CHAPTER XXI.
Leaving King Jericho—anointed, crowned with wealth; wealth, the sceptre in his right hand; wealth, the ball of the world, in his left;—we must bestow our thoughts upon a few of the subject people, who from time to time have appeared in these pages. We therefore speed our way to the frigate-built ship,Halcyon, Captain Goodbody, commander. One minute, reader, and arm-in-arm we stand upon the deck.
Some dozen folks with gay, dull, earnest, careless, hopeful, wearied looks, spy about the ship, their future abiding-place upon the deep for many a day. Some dozen, with different feelings, shown in different motions, enter cabins, dip below, emerge on deck, and weave their way among packages and casks, merchandise and food, lying in labyrinth about. The ship is in most seemly confusion. The landsman thinks it impossible she can be all taut upon the wave in a week. Her yards are all so up and down; and her rigging in such a tangle, such disorder; like a wench’s locks after a mad game at romps. Nevertheless, Captain Goodbody’s word is as true as oak. On the appointed day, the skies permitting, the frigate-builtHalcyon, with her white wings spread, will drop down the Thames—down to the illimitable sea.
She carries a glorious freightage to the Antipodes; English hearts and English sinews. Hope and strength to conquer and control the waste, taming it to usefulness and beauty. She carries in her the seed of English cities; with English laws to crown them free. She carries with her the strong, deep, earnest music of the English tongue; a music, soon to be universal as the winds of heaven. What should fancy do in a London Dock? All is so hard, material, positive. Yet there, amid the tangled ropes, fancy will behold—clustered like birds—poets and philosophers, history men and story men, annalists and legalists, English all, bound for the other side of the world, to rejoice it with their voices. Put fancy to the task, and fear not, fancywill detect Milton in the shrouds—and Shakespeare, looking sweetly, seriously down, pedestalled upon yon main-block. Spenser, like one of his own fairies, swings on a brace; and Bacon, as if in philosophic chair, sits soberly upon a yard. Poetic heads of every generation, from the half-cowled brow of Chaucer to the periwigged pate of Dryden, from bonnetted Pope to nightcapped Cowper—fancy sees them all—all; aye, from the long-dead day of Edward to the living hour of Victoria; sees them all gathered aloft, and with fine ear lists the rustling of their bays.
Such passengers, however, are prone to steal their transit, paying no shilling to owners. We have therefore given sufficient—more than sufficient—paper and ink to their claims upon us. For here are passengers, crossing from the wharf to the deck; good folks journied from Primrose Place to inspect their sometime house upon the wave. Carraways and Basil have, on former visits, inspected every nook and corner of theHalcyon, and therefore tread the deck with an assured manner, as though they already felt themselves at home. And Bessy, with happy face, and sparkling eyes, looks vivaciously around, as though she was truly surprised by the excellent accommodations, the comforts and conveniences, manifest at a glance. Poor Mrs. Carraways tries to smile, but shudders at the dirt and confusion; and then, casting a hopeless look at the tangled ropes, fairly sighs in despair at the dreadful untidiness about her.
“A magnificent vessel, my dear,” says Carraways. “Her first voyage, too.”
“Very pretty, indeed, Gilbert,” falters the wife.
“Beautiful, isn’t she, mamma?” cries Bessy, exulting in the positive loveliness of the craft.
“A noble ship, madam,” says Basil; “and everybody predicts as swift as a bird.”
Mrs. Carraways glances aloft, then sideways; then sliding her hand under the arm of her husband, she asks, a little tremulously, “Do you think, Gilbert, she is quite safe? The first voyage! Of course, somebody must go the first voyage. Still, do you feel confident she is safe?”
“Safe as the ark, my dear,” answers Carraways, with a jocund laugh, squeezing his wife’s arm at the same time.
“And how long”—Mrs. Carraways had already twenty times put the self-same query—“how long shall we be shut up in this ship? I mean, how long will the voyage”—
“Oh, Captain Goodbody will pledge his name and fame as a sailor,”—cries Carraways—“not more than four months. Perhaps, a bare sixteen weeks. Why, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, dear; nothing,” says the wife, with a blank face. “It’s the—the smell of the tar—the pitch—it always made my heart sink; but—it’s very strange—never so much as now.”
“How very odd, mamma!” cries Bessy; “but you will think me a curious creature. Upon my word, I think the odour rather pleasant; indeed, positively agreeable,” and the bride inhaled the pitched deck and tarred ropes as though she stood in a rose-garden. Bessy’s valorous nostril made even her mother smile through her paleness; and Carraways with a laugh declared the girl ought to have been born a mermaid. Basil, with proud and glowing looks, silently listened to the enthusiasm of his betrothed.
“I never did see a place in such a litter,” said Mrs. Carraways, looking with the eye of huswife at the crowded, scattered deck. “And all those ropes, Gilbert; why, they never can get them out of tangle by the time they say.”
“Never fear, lass; sailors can do anything. All they have to do with time is to beat it. But come, let us look over our house. As we are to be tenants for some weeks, you’ll like to see the drawing-room and dining-room; the parlours, the kitchens, the garrets; and all the other conveniences of the dwelling. And let me tell you, it has one capital recommendation: it has no taxes. Basil, lad, show the way.”
Basil, with Bessy under his arm, immediately proceeded to make the best of the way to the principal cabin. This, through a zig-zag path of various cargo, was at length accomplished; and the four stood in some dark place, in which one candle, with funereal wick, survived sullenly in the gloom.
“This,” said Basil, very boldly, “is the state cabin.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Carraways.
“It’s dark now, mamma,” said the hopeful Bessy, “because the docks and the—the other ships are close at the windows; but when we are at sea, of course it will be beautiful. Such a view!”
“No doubt, Bessy,” cried her father. “Here you’ll sit and see the dolphins and the flying-fish, and the stormy petrels, and the—the—that is, all the other sea-sights.”
“Very, very interesting indeed,” sighed Mrs. Carraways.
“The place, it must be owned,” said Basil, “is a little gloomy at present. In fact, cabins always are, in dock. But I assure you, my dear madam, when once wide at sea, and from the windows here you look out and behold a wide, wide wilderness of water, blue or green, now intermingled with the red flood of morning, now crested with the white foam of noon, now deepened with the golden sunset—with star by star coming out, like angel eyes, to smile good night upon you—I do assure you, my dear mother, that then the place will show a very, very different aspect.”
“Yes: I dare say,” confessed Mrs. Carraways; and she felt she could confess no less.
“Oh, it will be beautiful,” cried Bessy, and her hopeful, cordial voice, sounded sweetly through the miserable, musty gloom. “Beautiful to sit here, and work, and read; and watch the changes of the sea; the albatrosses, and the coral reefs, and all the ocean wonders. Beautiful!”
“And now we’ll go below,” said Carraways; for he felt the contrast of the present and the future a little too glowing for his wife; whose only answer to the raptures of Bessy was a deeper sigh.
“Where are we going now?” asked Mrs. Carraways, as she suffered herself to be led in and out of what she called the shocking fitter upon the deck. “Yes; I recollect—down stairs.”
“A very noble ship, indeed; beautiful—very beautiful,” saidCarraways, pausing, and looking about him, in his way to the companion-ladder; for he felt that the dreadful moment, the fearful instant of trial was at hand; and therefore ventured to deliver himself of a triumphant flourish upon the magnificence of the floating prison in general, ere he introduced his wife to her dark, close berth; her condemned cell for many, many weeks.
“Many more stairs?” asked Mrs. Carraways, having taken about three in her descent.
“None; that is, none to speak of,” answered her husband; still and still descending. “Here we are,” he cried at length. “Fine and roomy between decks. Nothing can be more airy,” said Carraways, taking off his hat.
“I feel as if I should faint,” said Mrs. Carraways.
“Admirably ventilated,” observed the husband.
“I had no idea it could be so nice,” said Bessy, and she looked with as much hope, as much sweet cheerfulness about her, as though she stood in her own old, early summer bower: the play-place of her childish days.
“Here are the cabins,” and Carraways opened a door, and showed in a sort of long box two opposite rows of boards.
“Cabins! My dear Carraways,” cried the desponding wife; “why, they’re like kitchen shelves, and not a bit broader. I couldn’t sleep in one of them”—
“Oh yes, mamma,” cried Bessy, “I’m sure they’re much broader than they look.” Still Mrs. Carraways considered that shelf whereupon for four months she was to be laid aside, with a troubled eye—a very rueful face. “And, after all, I’ve no doubt, mamma, with a little use they’re much nicer than a bed.” Carraways said nothing; but made up his mouth, as though contemplating the enjoyment of a whistle. “Very much nicer than a bed, especially at sea. And if the ship should ever go up and down—I say if it should—why, it’s impossible to fall out with this ledge to the shelf. Nothing could be more considerate; nothing could be more comfortable.” The face of Mrs. Carraways gradually relented at the cheerful voice of Bessy: by degrees, too, it took a somewhat comic look; there was, intruth, positive fun peeping through its sadness, and breaking up its shadow. And Bessy still continued eloquent upon the unintrusive advantages of a shelf—as Carraways avowed to himself not much broader than a boot-jack—over the ostentatious pretensions of any bedstead soever. “I’m sure, I shouldn’t wonder, mamma, when you’ve become quite used to this, if you ever care to sleep upon a bedstead again.”
Here Mrs. Carraways burst into a hearty laugh. The affectionate exaggeration of Bessy was not to be resisted; and her mother, with tears in her eyes and laughter at her lips, threw her arms about Bessy’s neck, and doatingly kissed her. “Yes, my love; yes, my own Bessy; I will see everything with your own good, glad eyes. I ought to do so; and I will, love, from this moment.” And, in very truth, it was delightful to see with what instant earnestness Mrs. Carraways set about the good work. She, who went below, moping and dim, and sad, returned to the deck with such smiling looks, that they fell like sunlight upon her husband and the lovers. The whole party looked as though they had come to secure berths for a voyage to Utopia or Atlantis; with the further delight that there were kindred and friends gone thither long before, and anxiously expecting them. The party mounted the poop of the vessel, and Mrs. Carraways declared it would be a very beautiful place in fine weather to bring her knitting, and to work there and watch the birds and fishes. And the ship’s deck, that, a while past, was in such a dreadful litter, was reconsidered with a very tolerant eye. Nay, we will not avouch that even the pitch and tar had not, within a few minutes, contracted a sweet and flowery odour—a whiff of lilac or violet—deemed impossible before. In a word, everything about theHalcyonwas better than Hope—even were she a royal academician—could have painted it. And when Captain Goodbody, in the forepart of the ship, was pointed out to Mrs. Carraways; the said Captain at the time employed dancing up and down at arm’s length an infant passenger of some eight or nine months’ worldly experience; and dancing the little one, chuckling and crowing inconcert with his playmate,—when, we say, Mrs. Carraways saw the commander of theHalcyonso genially employed,—she emphatically avowed that then she had not another care about the voyage on her mind; and if the luggage had only been aboard, and the ship cleared of its litter, she would have been quite ready for sea that very minute.
“That’s a good lass,” said Carraways. “Still, not this minute. Here’s a pair of doves to be coupled, before we take ship in the ark;” and Bessy blushed.
“Why, of course, Gilbert,” replied his wife. “I meant that and all;” and Bessy blushed still deeper.
At this moment, a gentleman, his wife, and—Mrs. Carraways counted them as they came up the poop ladder—a family of nine children, ascended in procession. The gentleman approached Carraways with a ceremonious elevation of beaver: then, with measured syllables, began,—“I believe, sir, I have the pleasure of addressing a brother passenger that will be?” Carraways bowed. “My name, sir, is Dodo: a name, I believe, pretty well known in that place they call the world, down there,” and Dodo, as with accusing finger pointed towards the west, and bitterness seemed to well to his lips. Basil stared at the change wrought in the man. His face, once shrewd, earnest, yet withal honest and good-tempered, seemed edgy, as sharpened on the world’s grindstone. His thin hair was white as paper; and when he spoke, it was with a twitch, as though every syllable he uttered stung his lips with a sense of wrong. Basil at once recognised Dodo, although Dodo had no remembrance of Basil.
“I trust, sir,” continued Dodo, “I may take the freedom of a self-introduction; as I am to have the care of you during the voyage. I go out as doctor of the vessel. And my best wishes are that none of you will have any need of me.” Carraways bowed in thankfulness of such benevolence. “I go out, understand me,” said Dodo; and then he smiled scornfully—“but never, never to return. I will not take a particle of the dust of England with me. Not a particle. When I finally step aboard, it shall be in a pair of new shoes; bran-new shoes. Not aparticle of that ungrateful earth,” and Dodo pointed to the west.
“I am sorry, sir,” said Carraways, “you should have such cause for new shoe-leather.”
“It is no matter, sir; no matter,” and Dodo raised his hands, and shook his fingers, as though shaking all annoyance from them. “No matter. We go to a fine country, sir; a virgin country, sir. A country, fresh from the hand of nature; a country, glorious and flourishing with living wood; a country yet unburdened, sir, with heavy sins of brick and mortar. A magnificent country. So fertile! A crop with every quarter; splendid pasturage; wonderful cattle; beautiful flowers, and birds, and fishes”—
“And”—said Mrs. Carraways—“and no snakes.”
At the sentence, Doctor Dodo fairly leapt from his feet. “That’s it, my dear madam—that’s it, my truthful lady! No snakes—no reptiles—no vipers; that’s it,” and Dodo rubbed his hands, and chuckled with a wildness of enjoyment, somewhat akin to ferocity. Mr. Carraways remembered the reports of Dodo’s insanity; and began to wonder at, perhaps to regret, his appointment as doctor of theHalcyon. “Excuse me, sir,” said Dodo; “but it’s a subject I must feel deeply. Allow me to introduce Mrs. Dodo; our children, with one at the breast at home. Well, sir; here we are, twelve of us, stung out of the country by vipers; bitten out of house and home by adders. Am I wrong then, when I thank heaven that where we’re bound to, there are no snakes?”
“Indeed, Doctor Dodo,” said Carraways, “your numerous family adds an interest to your story. What do you mean? Bitten, stung! I don’t understand you.”
“By the snakes that walk, sir. The snakes that still have speech, plainly as the first snake that ever wagged his three-forked lie, sir. The vipers that kill a man’s reputation; the snakes that trail their slime over his daily bread.”
“My dear George,” said Mrs. Dodo, soothingly.
“Be quiet, Charlotte. Stung as I have been, when I can geta gentleman to hear me—for that’s a comfort not always granted—when I can get a gentleman with a heart in his face to listen to me, it does my soul good to tell my wrongs—to tell my wrongs;” and the poor man trembled, and grew very pale. Then, putting down his emotion with a strong will, he proceeded, as he believed calmly, to narrate his injuries. And thus he now muttered, and now gasped them.—“You see, sir, there is a fellow in this town, named Jericho,”—Carraways was about to stop Dodo, but Basil by a look, forbade him,—“a sort of man-devil, sir; man-devil. A fiend with bowels made at the Bank, and just smeared with a paste of flesh to seem human. Well, this demon was shot through the heart. I saw it, sir. I looked through the perforation; could have run my cane through the hole; a hole as clean as a hole in a quoit; and the devil walked away alive, and is alive yet; though shredding away, sir; shredding like scraped horseradish. Well, sir, not to fatigue you, I proclaimed what I had seen. I rose before the world; and—I never denied the truth in my life, never when I was a bachelor, and shall I do it now, with ten children to blush for me?—and I denounced this Jericho to be the devil that I know he is. I made oath that I had seen the sunlight through what ought to have been the left ventricle of the demon’s heart; and what, sir; what was my reward—what my return by the world? Why the world called me lunatic, madman! My patients fell from me in a day. A few hours, and my hand was unblessed with a single guinea. The devil Jericho threw gifts about him; and all society turned itself into a knot of vipers, and stung my reputation—killed my practice—poisoned my bread. And so, sir”—and Dodo gasped for breath, and strove for serenity,—“and so, I have resolved to leave the land. We all go,”—and Dodo smiled—“all, mother and myself, the nine here, and the one at the breast. I’ve brought ’em—dear hearts!—to show ’em their berths. I’m afraid, I’ve tired you; good morning, sir. Come along, Charlotte; come along, my loves. We go where there are no snakes—no snakes.” And poor Doctor Dodo, with his meek and melancholy wife,descended to the deck; and thence, followed by the nine children, dived to the sleeping shelves below.
“Poor dear man!” said Mrs. Carraways; and then she added—“but I’m so glad he’s going with us. If one is never ill, still Gilbert, it always gives one confidence to have a doctor of the party.”
“To be sure, my love,” answered Gilbert. “A doctor may be an excellent warranty of health. For the very reason that he’s at hand, we may resolve to do without him, eh?” And Carraways looked waggishly in his wife’s face; and seemed to take a new stock of good spirits from the happiness he saw there. Indeed, all the four were in the blithest mood. And we may say of Bessy, wherever she looked she seemed to carry light and pleasure with the glance.
They were about to descend, when from the dark state-cabin came a long gurgling laugh that made them all pause. “I’m sure I know that laugh,” cried Mrs. Carraways.
“Oh! I’m certain it’s she,” avowed Bessy, gravely confident. “It must be”—and it was—Jenny Topps. She ran out like a kitten after her tail upon the deck, and then looking up, caught the faces of her friends. Whereupon, Jenny bobbed a deep curtsey, blushed, and immediately put her arm under the protecting arm of Topps as he lounged out from the cabin. Instantly, Topps himself was as much confused as his wife; which confusion he signified, by taking off his hat, and without a word smoothing down his hair.
“Why, Robert, what brings you here?” asked Carraways, descending the ladder.
“Why, sir—please, sir,” answered Robert, “come to see the ship, sir;” and Robert looked at Jenny.—“That’s all, sir; nothing more, sir.”
“Now, Robert, you know I hate dogmatism”—Robert bowed—“nevertheless, I must know what brings you here. Come, tell me; what is it?”
Still Robert smoothed his hair; still he answered—“Come to see the ship, sir. Nothing more, sir.”
“Indeed,” said Carraways. “Well, then, Robert; let’s go and look a little for’ard. I havn’t seen the caboose yet, myself. Come, Basil.” And the wary man moved onward with the two, leaving Jenny Topps in charge of Mrs. Carraways and Bessy. Scarcely had the three men proceeded beyond the mainmast, when the three women had plunged into the subject that, as Carraways knew, he alone should fail to fathom.
“Well, then, dear ma’am, if you’ll not tell Robert that I told you,” said Jenny, burning to speak, “we’ve made up our minds to go wherever you go; and we’ve come to take our places.”
“My dear Jenny,” said Mrs. Carraways, touched by the affectionate fidelity of the young couple, “my good girl, I hope you have well considered this step. It would make us all very unhappy, should you for a moment repent it. To leave your friends”—
“But we’ve none to leave; for father goes with us,” cried Jenny, pouring out her news. “And you can’t believe how happy the old man is at the thought of it. He says it will be so beautiful for him in his old age to carry reading and writing to the children in the wilderness. For he declares he will have a school there, if all his scholars learn under the naked sky, and sit upon stumps of trees. You can’t think how happy he is. And then, ma’am”—added Jenny with graver looks—“I’m sure it will be the saving of Robert. It will, indeed, ma’am. That cab-work, ma’am,” and Jenny raised her hands, “is dreadful.”
“It must be,” said Mrs. Carraways. “Out all weathers.”
“It isn’t so much the weather, as the company. It ’ud spoil an angel to be a cabman,” averred Jenny—“waiting for the people, he has to wait for, so late at clubs. But, pray, ma’am, don’t tell master, ma’am; for Robert’s set his heart upon surprising him when he finds him in the ship. And it will make Robert so happy to wait upon master all the passage; and me to wait upon you—and I’m never ill, never. Been up and down to Blackwall a dozen times, and felt it no more than if I’dbeen in my own room. And so, I’m sure, I can be of some use to you.”
“My good, good girl,” cried Bessy, giving both her hands to the excellent creature.
“And above all,” said Jenny, very seriously, “there is one thing in this passage that will be a great load off my mind. It is this. The passage, they say, lasts four months. Now in that time, I shall be certain sure to finish my patchwork quilt.”
Here Carraways and Basil returned, Topps following apart. Mrs. Topps, dropping a hasty curtsey, made off to her husband, and Carraways regarding his wife and daughter, with laughing, curious looks,—with Basil conducted them from the ship. The guilty Mrs. Topps, hanging on her husband’s arm, had an instant dread that her lord would question her upon the suspected subject of conversation with the ladies. Whereupon, with fine instinct, she resolved to be beforehand in the way of interrogation.—“Robert, my dear,” said Jenny, with the deferential air of a scholar; “Robert, what did Mr. Carraways mean when he said he hated dog—dogmatism?” Topps was puzzled. “Robert, my dear,” Jenny urged, “what—what in the world is dogmatism?”
Now it was the weakness of Topps never to confess ignorance of anything soever to his wife. “A man should never do it,” Topps has been known in convivial seasons to declare; “it makes ’em conceited.” Whereupon Topps, wrested from his first purpose of examination, by the query of his spouse, prepared himself, as was his wont, to make solemn, satisfying answer. Taking off his hat, and smoothing the wrinkles of his brow, Topps said—“Humph! what is dogmatism? Why, it is this—of course. Dogmatism is puppyism come to its full growth.”