有声名著之双城记
CHAPTER XIVThe Honest Tradesman
TO the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool inFleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast numberand variety of objects in movement were every day presented.
Who could sit upon anything in Fleet Street during the busyhours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immenseprocessions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the otherever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to theplains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goesdown!
With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching thetwo streams, like the heathen rustic who has for severalcenturies been on duty watching one stream--saving that Jerryhad no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would ithave been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since Ball part ofhis income was derived from the pilotage of timid women(mostly of a full habit and past the middle of life) fromTellson's side of the tides to the opposite ore. Brief as suchcompanionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Crunchernever failed to become so interested the lady as to express astrong desire to have the honour drinking her very goodhealth. And it was from the gifts towed upon him towards theexecution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited hisfinances, as just now observed.
Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, andmused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on stool in apublic place, but not being a poet, mused as little aspossible, and looked about him.
It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowdswere few, and belated women few, and when his affairs ingeneral were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicionin his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been `flopping' insome pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring downFleet Street westward, attracted his attention. Looking thatway, Mr. Cruncher made out that me kind of funeral was comingalong, and that there was popular objection to this funeral,which engendered uproar.
`Young Jerry,' said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring,`it's a buryin'.'
`Hooroar, father!' cried Young Jerry.
The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound withmysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry soill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the younggentleman on the ear.
`What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you wantto conwey to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is agetting too many for me!' said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him.
`Him and his hooroars. Don't let me hear no more of you, oryou shall feel some more of me. D'ye hear?'
`I warn't doing no harm,' Young Jerry protested, rubbing hischeek.
`Drop it then,' said Mr. Cruncher; `I won't have none of yourno harms. Get atop of that there seat, and look at the crowd.'
His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawlingand hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, inwhich mourning coach there was only one mourner, dressed inthe dingy trappings that were considered essential to thedignity of the position. The position appeared by no means toplease him, however, with an increasing rabble surrounding thecoach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and incessantlygroaning and calling out: `Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!' withmany compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat.
Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr.
Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and became excited,when a funeral passed Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, afuneral with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, andhe asked of the first man who ran against him:
`What is it, brother? What's it about?'
`I don't know,' said the man. `Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!'
He asked another man. `Who is it?'
`I don't know,' returned the man, clapping his hands to hismouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat andwith the greatest ardour, `Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi-ies!'
At length, a person better informed on the merits of thecase, tumbled against him, and from this person he learnedthat the funeral was the funeral of One Roger Cly.
`Was He a spy?' asked Mr. Cruncher.
`Old Bailey spy,' returned his informant. `Yaha Tst! Yah! OldBailey Spi-i-ies!'
`Why, to be sure!' exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial atwhich he had assisted. `I've seen him. Dead, is he?'
`Dead as mutton,' returned the other, `and can't be too dead.
Have `em out, there Spies! Pull `em out, there! Spies!'
The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of anyidea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and, loudlyrepeating the suggestion to have `em out, and to pull em out,mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop.
On the crowd's opening the coach doors, the one mournerscuffled out of himself and was in their hands for a moment;but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, thatin another moment he was scouring away up a bystreet, aftershedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pockethandkerchief, and other symbolical tears.
These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and widewith great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut uptheir shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing,and was a monster much dreaded. They had already got thelength of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when somebrighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted todestination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestionsbeing much needed, this suggestion, too, was received withacclamation, and the coach was immediately filled with eightinside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roofof the hearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick uponit. Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncherhimself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from theobservation of Tellson's, in the further corner of themourning coach.
The officiating undertakers made some protest against thesechanges in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarminglynear, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of coldimmersion in bringing refractory members of the profession toreason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelledprocession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him,under close inspection, for the purpose--and with a pieman,also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourningcoach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time,was impressed as an additional ornament, before the cavalcadehad gone far down the Strand; and his bear, who was black andvery mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that part of theprocession in which he walked.
Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, andinfinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession wentits way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shuttingup before it. Its destination was the old church of SaintPancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course oftime; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally,accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in itsown way, and highly to its own satisfaction. #p#副标题#e#The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under thenecessity of providing some other entertainment for itself,another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived thehumour of impeaching casual passersby, as Old Bailey spies,and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scoresof inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old Baileyin their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and theywere roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to thesport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering ofpublic-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after severalhours, when sundry summerhouses had been pulled dow and somearea-railings had been torn up, to arm the more belligerentspirits, a rumour got about that the Guards we coming. Beforethis rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps theGuards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was theusual progress of a mob.
Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, hut hadremained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole withthe undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. Heprocured a pipe from a neighbouring public house, and smokedit, looking in at the railings and maturely considering thespot.
`Jerry,' said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in hisusual way, `you see that there Cly that day, and you see withyour own eyes that he was a young `un and a straight made`un.'
Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, heturned himself about, that he might appear, before the hour ofclosing, on his station at Tellson's. Whether his meditationson mortality had touched his liver, or whether his generalhealth had been previously at all amiss, or whether he desiredto show a little attention to an eminent man, is not so muchto the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medicaladviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back.
Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, andreported No job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancientclerks came Out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher andhis son went home to tea.
`Now, I tell you where it is!' said Mr. Cruncher to his wife,on entering. `If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrongtonight, I shall make sure that you've been praying again me,and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you doit.'
The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head.
`Why, you're at it afore my face!' said Mr. Cruncher, withsigns of angry apprehension.
`I am saying nothing.'
`Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as wellmeditate. You may as well go again me one way as another. Dropit altogether.'
`Yes Jerry.'
`Yes, Jerry,' repeated Mr. Cruncher, sitting down to tea.
`Ah! It is yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say yes,Jerry.'
Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulkycorroborations, but made use of them, as people notunfrequently do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction.
`You and your yes, Jerry,' said Mr. Cruncher, taking a biteout of his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down witha large invisible oyster out of his saucer. `Ah! I think so. Ibelieve you.'
`You are going out to-night?' asked his decent wife, when hetook another bite.
`Yes, I am.'
`May I go with you, father?' asked his son, briskly.
`No, you mayn't. I'm a going--as your mother knows--a fishing.
That's where I'm going to. Going a fishing.'
`Your fishing rod gets rather rusty; don't it, father?'
`Never you mind.'
`Shall you bring any fish home, father?'
`If I don't, you'll have short commons, tomorrow,' returnedthat gentleman, shaking his head; `that's questions enough foryou; I ain't a going out, till you've been long a-bed.'
He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening tokeeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenlyholding her in conversation that she might be prevented frommeditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view,he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led theunfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes ofcomplaint lie could bring against her, rather than he wouldleave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutestperson could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacyof an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his Mile.
It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should befrightened by a ghost story.
`And mind you!' said Mr. Cruncher. `No games tomorrow! If I,as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat ortwo, none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread.
If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to provide a little beer,none of your declaring on water. When you go to Rome, do asRome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don't.
`I'm your Rome, you know.'
Then he began grumbling again:
`With your flying into the face of your own wittles anddrink! I don't know how scarce you mayn't make the wittles anddrink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeelingconduct. Look at your boy: he is your'n, ain't he? He's asthin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not knowthat a mother's first duty is to blow her boy out?'
This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured hismother to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she didor neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on thedischarge of that maternal function so affectingly anddelicately indicated by his other parent.
Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, untilYoung Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid undersimilar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled theearlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did notstart upon his excursion until nearly one o'clock. Towardsthat small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, took akey out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and broughtforth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain,and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing thesearticles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a partingdefiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and wentout.
Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when hewent to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of thedarkness he followed out of the room, followed down thestairs, followed down the court, followed out into thestreets. He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting intothe house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the doorstood ajar all night.
Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mysteryof his father's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as closeto house-fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were closeto one another, held his honoured parent in view. The honouredparent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he wasjoined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the twotrudged on together. #p#副标题#e#Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyondthe winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, andwere out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was Picked uphere--and that so silently, that if Young Jerry had beensuperstitious, he might have supposed the second follower ofthe gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself intwo.
The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the threestopped under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of thebank was a low brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. Inthe shadow of bank and wall the three turned out of the road,and up a blind lane, of which the wall--there, risen to someeight or ten feet high--formed one side. Crouching down in acorner, peeping up the lane, the next object that Young Jerrysaw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well definedagainst a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an irongate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman gotover, and then the third. They all dropped softly on theground within the gate, and lay there a little--listeningperhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands and knees.
It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate: which hedid, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a cornerthere, and looking in, he made out the three fishermencreeping through some rank grass, and all the gravestones inthe churchyard--it was a large churchyard that they were inlooking--on like ghosts in white, while the church toweritself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They didnot creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And thenthey began to fish.
They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honouredparent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a greatcorkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard,until the awful striking of the church clock so terrifiedYoung, Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as hisfather's.
But, his long-cherished desire to know more about thesematters, not only stopped him in his running away, but luredhim back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when hepeeped in at the gate for the second time; but, now theyseemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing andcomplaining sound down below, and their bent figures werestrained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight brokeaway the earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerryvery well knew what it would be; but, when he saw it, and sawhis honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was sofrightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again,and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.
He would not have stopped then for anything less necessarythan breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, andone highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strongidea that the coffin he had seen was running after him; and,pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon itsnarrow end, always on the point of overtaking him and hoppingon at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer toshun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for,while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful, hedarted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful ofits coming hopping out of them like a dropsical boy's Kitewithout tail and wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing itshorrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up to itsears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road,and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time itwas incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so thatwhen the boy got to his own door lie had reason for being halfdead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed himupstairs with a bump on every Stair, scrambled into bed withhim, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when hefell asleep.
From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet wasawakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence ofhis father in the family room. Something had gone bong withhim; at least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstanceof his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking theback of her head against the headboard of the bed.
`I told you I would,' said Mr. Cruncher, `and I did.'
`Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!' his wife implored.
`You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,' saidJerry, `and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour andobey; why the devil don't you?'
`I try to be a good wife, Jerry,' the poor woman protested,with tears.
`Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business?
Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is itobeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject ofhis business?'
`You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.'
`It's enough for you,' retorted Mr. Cruncher, `to be the wifeof a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind withcalculations when he took to his trade or when he didn't. Ahonouring and obeying wife would let his trade alonealtogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you're areligious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have no morenat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames riverhas of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you.'
The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, andterminated in the honest tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. Aftertaking a timid peep at him lying on his back, with his rustyhands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, andfell asleep again.
There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anythingelse. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, andkept an iron pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correctionof Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms ofher saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the usual hour,and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible calling.
Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at hisfather's side along sunny and crowded Fleet Street, was a verydifferent Young Jerry from him of the previous night, runninghome through darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer. Hiscunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone withthe night--in which particulars it is not improbable that hehad compeers in Fleet Street and the City of London, that finemorning.
`Father,' said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking careto keep at arm's length and to have the stool well betweenthem: `what's a Resurrection--Man?'
Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before lieanswered, `How should I know?'
`I thought you knowed everything, father,' said the artlessboy.
`Hem! Well,' returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, andlifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, `he's atradesman.'
`What`s his goods, father?' asked the brisk Young Jerry.
`His goods,' said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in hismind, is a branch of Scientific goods.'
`Persons' bodies, ain't it, father?' asked the lively boy.
`I believe it is something of that sort,' said Mr. Cruncher.
`Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection--man whenI `m quite growed up!'
Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious andmoral way. `It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Becareful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more thanyou can help to nobody, and there's no telling at the presenttime what you may not come to be fit for.' As Young Jerry,thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, to plant thestool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself:
`Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy willyet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for hismother! |