 13 Showing what became of Martin and his desperate resolve after he left Mr. Pecksniff's house, what persons he encountered, what anxieties he suffered, and what news he heard. Part 1 Carrying Tom Pinch's book quite unconsciously under his arm, and not even buttoning his coat as a protection against the heavy rain, Martin went doggedly forward at the same quick pace until he had passed the finger post and was on the high road to London. He slackened very little in his speed even then, but he began to think and look about him and to disengage his senses from the coil of angry passions which hitherto had held them prisoner. It must be confessed that at that moment he had no very agreeable employment either for his moral or his physical perceptions. The day was dawning from a patch of watery light in the east, and sullen clouds came driving up before it, from which the rain descended in a thick wet mist. It streamed from every twig and bramble in the hedge, made little gullies in the path, ran down a hundred channels in the road, and punched innumerable holes into the face of every pond and gutter. It fell with an oozy slushy sound among the grass, and made a muddy kennel of every furrow in the plowed fields. No living creature was anywhere to be seen. The prospect could hardly have been more desolate if animated nature had been dissolved in water and poured down upon the earth again in that form. The range of view within the solitary traveler was quite as cheerless as the scene without. Friendless and penniless, incensed to the last degree, deeply wounded in his pride and self-love, full of independent schemes and perfectly destitute of any means of realizing them, his most vindictive enemy might have been satisfied with the extent of his troubles. To add to his other miseries he was by this time sensible of being wet to the skin and cold at his very heart. In this deplorable condition he remembered Mr. Pinch's book, more because it was rather troublesome to carry than from any hope of being comforted by that parting gift. He looked at the dingy lettering on the back and finding it to be an odd volume of the Bachelor of Salamanca in the French tongue cursed Tom Pinch's folly twenty times. He was on the point of throwing it away in his ill-humour and vexation when he bethaught himself that Tom had referred him to a leaf turned down, and opening it at that place that he might have additional cause of complaint against him for supposing that any cold scrap of the Bachelor's wisdom could cheer him in such circumstances found well, well, not much, but Tom's all, the half-sovereign. He had wrapped it hastily in a piece of paper and pinned it to the leaf. These words were scrawled in pencil on the inside. I don't want it indeed, I should not know what to do with it if I had it. There are some falsehoods, Tom, on which men mount as on bright wings towards heaven. There are some truths, cold, bitter, taunting truths wherein your worldly scholars are very apt and punctual, which bind men down to earth with leaden chains. Who would not rather have to fan him in his dying hour the lightest feather of a falsehood such as thine than all the quills that have been plucked from the sharp porcupine reproachful truth since time began? Martin felt keenly for himself, and he felt there's good deed of Tom's keenly. After a few minutes it had the effect of raising his spirits and reminding him that he was not altogether destitute as he had left a fair stock of clothes behind him and wore a gold hunting watch in his pocket. He found a curious gratification, too, in thinking what a winning fellow he must be to have made such an impression on Tom, and in reflecting how superior he was to Tom and how much more likely to make his way in the world. Animated by these thoughts and strengthened in his design of endeavoring to push his fortune in another country, he resolved to get to London as a rallying point in the best way he could and to lose no time about it. He was ten good miles from the village made illustrious by being the abiding place of Mr. Pecksniff when he stopped to breakfast at a little roadside ale-house, and resting upon a high-backed saddle before the fire pulled off his coat and hung it before the cheerful blaze to dry. It was a very different place from the last tavern in which he had regaled, boasting no greater extent of accommodation than the brick-floored kitchen yielded, but the mind so soon accommodates itself to the necessities of the body that this poor wagoner's house of call, which he would have despised yesterday, became now quite a choice hotel. While his dish of eggs and bacon and his mug of beer were not by any means the coarse fare he had supposed, but fully bore out the inscription on the window-shutter, which proclaimed those viens to be good entertainment for travellers. He pushed away his empty plate, and with a second mug upon the hearth before him looked thoughtfully at the fire until his eyes ached. Then he looked at the highly-coloured scripture-pieces on the walls in little black frames like common shaving-glasses, and saw how the wise men, with a strong family likeness among them, worshiped in a pink manger, and how the prodigal son came home in red rags to a purple father, and already feasted his imagination on a sea-green calf. Then he glanced through the window at the falling rain, coming down a slant upon the signpost over against the house, and overflowing the horse-trough. And then he looked at the fire again, and seemed to describe a double-distant London retreating among the fragments of the burning wood. He had repeated this process in just the same order many times as if it were a matter of necessity when the sound of wheels called his attention to the window out of its regular churn, and there he beheld a kind of light van drawn by four horses and laden as well as he could see, for it was covered in, with corn and straw. The driver, who was alone, stopped at the door to water his team, and presently came stamping and shaking the wet off his hat and coat into the room where Martin sat. He was a red-faced, burly young fellow, smart in his way, and with a good humor countenance. As he advanced towards the fire he touched his shining forehead with the forefinger of his stiff leather glove by way of salutation, and said, rather unnecessarily, that it was an uncommon wet day. Very wet, said Martin. I don't know as ever I see a wetter. I never felt one, said Martin. The driver glanced at Martin's soiled dress and his damp shirt sleeves and his coat hung up to dry, and said, after a pause, as he warmed his hands, You have been caught in it, sir? Yes, was the short reply. Out riding, maybe, said the driver. I should have been if I owned a horse, but I don't, returned Martin. That's bad, said the driver. And maybe worse, said Martin. Now the driver said that's bad, not so much because Martin didn't own a horse, as because he said he didn't, with all the reckless desperation of his mood and circumstances, and so left a great deal to be inferred. Martin put his hands in his pockets and whistled when he had retorted on the driver, thus giving him to understand that he didn't care a pin for fortune that he was above pretending to be her favorite when he was not, and that he snapped his fingers at her, the driver, and everybody else. The driver looked at him stealthily for a minute or so, and in the pauses of his warming whistled, too. At length he asked, as he pointed his thumb towards the road, up or down. Which is up, said Martin. London, of course, said the driver. Up, then, said Martin. He tossed his head in a careless manner afterwards, as if he would have added, now you know all about it. Put his hands deeper into his pockets, changed his tune, and whistled a little louder. I'm going up, observed the driver, hounds low, ten miles this side London. Are you? cried Martin, stopping short and looking at him. The driver sprinkled the fire with his wet hat, until it hissed again and answered, I, to be sure he was. Why, then, said Martin, I'll be playing with you. You may suppose from my dress that I have money to spare, I have not. All I can afford for coat-tire is a crown, for I have but two. If you can take me for that, and my waistcoat, or this silk handkerchief, do. If you can't, leave it alone. Short and sweet remarked the driver. You want more? said Martin. Then I haven't got more, and I can't get it, so there is an end of that. Whereupon he began to whistle again. I didn't say I wanted more, did I, asked the driver, with something like indignation. You didn't say my offer was enough, rejoined Martin. Well how could I, when you wouldn't let me? In regard to the waistcoat, I wouldn't have a man's waistcoat, much less a gentleman's waistcoat on my mind, for no consideration. Was the silk handkerchiefs another thing? And if you were satisfied when we got to Hounslow, I shouldn't object to that as a gift. Is it a bargain then? said Martin. Yes it is, we turned to the other. Then finished this beer, said Martin, handing him the mug and pulling on his coat with great alacrity, and let us be off as soon as you like. In two minutes more he had paid his bill, which amounted to a shilling, was lying at full length on a truss of straw, high and dry at the top of the van, with the tilt a little open in front for the convenience of talking to his new friend, and was moving along in the right direction with the most satisfactory and encouraging bristness. The driver's name, as he soon informed Martin, was William Simmons, better known as Bill, and his spruce appearance was sufficiently explained by his connection with a large stagecoaching establishment at Hounslow, whether he was conveying his load from a farm belonging to the concern in Wiltshire. He was frequently up and down the road on such errands, he said, and to look after the sick and rest horses of which animals he had much to relate that occupied a long time in the tulling. He aspired to the dignity of the regular box, and expected an appointment on the first vacancy. He was musical besides, and had a little key bugle in his pocket, on which, whenever the conversation flagged, he played the first part of a great many tunes, and regularly broke down in the second. Ah, said Bill with a sigh, as he drew the back of his hand across his lips, and put this instrument in his pocket after screwing off the mouthpiece to drain it. Lumminet of the light Salisbury. He was the one for musical talents. He was a guard. What you may call a garden angel was Ned. Is he dead? asked Martin. Dead, replied the other with a contemptuous emphasis. Not he. You won't catch Ned a dying easy. No, no. He knows better than that. You spoke of him in the past tense, observed Martin, so I suppose he was no more. He's no more in England, said Bill, if that's what you mean. He went to the United States. Did he, asked Martin, with sudden interest, when? Five years ago, or then about, said Bill, he had set up in the public line here and couldn't meet his engagements, so he cut off to Liverpool one day without saying anything about it, and went and shipped himself for the United States. Well, said Martin, well, as he landed there without a penny to bless himself with, of course they was very glad to see him in the United States. What do you mean, asked Martin, with some scorn? What do I mean, said Bill, why that? All men are alike in the United States, aren't they? It makes no odds whether a man has a thousand pound or nothing there, particular in New York, I'm told, where Ned landed. New York was it, asked Martin thoughtfully. Yes, said Bill, New York. I know that, because he sent word home that it brought old York to his mind quite vivid in consequence of being so exactly unlike it in every respect. I don't understand what particular business Ned turned his mind to when he got there, but he wrote home that him and his friends was always a singing, ale Columbia, and blowing up the president, so I suppose it was something in the public line, or free and easy way again. Anyhow, he made his fortune. No, cried Martin. Yes, he did, said Bill. I know that, because he lost it all the day after, and six and twenty banks as broke. He settled a lot of the notes on his father when it was ascertained that they was really stopped and sent him over with a dutiful letter. I know that, because they were shown down our yard for the old gentleman's benefit that he might treat himself with tobacco in the workest. He was a foolish fellow not to take care of his money when he had it, said Martin indignantly. There you're right, said Bill, especially as it was all in paper, and he might have took care of it so very easy by folding it up in a small parcel. Martin said nothing in reply, but soon afterwards fell asleep, and remained so for an hour or more. When he awoke, finding it had ceased to rain, he took his seat beside the driver and asked him several questions, as how long had the fortunate guard of the light Salisbury been in crossing the Atlantic, at what time of the year had he sailed, what was the name of the ship in which he made the voyage, how much had he paid for passage money, did he suffer greatly from seasickness and so forth. But on these points of detail, his friend was possessed of little or no information, either answering obviously at random or acknowledging that he had never heard or had forgotten. Nor, although he returned to the charge very often, could he obtain any useful intelligence on these essential particulars. He jogged on all day and stopped so often, now to refresh, now to change their team of horses, now to exchange or bring away a set of harness, now on one point of business and now upon another, connected with the coaching on that line of road, that it was midnight when they reached townslow. A little short of the stables for which the van was bound, Martin got down, paid his crown, and forced his silk handkerchief upon his honest friend. Notwithstanding the many protestations that he didn't wish to deprive him of it, with which he tried to give the lie to his longing looks. That done they parted company, and when the van had driven into its own yard and the gates were closed, Martin stood in the dark street with a pretty strong sense of being shut out alone upon the dreary world without the key of it. But in this moment of despondency and often afterwards the recollection of Mr. Pexniff operated as a cordial to him, awakening in his breast an indignation that was very wholesome in nerving him to obstinate endurance. Under the influence of this fiery dram he started off for London without more ado. Arriving there in the middle of the night, and not knowing where to find a tavern open, he was feigned to stroll about the streets and marketplaces until morning. He found himself about an hour before dawn in the humbler regions of the Adelphi, and addressing himself to a man in a fur cap who was taking down the shutters of an obscure public house, informed him that he was a stranger and inquired if he could have a bed there. It happened by good luck that he could. Though none of the gaudiest it was tolerably clean, and Martin felt very glad and grateful when he crept into it, for warmth, rest, and forgetfulness. It was quite late in the afternoon when he awoke, and by the time he had washed and dressed and broken his fast it was growing dusk again. This was all the better, for it was now a matter of absolute necessity that he should part with his watch to some obliging pawnbroker. He would have waited until after dark for this purpose, though it had been the longest day in the year, and he had begun it without a breakfast. He passed more golden balls than all the jugglers in Europe have juggled with in the course of their united performances, before he could determine in favor of any particular shop where those symbols were displayed. In the end he came back to one of the first he had seen, and entering by a side door in a court where the three balls with the legend money lent were repeated in a ghastly transparency, passed into one of a series of little closets or private boxes erected for the accommodation of the more bashful and uninitiated customers. He bolted himself in, pulled out his watch, and laid it on the counter. A pound my life and soul set a low voice on the next box to the shopman who was in treaty with him. You must make it more. You must make it a trifle more. You must indeed. You must dispense with one-half quarter of an ounce in weighing out your pound of flesh, my best of friends, and make it two and six. Martin drew back involuntarily, for he knew the voice at once. You're always full of your chaffs of the shopman rolling up the article, which looked like a shirt, quite as a matter, of course, and nibbing his pen upon the counter. I shall never be full of my wheat, said Mr. Tigg, as long as I come here. Ha, ha, not bad. Make it two and six, my dear friend, positively, for this occasion only. Half a crown is a delightful coin, two and six, going at two and six, for the last time, at two and six. It'll never be the last time till it's quite worn out, rejoined the shopman. It's grown yellow in the service as it is. It's master has grown yellow in the service, if you mean that, my friend, said Mr. Tigg, in the patriotic service of an ungrateful country. You are making it two and six, I think. I'm making it, returned to the shopman, what it always has been. Two shillings. Same name as usual, I suppose. Still the same name, said Mr. Tigg. My claim to the dormant peerage not being yet established by the House of Lords. The old address? Not at all, said Mr. Tigg. I have removed my town establishment from 38 Mayfair to number 1542 Park Lane. Come, I'm not going to put down that, you know, said the shopman with a grin. You may put down what you please, my friend, quote Mr. Tigg. The fact is still the same. The apartments for the underbutler and the fifth footman, being of a most confounded low and vulgar kind at 38 Mayfair, I have been compelled, in my regard for the feelings which do them so much honor, to take on lease for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years renewable at the option of the tenant, the elegant and commodious family mansion number 1542 Park Lane. Make it two and six, and come and see me. The shopman was so highly entertained by this piece of humor that Mr. Tigg himself could not repress some little show of exaltation. It vented itself, in part, in a desire to see how the occupant of the next box received his pleasantry. To ascertain which he glanced round the partition and immediately by the gaslight recognized Martin. I wish I may die, said Mr. Tigg, stretching out his body so far that his head was as much in Martin's little cell as Martin's own head was. But this is one of the most tremendous meetings in ancient or modern history. How are you? What is the news from the agricultural district? How are our friends the peas? Ha-ha! David, pay particular attention to this gentleman immediately as a friend of mine I beg. Here. Pleased to give me the most you can for this, said Martin, handing the watch to the shopman. I want money sorely. He wants money sorely, cried Mr. Tigg, with excessive sympathy. David, will you have the goodness to do your very utmost for my friend who wants money sorely? You will deal with my friend as if he were myself. A gold hunting watch, David, ends in turned, capped and jeweled in four holes, escape movement, horizontal lever and warranted to perform correctly upon my personal reputation, who have observed it narrowly for many years under the most trying circumstances. Here he winked at Martin that he might understand this recommendation would have an immense effect upon the shopman. What do you say, David, to my friend? Be very particular to deserve my custom and recommendation, David. I can lend you three pounds on this, if you like, said the shopman to Martin, confidentially. It is very old fashioned, I couldn't say more. And devilish, handsome, too, cried Mr. Tigg, two twelve six for the watch and seven and six for personal regard. I am gratified, it may be weakness, but I am. Three pounds will do, we take it. The name of my friend is Smivvy, chicken Smivvy of Holborn, twenty-six and a half bee lodger. Here he winked at Martin again to apprise him that all the forms and ceremonies prescribed by law were now complied with, and nothing remained but the receipt for the money. In point of fact this proved to be the case, for Martin, who had no resource but to take what was offered him, signified his acquiescence by a nod of his head and presently came out with the cash in his pocket. He was joined in the entry by Mr. Tigg, who warmly congratulated him as he took his arm and accompanied him into the street on the successful issue of the negotiation. As for my part in the same, said Mr. Tigg, don't mention it. Don't compliment me, for I can't bear it. I have no such intention, I assure you, retorted Martin, releasing his arm and stopping. You obliged me very much, said Mr. Tigg, thank you. Now, sir, observed Martin, biting his lip, this is a large town, and we can easily find different ways in it. If you will show me which is your way I will take another. Mr. Tigg was about to speak, but Martin interposed. I need scarcely tell you, after what you have just seen, that I have nothing to bestow upon your friend Mr. Slime, and it is quite as unnecessary for me to tell you that I don't desire the honor of your company. Stop, cried Mr. Tigg, holding out his hand. Hold! There is a most remarkably long-headed, flowing bearded and patriarchal proverb which observes that it is the duty of a man to be just before he is generous. Be just now, and you can be generous presently. Do not confuse me with the man Slime. Do not distinguish the man Slime as a friend of mine, for he is no such thing. I have been compelled, sir, to abandon the party whom you call Slime. I have no knowledge of the party whom you call Slime. I am, sirs, said Mr. Tigg, striking himself upon the breast, a premium tulip of a very different growth and cultivation from the cabbage Slime, sir. It matters very little to me, said Martin Cooley, whether you have set up as a vagabond on your own account or are still trading on behalf of Mr. Slime. I wish to hold no correspondence with you. In the devil's name, man, said Martin, scarcely able, despite his vexation, to repress a smile, as Mr. Tigg stood leaning his back against the shutters of a shop window, adjusting his hair with great composure. Will you go one way or other? You will allow me to remind you, sir, said Mr. Tigg, with sudden dignity, that you, not I, that you, I say emphatically you, have reduced the proceedings of this evening to a cold and distant matter of business when I was disposed to place them on a friendly footing. It being made a matter of business, sir, I beg to say that I expect a trifle, which I shall bestow in charity, as commission upon the pecuniary advance, in which I have rendered you my humble services, after the terms in which you have addressed me, sir. Concluded Mr. Tigg, you will not insult me, if you please, by offering more than half a crown. Martin drew that piece of money from his pocket and tossed it towards him. Mr. Tigg caught it, looked at it, to assure himself of its goodness, spun it in the air after the manner of a pieman, and buttoned it up. Finally, he raised his hat, an inch or two from his head, with a military air, and after pausing a moment with deep gravity, as to decide in which direction he should go, and to what earl or marquee among his friends he should give the preference in his next call, stuck his hands in his skirt pockets and swaggered round the corner. Martin took the directly opposite course, and so to his great content they parted company. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIII. It was with a bitter sense of humiliation that he cursed, again and again the mischance of having encountered this man in the pawnbroker's shop. The only comfort he had in the recollection was Mr. Tigg's voluntary avowal of a separation between himself and slime that would at least prevent his circumstances, so Martin argued, from being known to any member of his family, the bare possibility of which filled him with shame and wounded pride. Abstractedly there was greater reason, perhaps, for supposing any declaration of Mr. Tigg's to be false than for attaching the least credence to it. But remembering the terms on which the intimacy between that gentleman and his bosom friend had subsisted and the strong probability of Mr. Tigg's having established an independent business of his own on Mr. Slime's connection, it had a reasonable appearance of probability, that all events Martin hoped so, and that went a long way. His first step, now that he had a supply of ready money for his present necessities, was to retain his bed at the public house until further notice and to write a formal note to Tom Pinch, for he knew Pexnip would see it, requesting to have his clothes forwarded to London by coach, with a direction to be left at the office until called for. These measures taken he passed the interval before the box arrived, three days, in making inquiries relative to American vessels at the offices of various shipping agents in the city, and in lingering about the docks and wharves with the faint hope of stumbling upon some engagement for the voyage as clerk or supercargo or custodian of something or somebody which would enable him to procure a free passage. But finding soon that no such means of employment were likely to present themselves, and dreading the consequences of delay, he drew up a short advertisement stating what he wanted and inserted it in the leading newspapers. Using the receipt of the twenty or thirty answers which he vaguely expected, he reduced his wardrobe to the narrowest limits consistent with decent respectability, and carried the over-plus at different times to the pawnbroker's shop for conversion into money. And it was strange, very strange, even to himself, to find how, by quick though almost imperceptible degrees, he lost his delicacy and self-respect, and gradually came to do that as a matter of course, without the least compunction, which but a few short days before had galled him to the quick. The first time he visited the pawnbrokers, he felt on his way there as if every person whom he passed suspected whether he was going, and on his way back again, as if the whole human tide he stemmed knew well where he had come from. When did he care to think of their discernment now? In his first wanderings up and down the weary streets he counterfeited the walk of one who had an object in his view, but soon there came upon him the sauntering slip-shod gate of listless idleness, and the lounging at street corners and plucking and biting of stray bits of straw, and strolling up and down the same place and looking into the same shop windows with a miserable indifference fifty times a day. At first he came out from his lodging with an uneasy sense of being observed, even by those chance-passers by on whom he had never looked before, and hundreds to one would never see again, issuing in the morning from a public-house. But now in his comings out and goings in he did not mind to lounge about the door, or to stand sunning himself in careless thought beside the wooden stem, studded from head to heel with pegs, on which the beer-pots dangled like so many bows upon a pewter-tree, and yet it took but five weeks to reach the lowest round of this tall ladder. O moralists, who treat of happiness and self-respect I nade in every sphere of life, and shedding light on every grain of dust in God's highway, so smooth below your carriage-wheels, so rough beneath the tread of naked feet, you think yourselves in looking on the swift descent of men who have lived in their own esteem, that there are scores of thousands breathing now and breathing thick with painful toil, who in that high respect have never lived at all, nor had a chance of life. Go ye who rest so placidly upon the sacred bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread, go, teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the gorge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance and uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright torch as fast as it is kindled, and oh ye Pharisees of the 1900th year of Christian knowledge who soundly appeal to human nature, see that it be human first, take heed that has not been transformed during your slumber and the sleep of generations into the nature of the beasts. Five weeks of all the twenty or thirty answers not one had come. His money, even the additional stock he had raised from the disposal of his spare clothes, and that was not much, for clothes, though dear to buy or cheap to pawn, was fast diminishing. Yet what could he do? At times an agony came over him in which he darted forth again, though he was but newly home, and returning to some place where he had been already twenty times, made some new attempt to gain his end, but always unsuccessfully. He was years and years too old for a cabin boy, and years upon years too inexperienced to be accepted as a common seaman. His dress and manner, too, militated fatally against any such proposal as the latter, and yet he was reduced to making it, for even if he could have contemplated the being set down in America totally without money, he had not enough left now for a steerage passage and the poorest provisions upon the voyage. It is an illustration of a very common tendency in the mind of man that all this time he never once doubted, one may almost say the certainty of doing great things in the new world, if he could only get there, in proportion as he became more and more dejected by his present circumstances and the means of gaining America receded from his grasp, the more he fretted himself with the conviction that that was the only place in which he could hope to achieve any high end, and worried his brain with the thought that men going there in the meanwhile might anticipate him in the attainment of those objects which were dearest to his heart. He often thought of John Westlock, and besides looking out for him on all occasions, actually walked about London for three days together for the express purpose of meeting with him. But although he failed in this, and although he would not have scrupled to borrow money of him, and although he believed that John would have lent it, yet still he could not bring his mind to write to pinch and inquire where he was to be found. For although, as we have seen, he was fond of Tom after his own fashion, he could not endure the thought, feeling so superior to Tom, of making him the stepping stone to his fortune, or being anything to him but a patron, and his pride so revolted from the idea that it restrained him even now. It might have yielded, however, and no doubt must have yielded soon, but for a very strange and unlooked-for occurrence. The five weeks had quite run out, and he was in a truly desperate plight when one evening having just returned to his lodging and being in the act of lighting his candle at the gas-jet in the bar, before stalking moodily upstairs to his own room. His landlord called him by his name. Now, as he had never told it to the man, but had scrupulously kept it to himself, he was not a little startled by this. And so plainly showed his agitation that the landlord to reassure him said it was only a letter. "'A letter?' cried Martin. "'For Mr. Martin Chuzzlewit,' said the landlord, reading the superscription of one he held in his hand, noon, chief office, paid. Martin took it from him, thanked him, and walked upstairs. It was not sealed, but pasted closed. The handwriting was quite unknown to him. He opened it and found enclosed without any name, address, or other inscription or explanation of any kind, whatever, a bank of England note for twenty pounds. To say that he was perfectly stunned with astonishment and delight, that he looked again and again at the note and the wrapper, that he hurried below stairs to make quite certain that the note was a good note, and then hurried up again to satisfy himself for the fiftieth time that he had not overlooked some scrap of writing on the wrapper, that he exhausted and bewildered himself with conjectures and could make nothing of it, but that there the note was, and he was suddenly enriched, would be only to relate so many matters, of course, to no purpose. The final upshot of the business at that time was that he resolved to treat himself to a comfortable but frugal meal in his own chamber, and having ordered a fire to be kindled, went out to purchase it forthwith. He bought some cold beef and ham and French bread and butter, and came back with his pockets pretty heavily laden. It was somewhat of a damping circumstance to find the room full of smoke, which was attributable to two causes, firstly to the flu being naturally vicious and a smoker, and secondly to their having forgotten in lighting the fire an odd sack or two and some trifles which had been put up the chimney to keep the rain out. They had already remedied this oversight, however, and propped up the window sash with a bundle of firewood to keep it open, so that except in being rather inflammatory to the eyes and choking to the lungs, the apartment was quite comfortable. Martin was in no vein to quarrel with it, if it had been in less tolerable order, especially when a gleaming pint of porter was set upon the table, and the servant girl withdrew, bearing with her particular instructions relative to the production of something hot when he should ring the bell. The cold meat being wrapped in a playbill, Martin laid the cloth by spreading that document on the little round table with the print downwards, and arranging the collation upon it. The foot of the bed, which was very close to the fire, answered for a sideboard, and when he had completed these preparations he squeezed an old armchair into the warmest corner and sat down to enjoy himself. He had begun to eat with great appetite, glancing round the room meanwhile with a triumphant anticipation of quitting it forever on the morrow, when his attention was arrested by a stealthy footstep on the stairs, and presently by a knock at his chamber door, which, although it was a gentle knock enough, communicated such a start to the bundle of firewood that it instantly leaped out of window and plunged into the street. "'More coals, I suppose,' said Martin. "'Come in.' "'It ain't no liberty, sir, though it seems so,' rejoined a man's voice. "'Your servant, sir, hope you pretty well, sir.' One stared at the face that was bowing in the doorway, perfectly remembering the features and expression, but quite forgetting to whom they belonged. "'Taply, sir,' said his visitor. Him has formerly lived at the dragon, sir, and was forced to leave in consequence of a want of jollity, sir. "'To be sure,' cried Martin, "'why, how did you come here?' "'Right through the passage and up the stairs, sir,' said Mark. "'How did you find me out, I mean?' asked Martin. "'Why, sir,' said Mark, "'I've passed you once or twice in the street, if I'm not mistaken. And when I was looking in at the beef and ham shop just now, along with a hungry sweep, as was very much calculated to make a man jolly, sir, I see you are buying that.' Martin reddened as he pointed to the table and said somewhat hastily. "'Well, what then?' "'Why, then, sir,' said Mark, "'I made bold to follow. And as I told him downstairs that you expected me, I was led up. "'Are you charged with any message that you told them you were expected?' inquired Martin. "'No, sir, I am't,' said Mark. That was what you may call a pious fraud, sir, that was. Martin cast an angry look at him, but there was something in the fellow's merry face and in his manner which, with all its cheerfulness, was far from being obtrusive or familiar that quite disarmed him. He had lived a solitary life, too, for many weeks, and the voice was pleasant in his ear. "'Tapply?' he said. "'I'll deal openly with you. From all I can judge, and from all I have heard of you through pinch, you are not a likely kind of fellow to have been brought here by impertinent curiosity or any other offensive motive. Sit down. I'm glad to see you.' "'Thank you, sir,' said Mark. "'I just leave, stand.' "'If you don't sit down,' retorted Martin, I'll not talk to you.' "'Very good, sir,' observed Mark. "'Your will's a loss, sir, down it is, and he sat down accordingly upon the bedstead.' "'Help yourself,' said Martin, handing him the only knife. "'Thank you, sir,' rejoined Mark, after you've done. "'If you don't take it now, you'll not have any,' said Martin. "'Very good, sir,' rejoined Mark, that being your desire, now it is.' With which reply he gravely helped himself and went on eating, Martin having done the like for a short time in silence, said abruptly, "'What are you doing in London?' "'Nothing at all, sir,' rejoined Mark. "'How's that?' asked Martin. "'I want a place,' said Mark. "'I'm sorry for you,' said Martin.' "'To attend upon a single gentleman,' resumed Mark, "'if from the country the more desirable, makeshifts would be preferred, wages no object.' He said this so pointedly that Martin stopped in his eating, and said, "'If you mean me, yes I do, sir,' interposed Mark. "'Then you may judge from my style of living here, of my means of keeping a man servant, besides I am going to America immediately.' "'Well, sir,' returned Mark, quite unmoved by this intelligence, "'from all that ever I heard about it, I should say America is a very likely sort of place for me to be jolly in.' Again Martin looked at him angrily, and again his anger melted away in spite of himself. "'Lord bless you, sir,' said Mark. "'What is the use of us of going round and round and hiding behind the corner, and dodging up and down, when we can come straight to the point in six words? "'I've had my eye upon you any time this fortnight. I see well enough there's a screw loose in your affairs. I knowed well enough the first time I see you down at the dragon, that it must be so sooner or later. "'Now, sir, here am I, without a situation, without any want of wages, for a year to come, for I saved up. I didn't mean to do it, but I couldn't help it, at the dragon. "'Here am I, with a liking for what's wintersome, and a liking for you, and a wish to come out strong under circumstances as would keep other men down. And will you take me, or will you leave me?' "'How can I take you?' cried Martin. "'When I say take,' rejoined Mark, "'I mean will you let me go? And when I say will you let me go, I mean will you let me go along with you? For go I will, somehow or another. Now that you've said America, I see clear at once that that's the place for me to be jolly in. Therefore, if I don't pay my own passage in the ship you go in, sir, I'll pay my own passage in another. And Mark my words. If I go alone, it shall be to carry out the principle in the rottenest, craziest, leakingest tub of a vessel that a place can be got in for love or money. So if I'm lost upon the way, sir, there'll be a drowned man at your door, and always a knocking, double knocks at it, too, or never trust me. "'This is mere folly,' said Martin. "'Very good, sir,' returned Mark. I'm glad to hear it, because if you don't mean to let me go, you'll be more comfortable, perhaps, on account of thinking so. Therefore I contradict no gentleman. But all I say is that if I don't emigrate to America in that case, in the beastlyest old cockle-shell as goes out of port, I'm— "'You don't mean what you say, I'm sure,' said Martin. "'Yes, I do,' cried Mark. "'I tell you I know better,' rejoined Martin. "'Very good, sir,' said Mark, with the same air of perfect satisfaction, let it stand that way at present, sir, and wait and see how it turns out. "'Why, I love my heart alive. The only doubt I have is whether there's any credit in going with a gentleman like you that's a certain to make his way there as a gimlet is to go through soft deal.' This was touching Martin on his weak point, and having him had a great advantage. He could not help thinking either what a brisk fellow this Mark was, and how great a change he had wrought in the atmosphere of the dismal little room already. "'Why, certainly, Mark,' he said, "'I have hopes of doing well there, or I shouldn't go. I may have the qualifications for doing well, perhaps.' "'Of course you have, sir,' returned Mark happily. Everybody knows that.' "'You see,' said Martin, leaning his chin upon his hand and looking at the fire, ornamental architecture applied to domestic purposes can hardly fail to be in great request in that country, for men are constantly changing their residences there and moving further off. "'And it's clear they must have houses to live in.' "'I should say, sir,' observed Mark, that that's a state of things as opens one of the jolliest look-outs for domestic architecture that ever I heard tell on. Martin glanced at him hastily, not feeling quite free from a suspicion that this remark implied a doubt of the successful issue of his plans. But Mr. Tappley was eating the boiled beef and bread with such entire good faith and singleness of purpose expressed in his visage that he could not but be satisfied. Another doubt arose in his mind, however, as this one disappeared. He produced the blank cover in which the note had been enclosed, and fixing his eyes on Mark as he put it in his hands, said, "'Now tell me the truth, do you know anything about that?' Mark turned it over and over, held it near his eyes, held it away from him at arm's length, held it with the superscription upwards and with the superscription downwards, and shook his head with such a genuine expression of astonishment at being asked the question that Martin said as he took it from him again, "'No, I see you don't. How should you?' Though, indeed, your knowing about it would not be more extraordinary than its being here. "'Come, Tappley,' he added, after a moment's thought, "'I'll trust you with my history such as it is, and then you'll see more clearly what sort of fortunes you would link yourself to if you followed me.' "'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Mark, "'but before you enter upon it will you take me if I choose to go. Will you turn off me, Mark Tappley, formerly of the Blue Dragon, as can be well recommended by Mr. Pinch, and thus wants a gentleman of your strength of mind to look up to? Or will you, in climbing the ladder, as you're certain to get to the top of, take me along with you at a respectful distance?' "'Now, sir,' said Mark, "'it's of very little importance to you, I know. There is the difficulty, but it's of very great importance to me, and will you be so good as to consider of it?' If this were meant as a second appeal to Martin's weak side, founded on his observation of the effect of the first, Mr. Tappley was a skilful and shrewd observer. Whether an intentional or an accidental shot it hit the mark fully, for Martin, relenting more and more, said with a condescension which was inexpressibly delicious to him after his recent humiliation, "'We'll see about it, Tappley. You shall tell me in what disposition you find yourself to-morrow.' "'Then, sir,' said Mark, rubbing his hands, "'the job's done. "'Go on, sir, if you please, I'm all attention.'" Throwing himself back in his arm-chair and looking at the fire with now and then a glance at Mark, who at such times nodded his head sagely to express his profound interest and attention, Martin ran over the chief points in his history to the same effect as he had related them weeks before to Mr. Pinch. But he adapted them, according to the best of his judgment, to Mr. Tappley's comprehension, and with that view made as light of his love affair as he could, and referred to it in very few words. But here he reckoned without his host, for Mark's interest was keenest in this part of the business, and prompted him to ask sundry questions in relation to it, for which he apologized as one in some measure privileged to do so from having seen, as Martin explained to him, the young lady at the Blue Dragon. And the young lady is any gentleman ought to feel more proud of being in love with, said Mark energetically, don't draw breath. I, you saw her when she was not happy, said Martin, gazing at the fire again, if you had seen her in the old times, indeed. Why, she certainly was a little downhearted, sir, and something paler in her color than I could have wished, said Mark, but none the worse in her looks for that. I think she seemed better, sir, after she come to London. Martin withdrew his eyes from the fire, stared at Mark as if he thought he had suddenly gone mad and asked him what he meant. No offense intended, sir, urged Mark. I don't mean to say she was any the happier without you, but I thought she was a looking better, sir. Do you mean to tell me she has been in London, asked Martin, rising hurriedly and pushing back his chair? Of course I do, said Mark, rising to, in great amazement from the bedstead. Do you mean to tell me she is in London now? Most likely, sir, I mean to say she was a week ago. And you know where? Yes, cried Mark. What, don't you? My good fellow, exclaimed Martin, clutching him by both arms, I have never seen her since I left my grandfather's house. Why then, cried Mark, giving the little table such a blow with his clenched fist that the slices of beef and ham danced upon it, while all his features seemed, with delight, to be going up into his forehead and never coming back again anymore? If I ain't your natural-born servant, hired by fate, there ain't such a thing in nature as a blue dragon, what? When I was a rambling, up and down, an old church yard in the city, getting myself into a jolly state, didn't I see your grandfather, a tiddling, to and fro, for pretty nigh a mortal hour? Didn't I watch him into Todgers's commercial boarding house, and watch him out, and watch him home to his hotel, and go and tell him as his was the service for my money, and I had said so before I left the dragon? Wasn't the young lady a-sitting with him, then, and didn't she fall a-loughing in a manner as was beautiful to see? Didn't your grandfather say, come back again next week, and didn't I go next week, and didn't he say that he couldn't make up his mind to trust nobody no more, and therefore wouldn't engage me? But at the same time stood something to drink as was handsome. Why, cried Mr. Tappley, with a comical mixture of delight and chagrin, where is the credit of a man's being jolly under such circumstances, who could help it when things come about like this? For some moments Martin stood gazing at him as if he really doubted the evidence of his senses, and could not believe that Mark stood there in the body before him. At length he asked him whether, if the young lady were still in London, he thought he could contrive to deliver a letter to her secretly. Do I think I can, cried Mark? Think I can? Here, sit down, sir, write it out, sir. With that he cleared the table by the summery process of tilting everything upon it into the fireplace, snatched some writing materials from the mantel shelf, sat Martin's chair before them, forced him down into it, dipped a pen into the ink, and put it in his hand. Cut away, sir, cried Mark, make it strong, sir, let it be weary pinted, sir. Do I think so? I should think so. Go to work, sir. Martin required no further adoration, but went to work at a great rate, while Mr. Tapley, installing himself without any more formalities into the functions of his valet and general attendant, divested himself of his coat, and went on to clear the fireplace and arrange the room, talking to himself in a low voice the whole time. Jolly sort of lodging, said Mark, rubbing his nose with a knob at the end of the fire shovel, and looking round the poor chamber. That's a comfort. The rains come through the roof, too. That ain't bad. A lively old bedstead I'll be bound, populated by lots of vampires, no doubt. Come, my spirits, is it getting up again? An uncommon ragged nightcap, this. A very good sign. We shall do yet. Here, Jane, my dear, calling down the stairs. Bring up that there-hot tumbler for my master as was a mixing when I come in. That's right, sir, to Martin. Go at it as if you meant it, sir. Be very tender, sir, if you please. You can't make it too strong, sir. End of CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. OF LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHESLEWIT. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHESLEWIT. By Charles Dickens. CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH Martin bids adieu to the lady of his love and honors an obscure individual whose fortune he intends to make by commending her to his protection. The letter being duly signed, sealed, and delivered, was handed to Mark Cappley for immediate conveyance, if possible. And he succeeded so well in his embassy as to be enabled to return that same night, just as the house was closing, with the welcome intelligence that he had sent it upstairs to the young lady, enclosed in a small manuscript of his own, purporting to contain his further petition to be engaged in Mr. Cheslewit's service. And that she had herself come down and told him, in great haste and agitation, that she would meet the gentleman at eight o'clock tomorrow morning in St. James's Park. It was then agreed, between the new master and the new man, that Mark should be in waiting near the hotel in good time to escort the young lady to the place of appointment. And when they had parted for the night with this understanding, Martin took up his pan again, and before he went to bed, wrote another letter, whereof more will be seen presently. He was up before daybreak, and came upon the park with the morning, which was clad in the least engaging of the three hundred and sixty-five dresses in the wardrobe of the year. It was raw, damp, dark, and dismal. The clouds were as muddy as the ground, and the short perspective of every street and avenue was closed up by the mist as by a filthy curtain. Fine weather indeed, Martin bitterly soliloquized, to be wandering up and down herein like a thief. Fine weather indeed for a meeting of lovers in the open air and in a public walk. I need be departing with all speed for another country, for I have come to a pretty pass in this. He might perhaps have gone on to reflect that of all mornings in the year it was not the best calculated for a young lady's coming forth on such an air, and either. But he was stopped on the road to this reflection, if his thoughts tended that way, by her appearance at a short distance, on which he hurried forward to meet her. Her squire, Mr. Tapley, at the same time, fell discreetly back, and surveyed the fog above him with an appearance of attentive interest. My dear Martin, said Mary, my dear Mary, said Martin, and lovers are such a singular kind of people that this is all they did say just then, though Martin took her arm and her hand too, and they paced up and down a short walk that was least exposed to observation half a dozen times. If you have changed at all my love since we parted, said Martin at length, as he looked upon her with a proud delight, it is only to be more beautiful than ever. Had she been of the common meddle of love-worn young ladies, she would have denied this in her most interesting manner, and would have told him that she knew she had become a perfect fright, or that she had wasted away with weeping and anxiety, or that she was dwindling gently into an early grave, or that her mental sufferings were unspeakable, or would, either by tears or words, or a mixture of both, have furnished him with some other information to that effect, and made him as miserable as possible. But she had been reared up in a sterner's school than the minds of most young girls are formed in, and she had her nature strengthened by the hands of hard endurance and necessity. She had come out from her young trials constant, self-denying, earnest, and devoted. Had acquired in her maidenhood, whether happily in the end for herself or him, is foreign to our present purpose to inquire, something of that nobler quality of gentle hearts, which is developed often by the sorrows and struggles of matronly years, but often by their lessons only. Unspoiled, unpampered in her joys or griefs, with frank and full and deep affection for the object of her early love, she saw in him one who, for her sake, was an outcast from his home and fortune, and she had no more idea of bestowing that love upon him in other than cheerful and sustaining words full of high hope and grateful trustfulness than she had of being unworthy of it, and her lightest thought or deed for any base temptation that the world could offer. What change is there in you, Martin? she replied. For that concerns me, nearest, you look more anxious and more thoughtful than you used. By as to that, my love, said Martin, as he drew her waist within his arm, first looking round to see that there were no observers near, and beholding Mr. Tappley more intent than ever on the fog, it would be strange if I did not, for my life, especially of late, has been a hard one. I know it must have been, she answered. When have I forgotten to think of it, and you? Not often, I hope, said Martin. Not often, I am sure. Not often I have some right to expect, Mary, for I have undergone a great deal of vexation and privation, and I naturally look for that return, you know. A very, very poor return, she answered, with a fainter smile. But you have it, and we'll have it always. You have paid a dear price for a poor heart, Martin, but it is at least your own and a true one. Of course I feel quite certain of that, said Martin, or I shouldn't have put myself in my present position. And don't say a poor heart, Mary, for I say a rich one. Now I am about to break a design to you, dearest, which will startle you at first, but which is undertaken for your sake. I am going, he added slowly, looking far into the deep wonder of her bright dark eyes, abroad, abroad, Martin. Only to America, senile, how you droop directly. If I do, or I hope I may say if I did, she answered, raising her head, after a short silence, and looking once more into his face. It was for grief to think of what you are resolved to undergo for me. I would not venture to dissuade you, Martin, but it is a long, long distance. There is a wide ocean to be crossed, illness and want are sad calamities in any place, but in a foreign country dreadful to endure. Have you thought of all this? Thought of it, cried Martin, abating in his fondness, and he was very fond of her, hardly an iota of his usual impetuosity. What am I to do? It's very well to say, have I thought of it, my love, but you should ask me in the same breath, have I thought of starving at home? Have I thought of doing porter's work for a living? Have I thought of holding horses in the streets to earn my role of bread from day to day? Come, come, he added in a gentler tone. Do not hang down your head, my dear. For I need the encouragement that your sweet face alone can give me. Why, that's well. Now you are brave again. I am endeavoring to be, she answered, smiling through her tears. Endevering to be anything that's good and being it is with you all one. Don't I know that of old? cried Martin Gailey. So that's famous. Now I can tell you all my plans as cheerfully as if you were my little wife already, Mary. She hung more closely on his arm, and looking upwards in his face made him speak on. You see, said Martin, playing with the little hand upon his wrist, that my attempts to advance myself at home have been baffled and rendered abortive. I will not say by whom, Mary, for that would give pain to us both. But so it is. Have you heard him speak of late of any relative of mine or his called pecsniff? Only tell me what I ask you no more. I have heard, to my surprise, that he is a better man than he was supposed. I thought so, interrupted Martin. And that it is likely we may come to know him, if not to visit and reside with him, and, I think, his daughters. He has daughters. Has he love? A pair of them, Martin answered, a precious pair, gems of the first water. Ah, you are jesting. There is a sort of jesting which is very much in earnest and includes some pretty serious disgust, said Martin. I jest in reference to Mr. Pecsniff, at whose house I have been living, as his assistant, and at whose hands I have received insult and injury, in that vein. Whatever be tides or however closely you may be brought into communication with this family, never forget that, Mary, and never for an instant, whatever appearances may seem to contradict me, lose sight of this assurance. Pecsniff is a scoundrel, indeed, in thought and indeed, and in everything else, a scoundrel from the topmost hair of his head, to the nethermost atom of his heel. Of his daughters I will only say that to the best of my knowledge and belief they are dutiful young ladies and take after their father closely. This is a digression from the main point, and yet it brings me to what I was going to say. He stopped to look into her eyes again, and seeing, in a hasty glance over his shoulder, that there was no one near, and that Mark was still intent upon the fog, not only looked at her lips too, but kissed them into the bargain. Now, I am going to America with great prospects of doing well, and of returning home myself very soon. It may be to take you there for a few years, but at all events to claim you for my wife, which, after such trials, I should do with no fear of your still thinking at a duty to cleave to him who will not suffer me to live, for this is true. If he can help it in my own land, how long I may be absent is, of course, uncertain, but it shall not be very long, trust me for that. In the meantime, dear Martin, that is the very thing I am coming to. In the meantime, you shall hear constantly of all my goings on, thus. He paused to take from his pocket the letter he had written overnight, and then resumed. In this fellow's employment, and living in this fellow's house, by fellow I mean Mr. Pexniff, of course, there is a certain person of the name of Pinch, don't forget, a poor, strange, simple oddity, Mary, but thoroughly honest and sincere, full of zeal and with a cordial regard for me, which I mean to return one of these days by setting him up in life in some way or other. Your old kind nature, Martin. Oh, said Martin, that's not worth speaking of, my love. He's very grateful and desirous to serve me, and I am more than repaid. Now one night I told this Pinch my history, and all about myself and you, in which he was not a little interested, I can tell you, for he knows you. Ah, you may look surprised, and the longer the better, for it becomes you. But you have heard him play the organ in the church of that village before now, and he has seen you listening to his music, and has caught his inspiration from you, too. Was he the organist, cried Mary? I thank him from my heart. Yes he was, said Martin, and is, and gets nothing for it, either. There never was such a simple fellow, quite an infant, but a very good sort of creature, I assure you. I am sure of that, she said with great earnestness, he must be. Oh yes, no doubt at all about it rejoined Martin in his usual careless way. He is. Well, it has occurred to me, but stay. If I read you what I have written and intend sending to him by post tonight, it will explain itself. My dear Tom Pinch. That's rather familiar, perhaps, said Martin, suddenly remembering that he was proud when they had last met. But I call him my dear Tom Pinch, because he likes it, and it pleases him. Very right, very kind, said Mary. Exactly so, cried Martin. It's as well to be kind whenever one can, and as I said before, he really is an excellent fellow. My dear Tom Pinch. I address this undercover to Mrs. Lupin at the Blue Dragon, and have begged her, in a short note, to deliver it to you without saying anything about it elsewhere, and to do the same with all future letters she may receive from me. My reason for so doing will be at once apparent to you. I don't know that it will be, by the by, said Martin, breaking off, for he's slow of comprehension, poor fellow, but he'll find it out in time. My reason simply is that I don't want my letters to be read by other people, and particularly by the scoundrel whom he thinks an angel. Mr. Pexnip again, asked Mary, the same, said Martin. We'll be at once apparent to you. I have completed my arrangements for going to America, and you will be surprised to hear that I am to be accompanied by Mark Capley, upon whom I have stumbled strangely in London, and who insists on putting himself under my protection. Meaning, my love, said Martin, breaking off again, our friend in the rear, of course. She was delighted to hear this, and bestowed a kind glance upon Mark, which he brought his eyes down from the fog to encounter, and received with immense satisfaction. She said in his hearing, too, that he was a good soul and a merry creature, and would be faithful, she was certain. Commendations for which Mr. Capley inwardly resolved to deserve from such lips if he died for it. Now, my dear pinch, resumed Martin, proceeding with his letter, I am going to repose great trust in you, knowing that I may do so with perfect reliance on your honor and secrecy, and having nobody else just now to trust in. I don't think I would say that, Martin, wouldn't you? Well, I'll take that out as perfectly true, though. But it might seem ungracious, perhaps. Oh, I don't mind pinch, said Martin. There's no occasion to stand on any ceremony with him. However, I'll take it out as you wish it, and make the letter full stop at secrecy. Very well. I shall not only, this is the letter again, you know, I understand, I shall not only enclose my letters to the young lady of whom I have told you, to your charge to be forwarded as she may request, but I most earnestly commit her, the young lady herself, to your care and regard in the event of your meeting in my absence. I have reason to think that the probabilities of your encountering each other, perhaps very frequently, are now neither remote nor few, and although in our position you can do very little to lessen the uneasiness of hers, I trust to you implicitly to do that much, and so deserve the confidence I have reposed in you. You see, my dear Mary, said Martin, it will be a great consolation to you to have anybody, no matter how simple with whom you can speak about me, and the very first time you talk to Pinch, you'll feel at once that there is no more occasion for any embarrassment or hesitation in talking to him than if he were an old woman. However that may be, she returned, smiling, he is your friend, and that is enough. Oh, yes, he's my friend, said Martin, certainly. In fact, I have told him in so many words that will always take notice of him and protect him, and it's a good trait in his character that he's grateful, very grateful indeed. You'll like him of all things, my love, I know. You'll observe very much this comical and old-fashioned about Pinch, but you needn't mind laughing at him for he'll not care about it. He'll rather like it, indeed. I don't think I shall put that to the test, Martin. You won't if you can help it, of course, he said, but I think you'll find him a little too much for your gravity. However, that's neither here nor there, and it certainly is not the letter, which ends thus. Knowing that I need not impress the nature and extent of that confidence upon you at any greater length, as it is already sufficiently established in your mind, I will only say in bidding you farewell and looking forward to our next meeting that I shall charge myself from this time through all changes for the better with your advancement and happiness as if they were my own, you may rely upon that, and always believe me, my dear Tom Pinch, faithfully your friend, Martin Chuzzlewit. P.S. I enclose the amount which you so kindly—oh, said Martin, checking himself and folding up the letter, that's nothing. At this crisis Mark Tapley interposed with an apology for remarking that the clock at the horse-guards was striking, which I shouldn't have said nothing about, sir, added Mark, if the young lady hadn't begged me to be particular in mentioning it. P.S. I did, said Mary. Thank you. You were quite right. In another minute I shall be ready to return. We have time for a very few words more, dear Martin, and although I had much to say, it must remain unsaid until the happy Tom of our next meeting. Heaven's send it may come speedily and prosperously, but I have no fear of that. Fear! cried Martin. Why, who has? What are a few months? What is a whole year? When I come gaily back with a road through life hewn out before me, then indeed, looking back upon this parting, it may seem a dismal one. But now, I swear, I wouldn't have it happen under more favorable auspices if I could, for then I should be less inclined to go and less impressed with the necessity. Yes, yes, I feel that, too. When do you go? Tonight. We leave for Liverpool tonight, a vessel sails from that port as I hear in three days. In a month or less we shall be there. Why, what's a month? How many months have flown by since our last parting? Long to look back upon, said Mary, echoing his cheerful tone, but nothing in their course. Nothing at all, cried Martin. I shall have change of scene and change of place, change of people, change of manners, change of cares and hopes. Time will wear wings indeed. I can bear anything so that I have swift action, Mary. Was he thinking solely of her care for him when he took so little heat of her share in the separation of her quiet monotonous endurance and her slow anxiety from day to day? Was there nothing jarring and discordant, even in his tone of courage, with this one-note shelf, forever audible, however high the strain? Not in her ears. It had been better otherwise, perhaps, but so it was. She heard the same bold spirit, which had flung away as dross, all gain and profit for her sake, making light of peril and privation that she might be calm and happy. And she heard no more. That heart where self has found no place and raised no throne is slow to recognize its ugly presence when it looks upon it. As one possessed of an evil spirit was held in old time to be alone conscious of the lurking demon in the breasts of other men, so kindred vices know each other in their hiding places every day when virtue is incredulous and blind. The quarter's gone, cried Mr. Tapley, in a voice of admonition. I shall be ready to return immediately, she said. One thing, dear Martin, I am bound to tell you. You entreated me a few minutes since, only to answer what you asked me in reference to one theme. But you should and must know, otherwise I could not be at ease, that since that separation of which I was the unhappy occasion, he has never once uttered your name, has never coupled it or any faint allusion to it with passion or reproach, and has never abated in his kindness to me. I thank him for that last act, said Martin, and for nothing else. Though on consideration I may thank him for his other forbearance also, in as much as I neither expect nor desire that he will mention my name again. He may once perhaps to couple it with reproach in his will. Let him, if he please. By the time it reaches me he will be in his grave, a satire on his own anger, God help him. Martin, if you would but sometimes in some quiet hour beside the winter fire, in the summer air, when you hear gentle music or think of death or home or childhood, if you would at such a season resolve to think but once a month or even once a year of him or anyone who ever wronged you, you would forgive him in your heart, I know. If I believed that to be true, Mary, he replied, I would resolve at no such time to bear him in my mind wishing to spare myself the shame of such a weakness. I was not born to be the toy and puppet of any man, far less his, to whose pleasure and caprice in return for any good he did me, my whole youth was sacrificed. It became between us two a fair exchange, a barter, and no more, and there is no such balance against me that I need throw in a mawkish forgiveness to poise the scale. He has forbidden all mention of me to you, I know, he added hastily. Come, has he not? That was long ago, she returned, immediately after your parting, before you had left the house. He has never done so since. He has never done so since, because he has seen no occasion, said Martin, but that is of little consequence one way or other. Let all allusion to him between you and me be interdicted from this time forth, and therefore, love, he drew her quickly to him for the time of parting had now come. In the first letter that you write to me, through the post office, addressed to New York, and in all the others that you send through pinch, remember he has no existence but has become to us as one who is dead. Now, God bless you. This is a strange place for such a meeting and such a parting, but our next meeting shall be in a better, and our next and last parting in a worse. One other question, Martin, I must ask. Have you provided money for this journey? Have I, cried Martin? It might have been in his pride. It might have been in his desire to set her mind at ease. Have I provided money? Why, there is a question for an immigrant's wife. How can I move on land or sea without it, love? I mean enough. Enough, more than enough, twenty times more than enough, a pocketful. Mark and I, for all essential ends, are quite as rich as if we had the purse of fortune-otus in our baggage. The half-hours are going, cried Mr. Tapley. We buy a hundred times, cried Mary, in a trembling voice. But how cold the comfort in good-bye. Mark Tapley knew it perfectly. Perhaps he knew it from his reading, perhaps from his experience, perhaps from intuition. It is impossible to say. But however he knew it, his knowledge instinctively suggested to him the wisest course of proceeding that any man could have adopted under the circumstances. He was taken with a violent fit of sneezing, and was obliged to turn his head another way, in doing which he, in a manner, fenced and screened the lovers into a corner by themselves. There was a short pause, but Mark had an undefined sensation that it was a satisfactory one in its way. Then Mary, with her veil lowered, passed him with a quick step and beckoned him to follow. She stopped once more before they lost that corner, looked back, and waved her hand to Martin. He made a start towards them at the moment as if he had some other farewell words to say, but she only hurried off the faster, and Mr. Tapley followed as in duty bound. When he rejoined Martin again in his own chamber, he found that gentleman seated mootily before the dusty grate with his two feet on the fender, his two elbows on his knees, and his chin supported in a not very ornamental manner on the palms of his hands. Well, Mark, well, sir, said Mark, taking a long breath, I see the young lady safe home, and I feel pretty comfortable after it. She sent a lot of kind words, sir, and this, handing him a ring, for a parting keepsake. Diamonds, said Martin, kissing it, let us do him justice. It was for her sake, not for theirs, and putting it on his little finger, splendid diamonds. My grandfather is a singular character, Mark. He must have given her this now. Mark Tapley knew as well that she had bought it to the end that that unconscious speaker might carry some article of sterling value with him in his necessity, as he knew that it was day and not night, though he had no more acquaintance of his own knowledge with the history of the glittering trinket on Martin's outspread finger than Martin himself had. He was as certain that in its purchase she had expended her whole stock of hoarded money as if he had seen it paid down coin by coin. Her lover's strange obtuseness in relation to this little incident promptly suggested to Mark's mind its real cause en route, and from that moment he had a clear and perfect insight into the one absorbing principle of Martin's character. She is worthy of the sacrifices I have made, said Martin, folding his arms and looking at the ashes in the stove as if in resumption of some former thoughts, well worthy of them. No riches. Here he stroked his chin and mused, could have compensated for the loss of such a nature, not to mention that in gaining her affection I have followed the bent of my own wishes and balked the selfish schemes of others who had no right to form them. She is quite worthy, more than worthy of the sacrifices I have made. Yes she is, no doubt of it. These ruminations might or might not have reached Mark Tapley, for though there were by no means addressed to him, yet they were softly uttered. In any case he stood there watching Martin with an indescribable and most involved expression on his visage, until that young man roused himself and looked towards him, when he turned away as being suddenly intent upon certain preparations for the journey, and without giving vent to any articulate sound, smiled with surpassing gasliness and seamed by a twist of his features and a motion of his lips to release himself of this word. Jolly. CHAPTER XV of LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTON CHUZZLEWIT This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTON CHUZZLEWIT by Charles Dickens CHAPTER XV THE BIRDON WHERE OF IS HALE COLOMBIA A dark and dreary night, people nestling in their beds or circling late about the fire, want colder than charity shivering at the street corners, church towers humming with the faint vibration of their own tongues, but newly resting from the ghostly preachment one. The earth covered with a sable pawl as for the burial of yesterday. The clumps of dark trees, its giant plumes of funeral feathers waving sadly to and fro, all hushed, all noiseless, and in deep repose save the swift clouds that skim across the moon and the cautious wind as creeping after them upon the ground it stops to listen and goes rustling on and stops again and follows like a savage on the trail. Wither go the clouds and wind so eagerly. If like guilty spirits they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in what wild regions do the elements hold counsel or where unbend in terrible discord. Here, free from that cramped prison called the earth and out upon the waste of waters, here, roaring, raging, shrieking, howling all night long hither come the sounding voices from the caverns on the coast of that small island, sleeping a thousand miles away. So quietly in the midst of angry waves and hither to meet them rust a blast from unknown desert places of the world. Here in the fury of their unchecked liberty they storm and buff it with each other until the sea, lashed into passion like their own, leaps up in ravings mightier than theirs and the whole scene is madness. On, on, on, over the countless miles of angry space roll the long heaving billows. Mountains and caves are here and yet are not. For what is now the one is now the other. Then all is but a boiling heap of rushing water, pursuit and flight and mad return of wave on wave and savage struggle ending in a spouting up of foam that whitens the black night. Incessant change of place and form and hue, constancy in nothing but eternal strife. On, on, on they roll and darker grows the night and louder howls the wind and more clamorous and fierce become the million voices in the sea when the wild cry goes forth upon the storm a ship. Onward she comes in gallant combat with the elements, her tall masts trembling and her timbers starting on the strain. Onward she comes, now high upon the curling billows, now low down in the hollows of the sea as hiding for the moment from its fury and every storm voice in the air and water cries more loudly yet a ship still she comes striving on and at her boldness and the spreading cry the angry waves rise up above each other's hoary heads to look and round about the vessel far as the mariners on the decks can pierce into the gloom they press upon her forcing each other down and starting up and rushing forward from afar in dreadful curiosity. High over her they break and round her surge and roar and giving place to others moaningly depart and dash themselves to fragments in their baffled anger. Still she comes onward bravely and though the eager multitude crowd thick and fast upon her all the night and dawn of day discovers the untiring train yet bearing down upon the ship in an eternity of troubled water onward she comes with dim lights burning in her hull and people there asleep as if no deadly element were peering in at every seam and chink and no drowned seamen's grave with but a plank to cover it were yawning in the unfathomable depths below. Among these sleeping voyagers were Martin and Mark Tapley who rocked into a heavy drowsiness by the unaccustomed motion were as insensible to the foul air in which they lay as to the uproar without. It was broad day when the latter awoke with a dim idea that he was dreaming of having gone to sleep in a four-post bedstead which had turned bottom upwards in the course of the night. There was more reason in this, too, than in the roasting of eggs, for the first objects Mr. Tapley recognized when he opened his eyes were his own heels, looking down to him as he afterwards observed from a nearly perpendicular elevation. Well, said Mark, getting himself into a sitting posture after various ineffectual struggles with the rolling of the ship, this is the first time as ever I stood on my head all night. You shouldn't go to sleep upon the ground with your head to leeward, then, growled a man in one of the berths. With my head to where, asked Mark, the man repeated his previous sentiment. No, I won't another time, said Mark, when I know whereabouts on the map that country is. In the meanwhile, I can give you a better piece of advice. Don't you, nor any other friend of mine, never go to sleep with his head in a ship any more. The man gave a grunt of discontented acquiescence, turned over in his berth, and drew his blanket over his head. For, said Mr. Tapley, pursuing the theme by way of soliloquy and a low tone of voice, the sea is as nonsensical a thing as any going. It never knows what to do with itself. It hasn't got no employment for its mind and is always in a state of vacancy, like them polar bears and the wild beast shows, as is constantly anotting their heads from side to side. It never can be quiet, which is entirely owing to its uncommon stupidity. Is that you, Mark? asked the faint voice from another berth. It's as much of me as is left, sir, after a fortnight of this work, Mr. Tapley replied, what with leading the life of a fly ever since I've been aboard, for I've been perpetually holding on to something or other in an upside down position. What with that, sir, and putting a very little into myself, and taking a good deal out of myself, there aren't too much of me to swear by. How do you find yourself this morning, sir? Very miserable, said Martin, with a peevish groan. Uck! This is wretched indeed. Noble, muttered Mark, pressing one hand upon his aching head and looking round him with a rueful grin, that's the great comfort. It is creditable to keep up one's spirits here, virtues its own reward, so's jollity. Mark was so far right that unquestionably any man who retained his cheerfulness among the steerage accommodations of that noble and fast sailing line of packet ship, the screw, was solely indebted to his own resources and shipped his good humor like his provisions without any contribution or assistance from the owners. A dark, low, stifling cabin surrounded by berths all filled to overflowing with men, women, and children in various stages of sickness and misery is not the liveliest place of assembly at any time, but when it is so crowded as the steerage cabin of the screw was, every passage out, that mattresses and beds are heaped upon the floor to the extinction of everything like comfort, cleanliness, and decency, it is liable to operate not only as a pretty strong banner against amiability of temper, but as a positive encourager of selfish and rough humours. Mark felt this as he sat looking about him, and his spirits rose proportionately. There were English people, Irish people, Welsh people, and Scotch people there, all with their little store of coarse food and shabby clothes, and nearly all with their families of children. There were children of all ages, from the baby at the breast to the slatter girl who was as much a grown woman as her mother. Every kind of domestic suffering that has bred in poverty, illness, banishment, sorrow, and long travel in bad weather was crammed into the little space, and yet was there infinitely less of complaint and quarrellessness and infinitely more of mutual assistance and general kindness to be found in that unwholesome ark than in many brilliant ballrooms. Mark looked about him wistfully, and his face brightened as he looked. Here an old grandmother was crooning over a sick child and rocking it to and fro in arms hardly more wasted than its own young limbs. Here a poor woman with an infant in her lap mended another little creature's clothes, and quieted another who was creeping up about her from their scanty bed upon the floor. Here were old men awkwardly engaged in little household offices wherein they would have been ridiculous but for their good will and kind purpose. And here were sparthy fellows, giants in their way, doing such little acts of tenderness for those about them as might have belonged to gentlest hearted dwarfs. The very idiot in the corner who sat mowing there all day had his faculty of imitation roused by what he saw about him and snapped his fingers to amuse a crying child. "'Now, then,' said Mark, nodding to a woman who was dressing her three children at no great distance from him, and the grin upon his face had by this time spread from ear to ear. And over one of them youngens, according to custom. "'I wish you'd get breakfast, Mark, instead of worrying with people who don't belong to you,' observed Martin petulantly. "'All right,' said Mark, "'she'll do that. It's a fair division of labor, sir. I wash her boys, and she makes our tea. I never could make tea, but anyone can wash a boy.' The woman, who was delicate and ill, felt and understood his kindness as well as she might, for she had been covered every night with his great coat while he had for his own bed the bareboards and the rug. But Martin, who seldom got up or looked about him, was quite incensed by the folly of this speech, and expressed his dissatisfaction by an impatient groan. "'So it is,' certainly, said Mark, brushing the child's hair as coolly as if he had been born and bred a barber. "'What are you talking about now?' asked Martin. "'What you said,' replied Mark, or what you meant when you gave that their dismal vent to your feelings. "'I quite go along with it, sir. It is very hard upon her.' "'What is?' Making the voyage by herself, along with these young impediments here, and going such a way at such a time of the year to join her husband. "'If you don't want to be driven mad with yellow soap in your eye, young man,' said Mr. Tapley to the second urchin, who was by this time under his hands at the basin, you'd better shut it. "'Where does she join her husband?' asked Martin Yawney. "'Why, I'm very much afraid,' said Mr. Tapley, in a low voice, "'that she don't know. I hope she may not miss him. But she sent her last letter by hand, and it don't seem to have been very clearly understood between them without it. And if she don't see him, a waving his pocket-hankerchief on the shore, like a picture out of a song-book, my opinion is she'll break her heart.'" Why how in folly's name does the woman come to be on board ship on such a wild goose venture? cried Martin. Mr. Tapley glanced at him for a moment as he lay prostrate in his berth, and then said very quietly, "'Ah, how indeed! I can't think. He's been away from her for two years. She's been very poor and lonely in her own country, and has always been a looking forward to meeting him. It's very strange she should be here, quite amazing, a little mad, perhaps. There can't be no other way of accounting for it.'" Martin was too far gone in the last attitude of seasickness to make any reply to these words or even to attend to them as they were spoken, and the subject of their discourse returning at this crisis with some hot tea effectually put a stop to any resumption of the theme by Mr. Tapley, who, when the meal was over and he had adjusted Martin's bed, went up on deck to wash the breakfast service, which consisted of two half-pointed tin mugs and a shaving pot of the same metal. It is due to Mark Tapley to state that he suffered at least as much from seasickness as any man, woman, or child on board, and that he had a peculiar faculty of knocking himself about on the smallest provocation and losing his legs at every lurch of the ship. But resolved in his usual phrase to come out strong under disadvantageous circumstances, he was the life and soul of the steerage and made no more of stopping in the middle of a facetious conversation to go away and be excessively ill by himself and afterwards come back in the very best and gayest of tempers to resume it than if such a course of proceeding had been the commonest in the world. It cannot be said that as his illness wore off his cheerfulness and good nature increased because they would hardly admit of augmentation, but his usefulness among the weaker members of the party was much enlarged. And at all times and seasons there he was exerting it. If a gleam of sun shone out of the dark sky, downmark tumbled into the cabin and presently up he came again with a woman in his arms or half a dozen children or a man or a bed or a saucepan or a basket or something animate or inanimate that he thought would be the better for the air. If an hour or two of fine weather in the middle of the day tempted those who seldom or never came on deck at other times to crawl into the longboat or lie down upon the spare spars and try to eat, there in the center of the group was Mr. Tapley handing about salt, beef, and biscuit or dispensing tastes of grog or cutting up the children's provisions with his pocketknife for their greater ease and comfort or reading aloud from a venerable newspaper or singing some roaring old song to a select party or writing the beginnings of letters to their friends at home for people who couldn't write or cracking jokes with the crew or nearly getting blown over the side or emerging half-drowned from a shower of spray or lending a hand somewhere or other but always doing something for the general entertainment. At night when the cooking fire was lighted on the deck and the driving sparks that flew among the rigging and the clouds of sails seemed to menace the ship with certain annihilation by fire in case the elements of air and water failed to compass her destruction, there again was Mr. Tapley with his coat off and his shirt sleeves turned up to his elbows doing all kinds of culinary offices, compounding the strangest dishes recognized by everyone as an established authority and helping all parties to achieve something which left to themselves they never could have done and never would have dreamed of. In short there never was a more popular character than Mark Tapley became on board that noble and fast sailing line of package ship the screw, and he attained at last to such a pitch of universal admiration that he began to have graved doubts within himself whether a man might reasonably claim any credit for being jolly under such exciting circumstances. If this was going to last, said Tapley, there'd be no great difference as I can perceive between the screw and the dragon. I never am to get credit, I think. I begin to be afraid that the fates is determined to make the world easy to me. Well, Mark, said Martin, near whose birth he had ruminated to this effect, when will this be over? Another week, they say, sir, returned Mark, will most likely bring us into port. The ships are going along at present as sensible as a ship can, sir. Though I don't mean to say as that's any very high praise. I don't think it is, indeed, groaned Martin. You'd feel all the better for it, sir, if you was to turn out, observed Mark. And to be seen by the ladies and gentlemen on the afterdeck, returned Martin with a scornful emphasis upon the words, mingling with the beggarly crowd that are stowed away in this vile hole, I should be greatly the better for that, no doubt. I'm thankful that I can't say from my own experience what the feelings of a gentleman may be, said Mark, but I should have thought, sir, as a gentleman would feel a deal more uncomfortable down here than up in the fresh air, especially when the ladies and gentlemen in the after-cabin know just as much about him as he does about them and are likely to trouble their heads about him in the same proportion. I should have thought that, certainly. I tell you then, rejoined Martin, you would have thought wrong and do think wrong. Very likely, sir, said Mark, with imperturbable good humor. I often do. As to lying here, cried Martin, raising himself on his elbow and looking angrily at his follower, do you suppose it's a pleasure to lie here? All the mad houses in the world, said Mr. Tapley, couldn't produce such a maniac as the man must be who could think that. Then why are you forever goading and urging me to get up? asked Martin. I lie here because I don't wish to be recognized in the better days to which I aspire by any purse-proud citizen as the man who came over with him among the steerage passengers. I lie here because I wish to conceal my circumstances and myself and not to arrive in a new world badged and ticketed as an utterly poverty-stricken man. If I could have afforded a passage in the after-cabin, I should have held up my head with the rest, as I couldn't hide it. Do you understand that? I am very sorry, sir, said Mark. I didn't know you took it so much to heart as this comes to. Of course you didn't know, returned his master. How should you know, unless I told you? It's no trial to you, Mark, to make yourself comfortable and to bustle about. It's as natural for you to do so under the circumstances as it is for me not to do so. Why, you don't suppose there is a living creature in this ship who can, by possibility, have half so much to undergo on board of her as I have, do you? He asked, sitting upright in his berth and looking at Mark with an expression of great earnestness, not unmixed with wonder. Mark twisted his face into a tight knot, and with his head very much on one side pondered upon this question, as if he felt it an extremely difficult one to answer. He was relieved from his embarrassment by Martin himself, who said, as he stretched himself upon his back again and resumed the book he had been reading, but what is the use of my putting such a case to you, when the very essence of what I have been saying is that you cannot, by possibility, understand it. Make me a little brandy and water, cold and very weak, and give me a biscuit, and tell your friend, who is a nearer neighbor of ours than I could wish, to try and keep her children a little quieter tonight than she did last night. That's a good fellow. Mr. Tappley set himself to obey these orders with great alacrity, and, pending their execution, it may be presumed his flagging spirits revived, in as much as he several times observed, below his breath, that in respect of its power of imparting a credit to jollity the screw unquestionably had some decided advantages over the dragon. He also remarked that it was a high gratification to him to reflect that he would carry its main excellence ashore with him, and have it constantly beside him wherever he went, but what he meant by these consolatory thoughts he did not explain. And now a general excitement began to prevail on board, and various predictions relative to the precise day and even the precise hour at which they would reach New York were freely broached. There was infinitely more crowding on deck and looking over the ship's side than there had been before, and an epidemic broke out for packing up things every morning which required unpacking again every night. Those who had any letters to deliver or any friends to meet or any settled plans of going anywhere or doing anything discussed their prospects a hundred times a day, and as this class of passengers was very small, and the number of those who had no prospects whatever was very large, there were plenty of listeners and few talkers. Those who had been ill all along got well now, and those who had been well got better. An American gentleman in the after cabin who had been wrapped up in fur and oil skin the whole passage unexpectedly appeared in a very shiny tall black hat and constantly overhauled a very little release of pale leather which contained his clothes, linen, brushes, shaving apparatus, books, trinkets, and other baggage. He likewise stuck his hands deep into his pockets and walked the deck with his nostrils dilated, as already inhaling the air of freedom which carries death to all tyrants and can never, under any circumstances worth mentioning, be breathed by slaves. An English gentleman who was strongly suspected of having run away from a bank with something in his possession belonging to its strongbox besides the key, grew eloquent upon the subject of the rights of man and hummed the Marseilles hymn constantly. In a word one great sensation pervaded the whole ship and the soil of America lay close before them, so close at last, that upon a certain starlight night they took a pilot on board, and within a few hours afterwards lay two until the morning awaiting the arrival of a steam boat in which the passengers were to be conveyed ashore. Off she came, soon after it was light next morning, and lying alongside an hour or more, during which period her very firemen were objects of hardly less interest and curiosity than if they had been so many angels, good or bad, took all her living freight aboard, among them Mark, who still had his friend and her three children under his close protection, and Martin, who had once more dressed himself in his usual attire, but wore a soiled old cloak above his ordinary clothes until such time as he should separate forever from his late companions. The steamer, which, with its machinery on deck, looked as it worked its long, slim legs like some enormously magnified insect or antediluvian monster, dashed at great speed up a beautiful bay, and presently they saw some heights and islands in the long, flat, straggling city. And this, said Mr. Tapley, looking far ahead, is the land of liberty, is it? Very well, I'm agreeable, any land will do for me after so much water.