, and his Familiar. They arise, roll up and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, bare-headed and bare-chested, to the Pump, in the little yard, and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up: his crisp hair curling tighter and tighter on his sun-burnt temples, the more he rubs it, so that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side, the more conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward, to keep the wet from his martial legs--Phil, on his knee, lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation, for one day, to take in the superfluous health his master throws off.

  When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil, shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it, winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr. George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes gravely, and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave.

  "And so, Phil," says George of the Shooting Gallery, after several turns in silence; "you were dreaming of the country last night?"

  Phil, by the by, said as much, in a tone of surprise, as he scrambled out of bed.

  "Yes, guv'ner."

  "What was it like?"

  "I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering.

  "How do you know it was the country?"

  "On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil, after further consideration.

  "What were the swans doing on the grass?"

  "They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil.

  The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for two, and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit; sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table, and taking his plate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating.

  "The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?"

  "I see the marshes once," said Phil, contentedly eating his breakfast.

  "What marshes?"

  "The marshes, commander," returns Phil.

  "Where are they?"

  "I don't know where they are," said Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner. They was flat. And misty."

  Governor and Commander are interchangeable terms with Phil, expressive of the same respect and deference, and applicable to nobody but Mr. George.

  "I was born in the country, Phil."

  "Was you indeed, commander?"

  "Yes. And bred there."

  Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and, after respectfully staring at his master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still staring at him.

  "There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree that I couldn't climb yet, if I was put to it. I was a real country boy, once. My good mother lived in the country."

  "She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes.

  "Aye! and not so old either, five-and-thirty years ago," says Mr. George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders."

  "Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil.

  "No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?"

  Phil shakes his head.

  "Do you want to see it?"

  "N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil.

  "The town's enough for you, eh?"

  "Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to novelties."

  "How old are you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his smoking saucer to his lips.

  "I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres."

  Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil,"--when he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers.

  "I was just eight," said Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation, w
hen I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my man? ' I says ' Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, 'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after that, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me; but this is how I always know there's a eight in it."

  "Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the tinker?"

  "Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in a glass case, I have heerd," Phil replies mysteriously.

  "By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?"

  "Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much of a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, and there--poor neighborhood, where they uses up the kettles till they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings. But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing with a pot, but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me. Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me."

  "They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, Phil!" says the trooper, with a pleasant smile.

  "No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then: but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke; and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in the way of running against hot metal, and marking myself by sich means; and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to since; what with a dozen years in a dark forge, where the men was given to larking; and what with being scorched in a accident at a gas-works; and what with being blowed out of winder, case-filling at the firework business; I am ugly enough to be made a show on!"