A Book of English Prose Part 10

At Michaelmas, in the year 1776 (I promise you I remember the year), my dear and kind friend, Doctor Barnard, having to go to London with his rents, proposed to take me to London to see my other patron, Sir Peter Denis, between whom and the Doctor there was a great friends.h.i.+p; and it is to those dear friends that I owe the great good fortune which has since befallen me in life. Indeed, when I think of what I might have been, of what I have escaped, my heart is full of thankfulness for the great mercies which have fallen to my share. Well, at this happy and eventful Michaelmas of 1776, Doctor Barnard says to me, "Denis, my child, if thy mother will grant leave, I have a mind to take thee to see thy G.o.d-father, Sir Peter Denis, in London. I am going up with my rents, my neighbour Weston will share the horses with me, and thou shall see the Tower and Mr Salmon's wax-work before thou art a week older."

You may suppose that this proposition made Master Denis Duval jump for joy. Of course I had heard of London all my life, and talked with people who had been there, but that I should go myself to Admiral Sir Peter Denis's house, and see the play, St Paul's and Mr Salmon's, here was a height of bliss I had never hoped to attain. I could not sleep for thinking of my pleasure; I had {145} some money, and I promised to buy as many toys for Agnes as the Chevalier used to bring her. My mother said I should go like a gentleman, and turned me out in a red waistcoat with plate b.u.t.tons, a c.o.c.k to my hat, and ruffles to my s.h.i.+rts. How I counted the hours of the night before our departure! I was up before the dawn, packing my little valise. I got my little bra.s.s-barrelled pocket-pistol, and I loaded it with shot. I put it away into my breast-pocket; and if we met with a highwayman I promised myself he should have my charge of lead in his face. The Doctor's postchaise was at his stables not very far from us. The stable lanterns were alight, and Brown, the Doctor's man, cleaning the carriage, when Mr Denis Duval comes up to the stable-door, lugging his portmanteau after him through the twilight. Was ever daylight so long a-coming? Ah! there comes the horses at last; the horses from the "King's Head," and old Pascoe, the one-eyed postillion. How well I remember the sound of their hoofs in that silent street! I can tell everything that happened on that day; what we had for dinner--viz., veal cutlets and French beans, at Maidstone; where we changed horses, and the colour of the horses. "Here, Brown! here's my portmanteau! I say, where shall I stow it?" My portmanteau was about as large as a good-sized apple-pie. I jump into the carriage and we drive up to the rectory: and I think the Doctor will never come out. There he is at last: with his mouth full of b.u.t.tered toast, and I bob my head to him a hundred times out of the chaise window. Then I must jump out, forsooth. "Brown, shall I give you a hand with the luggage?" says I, and I dare say they all laugh. Well, {146} I am so happy that anybody may laugh who likes. The Doctor comes out, his precious box under his arm. I see dear Mrs Barnard's great cap nodding at us out of the parlour window as we drive away from the Rectory door to stop a hundred yards further on at the Priory.

There at the parlour window stands my dear little Agnes, in a white frock, in a great cap with a blue riband and bow, and curls cl.u.s.tering over her face. I wish Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted thee in those days, my dear: but thou wert the very image of one of his little ladies, that one who became d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleuch afterwards. There is my Agnes, and now presently comes out Mr Weston's man and luggage, and it is fixed on the roof. Him, his master, Mr George Weston, follows.

This was the most good-natured of the two, and I shall never forget my sensation of delight, when I saw him bring out two holster-pistols, which he placed each in a pocket of the chaise. Is Tommy Chapman, the apothecary's son of Westgate, alive yet, and does he remember my wagging my head to him as our chaise whirled by? He was shaking a mat at the door of his father's shop as my lords.h.i.+p accompanied by my n.o.ble friends pa.s.sed by.

First stage, Ham Street, "The Bear." A grey horse and a bay to change, _I_ remember them. Second stage, Ashford. Third stage--I think I am asleep about the third stage; and no wonder, a poor little wretch who had been awake half the night before, and no doubt many nights previous, thinking of this wonderful journey. Fourth stage, Maidstone, "The Bell." "And here we will stop to dinner, master Shrimp-catcher,"

says the Doctor, and I jump down out of the carriage, nothing {147} loth. The Doctor followed with his box, of which he never lost sight.

The Doctor liked his ease in his inn, and took his sip of punch so comfortably, that I, for my part, thought he never would be gone. I was out in the stables and looking at the horses, and talking to the ostler who was rubbing his nags down. I dare say I had a peep into the kitchen, and at the pigeons in the inn-yard, and at all things which were to be seen at "The Bell," while my two companions were still at their interminable punch. It was an old-fas.h.i.+oned inn, with a gallery round the court-yard. Heaven bless us! Falstaff and Bardolph may have stopped there on the road to Gads.h.i.+ll. I was in the stable looking at the nags, when Mr Weston comes out of the inn, looks round the court, opens the door of the postchaise, takes out his pistols, looks at the priming, and puts them back again. Then we are off again, and time enough too. It seemed to me many hours since we had arrived at that creaking old "Bell." And away we go through Addington, Eynesford, by miles and miles of hop-gardens. I dare say I did not look at the prospect much, beautiful though it might be, my young eyes being for ever on the look-out for St Paul's and London.

For a great part of the way Doctor Barnard and his companion had a fine controversy about their respective religions, for which each was alike zealous. Nay: it may be the Rector invited Mr Weston to take a place in his postchaise in order to have this battle, for he never tired of arguing the question between the two churches. Towards the close of the day Master Denis Duval fell {148} asleep on Doctor Barnard's shoulder, and the good-natured clergyman did not disturb him.

I woke up with the sudden stoppage of the carriage. The evening was falling. We were upon a lonely common, and a man on horseback was at the window of the postchaise.

"Give us out that there box! and your money!" I heard him say in a very gruff voice. O heavens! we were actually stopped by a highwayman! It was delightful.

Mr Weston jumped at his pistols very quick. "Here's our money, you scoundrel!" says he, and fired point-blank at the rogue's head.

Confusion! the pistol missed fire. He aimed the second, and again no report followed!

"Some scoundrel has been tampering with these," says Mr Weston, aghast.

"Come," says Captain Macheath, "come, your--"

But the next word the fellow spoke was a frightful oath; for I took out my little pistol, which was full of shot, and fired it into his face.

The man reeled, and I thought would have fallen out of his saddle. The postillion, frightened, no doubt, clapped spurs to his horse, and began to gallop. "Shan't we stop and take that rascal, sir?" said I to the Doctor. On which Mr Weston gave a peevish kind of push at me, and said, "No, no. It is getting quite dark. Let us push on." And, indeed, the highwayman's horse had taken fright, and we could see him galloping away across the common.

I was so elated to think that I, a little boy, had shot a live highwayman, that I dare say I bragged outrageously of my action. We set down Mr Weston at his {149} inn in the Borough, and crossed London Bridge, and there I was in London at last. Yes, and that was the Monument, and then we came to the Exchange, and yonder, yonder was St Paul's. We went up Holborn, and so to Ormonde Street, where my patron lived in a n.o.ble mansion; and where his wife, my lady Denis, received me with a great deal of kindness. You may be sure the battle with the highwayman was fought over again, and I got due credit from myself and others for my gallantry.

(_Denis Duval_.)

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS 1812-1870

STORM

"Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it."

"Nor I,--not equal to it," he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long."

It was a murky confusion--here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel--of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. {150} There had been a wind all day; and it was rising then, with an extraordinary great sound. In another hour it had much increased, and the sky was more overcast, and it blew hard.

But, as the night advanced, the clouds closing in and densely overspreading the whole sky, then very dark, it came on to blow, harder and harder. It still increased, until our horses could scarcely face the wind. Many times, in the dark part of the night (it was then late in September, when the nights were not short), the leaders turned about, or came to a dead stop; and we were often in serious apprehension that the coach would be blown over. Sweeping gusts of rain came up before this storm, like showers of steel; and, at those times, when there was any shelter of trees or lee walls to be got, we were fain to stop, in a sheer impossibility of continuing the struggle.

When the day broke, it blew harder and harder. I had been in Yarmouth when the seamen said it blew great guns, but I had never known the like of this, or anything approaching to it. We came to Ipswich--very late, having had to fight every inch of ground since we were ten miles out of London; and found a cl.u.s.ter of people in the market-place, who had risen from their beds in the night, fearful of falling chimneys. Some of these, congregating about the inn-yard while we changed horses, told us of great sheets of lead having been ripped off a high church-tower, and flung into a bye-street, which they then blocked up. Others had to tell of country people, coming in from neighbouring villages, who had seen great trees lying torn out of the earth, and whole {151} ricks scattered about the roads and fields. Still, there was no abatement in the storm, but it blew harder.

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on sh.o.r.e, its force became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another sh.o.r.e with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair, making a wonder of the mail that had come through such a night.

I put up at the old inn, and went down to look at the sea; staggering along the street, which was strewn with sand and seaweed, and with flying blotches of sea-foam; afraid of falling slates and tiles; and holding by people I met, at angry corners. Coming near the beach, I saw, not only the boatmen, but half the people of the town, lurking behind buildings; some, now and then braving the fury of the storm to look away to sea, and blown sheer out of their course in trying to get zigzag back.

Joining these groups, I found bewailing women whose husbands were away in herring or oyster boats, which there was too much reason to think might have foundered before they could run in anywhere for safety.

Grizzled old sailors were among the people, shaking their heads, {152} as they looked from water to sky, and muttering to one another; s.h.i.+p-owners, excited and uneasy; children, huddling together, and peering into older faces; even stout mariners, disturbed and anxious, levelling their gla.s.ses at the sea from behind places of shelter, as if they were surveying an enemy.

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a hoa.r.s.e roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white-headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rus.h.i.+ng to be gathered to the composition of another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm-bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; ma.s.ses of water s.h.i.+vered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal sh.o.r.e on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds flew fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature. . . .

I went back to the inn; and when I had washed and dressed, and tried to sleep, but in vain, it was five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not sat five minutes by the {153} coffee-room fire, when the waiter coming to stir it, as an excuse for talking, told me that two colliers had gone down, with all hands, a few miles away; and that some other s.h.i.+ps had been seen labouring hard in the Roads, and trying, in great distress, to keep off sh.o.r.e. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last!

(_David Copperfield_.)

CHARLOTTE BRONTe 1816-1855

JANE EYRE AND MR ROCHESTER

"And now, what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"

"A little."

"Of course, that is the established answer. Go into the library--I mean, if you please.--(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, 'Do this,' and it is done. I cannot alter my customary habits for one new inmate.)--Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune."

I departed, obeying his directions.

"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play a _little_, I see, like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well."

I closed the piano, and returned. Mr Rochester continued--

{154} "Adele showed me some sketches this morning, which, she said, were yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing: probably a master aided you?"

"No, indeed!" I interjected.

"Ah! that p.r.i.c.ks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch for its contents being original; but don't pa.s.s your word unless you are certain: I can recognise patchwork."

"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."

I brought the portfolio from the library.

"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele and Mrs Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.

"No crowding," said Mr Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."

He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.

"Take them off to the other table, Mrs Fairfax," said he, "and look at them with Adele;--you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive these pictures were done by one hand. Was that hand yours?"

"Yes."