Delphi complete works of.., p.293
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 293
“Get down, Pickwick, if you’re coming,” called Tupman from the ground, and accompanied his words with sundry taps at his side-pockets and with sundry rapid and furtive gestures, apparently indicative of the general idea of drink. “We may be able to get in,” continued Tupman, when Mr. Pickwick had made his way to the ground, “and we can perhaps get glasses and some soda water inside.”
The Pickwickians gathered in a little group in front of the closed-up door of the inn. They stood huddled together, their backs against the driving snow, while Mr. Pickwick, as became the senior and the leader of the party, delivered with the head of his cane a series of firm, dignified and expressive knocks at the closed door. There was no response. “Knock again,” said Mr. Winkle. “I understand that the landlady still lives here; if she once recognizes us she’ll let us in in a moment.”
Mr. Pickwick again delivered a series of firm raps upon the door in which the authority of command was delicately blended with plaintiveness of appeal. This time the response was not long in coming. An upper casement banged open. A fierce-looking virago, a shawl thrown about her head, leaned out of the window. “If you loafers don’t beat it out of there in five seconds,” she shouted, “I’ll put the sheriff after you.”
“My dear madam,” began Mr. Pickwick in mild expostulation.
“You madam me, and I’ll have you in the jug. You beat it,” cried the woman, and the window shut with a slam.
Aghast at what he heard, albeit couched in language he could not understand, Mr. Pickwick turned to his followers. “Can that be the same woman?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” said Mr. Tupman.
“Certainly not,” repeated Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle.
Yet they all knew that it was.
“It seems to me,” said Mr. Snodgrass, whose mild poetic disposition was ever disposed to make the best of anything, “that if we went around out of sight behind the stable we might take a drink out of the bottle. That’s better than nothing.”
In accordance with this excellent advice, the four Pickwickians, with much dodging and manœuvring, retreated into a hidden angle behind the stable fence. Here Mr. Winkle produced from the pocket of his greatcoat a bottle — alas! only a pint bottle — of a beverage which had already been referred to as hooch. “There’s no glass,” he said mournfully.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Tupman.
“ — and no soda or water.”
“It’s of no consequence,” said Mr. Pickwick majestically; “drink it as it is. You, Winkle, drink first — I insist — you bought it.”
“I think it’s all right,” said Mr. Winkle, a little dubiously. “I got it from a chemist in the Strand. He said it was all right. Try it yourself.”
“Drink first,” repeated Mr. Pickwick sternly.
Thus adjured and with his eyes upon that Heaven to which he looked for protection Mr. Nathaniel Winkle took a long pull at the bottle, and then removed it from his lips with a deep “Ah!” of satisfaction. “It’s all right,” he said.
The bottle passed from lip to lip. The four Pickwickians under its genial influence regained in some measure their wonted cheerfulness. Mr. Tupman straightened up his coat collar and his shirt and adjusted his hat at a more becoming angle. Mr. Pickwick beamed upon his companions with a kindly eye.
But, alas! their little glow of happiness was as brief as it was welcome. One drink and one half-drink, even with the most honourable division done with the greatest sacrifice of self, exhausted the little bottle. In vain it was tilted to an angle of ninety degrees to the horizon. The little bottle was empty. Mr. Pickwick gazed sadly at his followers, while a gust of wind and snow that rounded the corner of their little shelter, recalled them to an inclement world.
Mr. Pickwick rebuttoned his coat about his neck. “Come,” he said, “let us get back to the coach. But I wish we had kept a drink for Wardle. Too bad.”
“Too bad,” re-echoed Mr. Tupman, buttoning up his coat.
“Too bad,” echoed again Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle, buttoning up their coats.
Indeed the Pickwickians were just about to retrace their steps to the coach, filled with humanitarian sympathy for the fate of Mr. Wardle, when there occurred one of those peculiar intrusions of fate into human affairs such as can only be attributed to a direct intervention of Providence.
Round the corner of the stable wall there approached with sidelong steps and a stealthy backward glance, an individual whom even the charitable mind of Mr. Pickwick could only classify as obviously one of the criminal class. The shabby habiliments, the tight scarf about the neck, the cap close down over the cropped head combined with the saturnine cast of an ill-shaven face and sunken eye to suggest an atmosphere of malevolence and crime.
“I seen yous,” snarled this ill-omened individual— “I seen yous take that drink.”
Mr. Winkle, as one acknowledged to be the most martial and combative of the Pickwickians, assumed an air of indignation and stepped forwards towards the newcomer as if fully prepared to take him by the scruff of the neck and hurl him over the adjacent fence. “See here, fellow,” he began in a tone of mingled anger and contempt.
The “fellow” backed towards the fence. “Cut out that high hat stuff,” he sneered, and as he spoke he drew from his pocket an object which even the inexperienced eyes of Mr. Winkle surmised to be a weapon of a mortal character. None of the Pickwickians, indeed, could from any freak of supernatural forecast have ever seen an automatic pistol, but there was something in the menacing clutch with which the villainous-looking scoundrel held the weapon which seemed to warn them of its power. Mr. Winkle’s naturally pale face grew a trifle paler, while even Mr. Pickwick put up one hand as if to screen himself from an imaginary stream of bullets. “My dear sir,” he protested.
The man put his weapon back in his pocket.
“I didn’t come for no scrap,” he said. “I seen yous take the drink and I seen yous finish the bottle. Now, then, do you want to buy some more? I’ve got it right here. How about it?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Pickwick in a tone of enlightenment and relief, “more liquor. You have some to sell? By all means, what is it — brandy?”
“It’s the real thing,” said the man, pulling out a long black bottle from an inside pocket of his shabby coat. “You don’t get stuff like that every day.”
He held the bottle up in the dim daylight. It bore no label; the bottle itself looked greasy and no gleam of sunshine was reflected back from its contents.
“What is it?” again asked Mr. Pickwick.
“The real thing,” repeated the man fiercely. “Didn’t I tell you it was the real stuff?”
“And how much,” asked Mr. Winkle, whose martial air had entirely evaporated, “do you ask for it?”
“For you gents,” said the ragged man, “I’ll make the price at five sovereigns!”
“Five sovereigns!” gasped all the Pickwickians.
“Five sovereigns,” replied the man, “and you’d better hand it over quick or I’ll report to the coachguard what I seen here, and you’ll learn what the law is, if you don’t know it already.”
“Give it to him, Tupman,” said Mr. Pickwick, “give it to him.” It was characteristic of that great and magnanimous man, that the aspect of anger and quarrelling was overwhelmingly distasteful to him. Financial loss was easier to bear than a breach of those relations of goodwill and concord which alone hold humanity together.
Mr. Tupman, as the treasurer of the party, counted five golden sovereigns into the hands of the ragged man. The black bottle was duly transferred to a capacious pocket of Mr. Pickwick’s coat. The ragged man with a surly attempt at civility, based on the possibility of future business, took his departure.
“We might try a sip of it,” said Winkle suggestively.
“Let it be understood,” said Mr. Pickwick, “that there is to be no further mention of this bottle, until I myself produce it at the right time and place for the entertainment of our dear friend Wardle.”
With this understanding the four companions betook themselves sadly back to the coach, and were hustled up to the roof by the guard already impatient at their long delay. There they resumed their melancholy journey, the wet sleet and the drizzling rain alternately in their faces. The long day wore its gradual length away as the four Pickwickians were dragged over muddy roads, past mournful fields and leafless woods across the face of what had once been Merry England. Not till the daylight had almost faded did they find themselves, on reaching a turn in the road, in the familiar neighbourhood of the Manor Farm of Dingley Dell.
“There’s Wardle,” cried Mr. Pickwick, waking up to a new alacrity and making sundry attempts at waving signals with an umbrella. “There’s Wardle, waiting at the corner of the road.”
There, right enough, was the good old gentleman, his stout figure unmistakable, waiting at the corner of the road. Close by was a one-horse cart, evidently designed for the luggage, beside which stood a tall thin boy, whose elongated figure seemed to Mr. Pickwick at once extremely strange and singularly familiar.
“You’re late,” said Mr. Wardle in a slightly testy tone. “I’ve waited at this infernal corner the best part of an hour. What sort of journey did you have?”
“Abominable,” said Mr. Pickwick.
“Always that way at this infernal time of the year,” said Wardle. “Here, Joe, make haste with that luggage. Drive it on in the cart. We’ll walk up.”
“Joe!” repeated Mr. Pickwick with a glance of renewed wonder and partial recognition at the tall thin boy whose long legs seemed to have left his scanty trousers and his inadequate stockings far behind in their growth. “Is that Joe? Why, Joe was — —”
“Was the ‘Fat Boy,’ ” interrupted Wardle, “exactly so. But when I had to cut his beer off he began to grow. Look at him!”
“Does he still sleep as much as ever?” asked Mr. Tupman.
“Never!” said Mr. Wardle.
The cart having set off at a jog-trot for the Manor Farm the five gentlemen, after sundry adjustments of mufflers, gaiters and gloves, disposed themselves to follow.
“And how are you, Wardle?” asked Mr. Pickwick as they fell in side by side.
“Not so well,” said Mr. Wardle.
“Too bad,” said Mr. Pickwick.
“I find I don’t digest as well as I used to.”
“Dear me!” said Mr. Pickwick, who has passed more than half a century of life without being aware that he digested at all, and without connecting that interesting process with the anatomy of Wardle or of any other of his friends.
“No,” continued Wardle, “I find that I have to keep away from starch. Proteids are all right for me, but I find that nitrogenous foods in small quantities are about all that I can take. You don’t suffer from inflation at all, do you?”
“Good Lord, no!” said Mr. Pickwick. He had no more idea of what inflation was than of the meaning of nitrogenous food. But the idea of itself was enough to make him aghast.
They walked along for some time in silence.
Presently Mr. Wardle spoke again.
“I think that the lining of my œsophagus must be punctured here and there,” he said.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
“Either that or some sort of irritation in the alimentary canal. Ever have it?”
“My dear sir!” said Mr. Pickwick.
“It’s this damn bootleg stuff,” said Mr. Wardle.
Mr. Pickwick turned as he walked to take a closer look at his old and valued friend, whose whole manner and person seemed, as it were, transformed. He scrutinized closely the legs of Mr. Wardle’s boots, but was unable to see in those stout habiliments any suggested cause for the obvious alteration of mind and body which his friend had undergone. But when he raised his eyes from Wardle’s boots to Wardle’s face, he realized that the change was great. The jolly rubicund features had faded to a dull, almost yellow complexion. There were pouches beneath the eyes and heavy lines in the once smooth cheeks.
Musing thus on the obvious and distressing changes in his old friend, Mr. Pickwick found himself arriving once more in sight of the Manor Farm, a prospect which even on such a gloomy day filled him with pleasant reminiscences. The house at any rate had not changed. Here was still the same warm red brick, the many gables and the smoking chimneys of that hospitable home. Around and beside it were the clustering evergreens and the tall elm trees which had witnessed the marksmanship of Mr. Winkle in the slaughter of rooks. Mr. Pickwick breathed a sigh of satisfaction at the familiar and pleasant prospect. Yet even here, in a nearer view, he could not but feel as if something of the charm of past years had vanished. The whole place seemed smaller, the house on a less generous scale, the grounds far more limited, and even the spruce trees fewer and the elms less venerable than at his previous visit.
In fact Dingley Dell seemed somehow oddly shrunken from what it had been. But Mr. Pickwick, who contained within himself like all great intellects the attitude of the philosopher, resolutely put aside this feeling, as one always familiar in visits paid to scenes of former happiness.
Here at least as he entered the good old house was the same warm and hearty welcome as of yore. The old lady, Mr. Wardle’s mother, her deafness entirely laid aside, greeted Mr. Pickwick and his younger companions with affectionate recognition: while the charming Emily Wardle and the dashing Arabella Allen appeared in a bevy of pretty girls for the especial welcome and the complete distraction of the susceptible hearts of Messrs. Snodgrass and Winkle. Here too, as essential members of the Christmas party, were the two young medical students, those queer combinations of rowdiness and good-humour, Mr. Bob Sawyer and Mr. Benjamin Allen, the brother of the fair Arabella.
Mr. Wardle, also, as he re-entered his home and assumed his duties as host, seemed to recover in great measure his genial good nature and high spirits.
“Now, then, mother,” he exclaimed, “our friends I am sure are thirsty; before they go to their rooms let us see what we can offer them in the way of wine. Joe — where’s that boy? — a couple of bottles of the red wine, the third bin in the cellar, and be smart about it.” The tall thin boy, whom the very word “wine” seemed to galvanize out of his mournful passivity into something like energy, vanished in the direction of the cellar, while Mr. Pickwick and his companions laid aside their outer wraps and felt themselves suddenly invaded with a glow of good-fellowship at the mere prospect of a “drink.” Such is the magic of anticipation that the Pickwickians already felt their hearts warm and their pulses tingle at the very word.
“Now then,” said the hospitable Wardle, “bustle about, girls — glasses — a corkscrew — that’s right — ah, here’s Joe. Set it on the sideboard, Joe.”
The cork of the first bottle came out with a “pop” that would have done credit to the oldest vintage of the Rhine, and Mr. Wardle proceeded to fill the trayful of glasses with the rich red liquid.
“What is it?” asked Mr. Pickwick, beaming through his spectacles at the fluid through which the light of the blazing fire upon the hearth reflected an iridescent crimson. “What is it — Madeira?”
“No,” said Mr. Wardle, “it’s a wine that we made here at home.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Pickwick. Volumes could not have said more.
“It’s made,” continued the hospitable old gentleman, passing round the glasses as he talked, “from cranberries. I don’t know whether one would exactly call it a claret — —”
“No,” said Mr. Pickwick, as he sipped the wine— “hardly a claret.”
“No,” said Wardle, “a little more of a Burgundy taste — —”
“Yes,” said Mr. Pickwick, “a little more of a Burgundy taste.”
“Drink it,” said Mr. Wardle.
“I am,” said Mr. Pickwick, “but I like to sip it rather slowly, to get the full pleasure of it.”
“You like it?” said Mr. Wardle eagerly.
“It is excellent,” said Mr. Pickwick.
“Then let me fill up your glass again,” said Wardle. “Come along, there’s lots more in the cellar. Here, Winkle, Tupman, your glasses.”
There was no gainsaying Mr. Wardle’s manner. It had in it something of a challenge, which forbade the Pickwickians from expressing their private thoughts, if they had any, on the merits of Mr. Wardle’s wine. Even Mr. Pickwick himself found the situation difficult. “I think, perhaps,” he said as he stood with a second bumper of wine untasted in his hand, “I will carry this up to my room and have the pleasure of drinking it as I dress for dinner.” Which no doubt he did, for at any rate the empty glass was found in due course in Mr. Pickwick’s bedroom. But whether or not certain splashes of red in the snow beneath Mr. Pickwick’s bedroom window may have been connected with the emptiness of the glass we are not at liberty to say.
Now just as the gentlemen were about to vanish upstairs to prepare for dinner the sprightly Emily pulled Mr. Winkle aside. “Wait till the old guys are out of the way,” she whispered. “Arabella’s got a flask of real old tanglefoot, and Bob Sawyer and Mr. Allen are going to make cocktails. Come into our room and have some.”
“God bless my soul,” murmured Mr. Winkle.
The assemblage of the party for dinner found much the same group gathered at the Manor Farm as on the occasion of Mr. Pickwick’s previous visit. Here among the first was the elderly clergyman whose charming poetic talent had afforded such pleasure to the company.
“I am glad to see you,” said Mr. Pickwick heartily. “I trust, sir, I see you well.”
“Not altogether,” said the old man. “I am well enough except when it’s humid, but I find that after a certain saturation of the air, it affects me at once.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Pickwick.
