The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Volume 1 of 2

“Mr. Pickwick, mother,” said Mr. Wardle, at the very top of his voice.

“Ah!” said the old lady, shaking her head, “I can’t hear you.”

“Mr. Pickwick, grandma!” screamed both the young ladies together.

“Ah!” exclaimed the old lady. “Well; it don’t much matter. He don’t care for an old ’ooman like me, I dare say.”

“I assure you, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, grasping the old lady’s hand, and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his benevolent countenance, “I assure you, ma’am, that nothing delights me more than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family, and looking so young and well.”

“Ah!” said the old lady, after a short pause. “It’s all very fine, I dare say; but I can’t hear him.”

“Grandma’s rather put out now,” said Miss Isabella Wardle, in a low tone; “but she’ll talk to you presently.”

Mr. Pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the circle.

“Delightful situation this,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Delightful!” echoed Messrs. Snodgrass, Tupman, and Winkle.

“Well, I think it is,” said Mr. Wardle.

“There an’t a better spot o’ ground in all Kent, sir,” said the hard-headed man with the pippin-face; “there an’t indeed, sir – I’m sure there an’t, sir.” The hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better of him at last.

“There an’t a better spot o’ ground in all Kent,” said the hard-headed man again, after a pause.

“’Cept Mullins’s Meadows,” observed the fat man solemnly.

“Mullins’s Meadows!” ejaculated the other, with profound contempt.

“Ah, Mullins’s Meadows,” repeated the fat man.

“Reg’lar good land that,” interposed another fat man.

“And so it is, sure-ly,” said a third fat man.

“Everybody knows that,” said the corpulent host.

The hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in the minority, assumed a compassionate air and said no more.

“What are they talking about?” inquired the old lady of one of her granddaughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing what she said herself.

“About the land, grandma.”

“What about the land? – nothing the matter, is there?”

“No, no. Mr. Miller was saying our land was better than Mullins’s Meadows.”

“How should he know anything about it?” inquired the old lady indignantly. “Miller’s a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him I said so.” Saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard-headed delinquent.

“Come, come,” said the bustling host, with a natural anxiety to change the conversation, – “What say you to a rubber, Mr. Pickwick?”

“I should like it of all things,” replied that gentleman; “but pray don’t make up one on my account.”

“Oh, I assure you, mother’s very fond of a rubber,” said Mr. Wardle; “an’t you, mother?”

The old lady, who was much less deaf on this subject than on any other, replied in the affirmative.

“Joe, Joe!” said the old gentleman; “Joe – damn that – oh, here he is; put out the card-tables.”

The lethargic youth contrived without any additional rousing to set out two card-tables; the one for Pope Joan, and the other for whist. The whist-players were Mr. Pickwick and the old lady; Mr. Miller and the fat gentleman. The round game comprised the rest of the company.

The rubber was conducted with all that gravity of deportment and sedateness of demeanour which befit the pursuit entitled “whist” – a solemn observance, to which, as it appears to us, the title of “game” has been very irreverently and ignominiously applied. The round-game table, on the other hand, was so boisterously merry as materially to interrupt the contemplations of Mr. Miller, who, not being quite so much absorbed as he ought to have been, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanours, which excited the wrath of the fat gentleman to a very great extent, and called forth the good-humour of the old lady in a proportionate degree.

“There!” said the criminal Miller, triumphantly, as he took up the odd trick at the conclusion of a hand; “that could not have been played better, I flatter myself; – impossible to have made another trick.”

“Miller ought to have trumped the diamond, oughtn’t he, sir?” said the old lady.

Mr. Pickwick nodded assent.

“Ought I, though?” said the unfortunate, with a doubtful appeal to his partner.

“You ought, sir,” said the fat gentleman, in an awful voice.

“Very sorry,” said the crestfallen Miller.

“Much use that,” growled the fat gentleman.

“Two by honours makes us eight,” said Mr. Pickwick.

Another hand. “Can you one?” inquired the old lady.

“I can,” replied Mr. Pickwick. “Double, single, and the rub.”

“Never was such luck,” said Mr. Miller.

“Never was such cards,” said the fat gentleman.

A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman captious, and Mr. Miller timorous.

“Another double,” said the old lady: triumphantly making a memorandum of the circumstance, by placing one sixpence and a battered halfpenny under the candlestick.

“A double, sir,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Quite aware of the fact, sir,” replied the fat gentleman, sharply.

Another game, with a similar result, was followed by a revoke from the unlucky Miller; on which the fat gentleman burst into a state of high personal excitement which lasted until the conclusion of the game, when he retired into a corner, and remained perfectly mute for one hour and twenty-seven minutes; at the end of which time he emerged from his retirement, and offered Mr. Pickwick a pinch of snuff with the air of a man who had made up his mind to a Christian forgiveness of injuries sustained. The old lady’s hearing decidedly improved, and the unlucky Miller felt as much out of his element as a dolphin in a sentry-box.

Meanwhile the round game proceeded right merrily. Isabella Wardle and Mr. Trundle “went partners,” and Emily Wardle and Mr. Snodgrass did the same; and even Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt established a joint-stock company of fish and flattery. Old Mr. Wardle was in the very height of his jollity; and he was so funny in his management of the board, and the old ladies were so sharp after their winnings, that the whole table was in a perpetual roar of merriment and laughter. There was one old lady who always had about half-a-dozen cards to pay for, at which everybody laughed, regularly every round; and when the old lady looked cross at having to pay, they laughed louder than ever; on which the old lady’s face gradually brightened up, till at last she laughed louder than any of them. Then, when the spinster aunt got “matrimony,” the young ladies laughed afresh, and the spinster aunt seemed disposed to be pettish; till, feeling Mr. Tupman squeezing her hand under the table, she brightened up too, and looked rather knowing, as if matrimony in reality were not quite so far off as some people thought for; whereupon everybody laughed again, and especially old Mr. Wardle, who enjoyed a joke as much as the youngest. As to Mr. Snodgrass, he did nothing but whisper poetical sentiments into his partner’s ear, which made one old gentleman facetiously sly, about partnerships at cards and partnerships for life, and caused the aforesaid old gentleman to make some remarks thereupon, accompanied with divers winks and chuckles, which made the company very merry and the old gentleman’s wife especially so. And Mr. Winkle came out with jokes which are very well known in town, but are not at all known in the country: and as everybody laughed at them very heartily, and said they were very capital, Mr. Winkle was in a state of great honour and glory. And the benevolent clergyman looked pleasantly on; for the happy faces which surrounded the table made the good old man feel happy too; and though the merriment was rather boisterous, still it came from the heart and not from the lips: and this is the right sort of merriment after all.

The evening glided swiftly away, in these cheerful recreations; and when the substantial though homely supper had been despatched, and the little party formed a social circle round the fire, Mr. Pickwick thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment.

“Now this,” said the hospitable host, who was sitting in great state next the old lady’s arm-chair, with her hand fast clasped in his – “This is just what I like – the happiest moments of my life have been passed at this old fire-side: and I am so attached to it, that I keep up a blazing fire here every evening, until it actually grows too hot to bear it. Why, my poor old mother, here, used to sit before this fire-place upon that little stool when she was a girl; didn’t you, mother?”

The tear which starts unbidden to the eye when the recollection of old times and the happiness of many years ago is suddenly recalled, stole down the old lady’s face as she shook her head with a melancholy smile.

“You must excuse my talking about this old place, Mr. Pickwick,” resumed the host, after a short pause, “for I love it dearly, and know no other – the old houses and fields seem like living friends to me; and so does our little church with the ivy – about which, by the by, our excellent friend there made a song when he first came amongst us. Mr. Snodgrass, have you anything in your glass?”

“Plenty, thank you,” replied that gentleman, whose poetic curiosity had been greatly excited by the last observations of his entertainer. “I beg your pardon, but you were talking about the song of the Ivy.”

“You must ask our friend opposite about that,” said the host, knowingly: indicating the clergyman by a nod of his head.

“May I say that I should like to hear you repeat it, sir?” said Mr. Snodgrass.

“Why really,” replied the clergyman, “it’s a very slight affair; and the only excuse I have for having ever perpetrated it is, that I was a young man at the time. Such as it is, however, you shall hear it if you wish.”

A murmur of curiosity was of course the reply; and the old gentleman proceeded to recite, with the aid of sundry promptings from his wife, the lines in question. “I call them,” said he,

THE IVY GREENOh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,That creepeth o’er ruins old!Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,In his cell so lone and cold.The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,To pleasure his dainty whim:And the mouldering dust that years have madeIs a merry meal for him.Creeping where no life is seen,A rare old plant is the Ivy green.Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,And a staunch old heart has he.How closely he twineth, how tight he clingsTo his friend the huge Oak Tree!And slyly he traileth along the ground,And his leaves he gently waves,And he joyously hugs and crawleth roundThe rich mould of dead men’s graves.Creeping where grim death has been,A rare old plant is the Ivy green.Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,And nations have scattered been;But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,From its hale and hearty green.The brave old plant in its lonely days,Shall fatten upon the past:For the stateliest building man can raise,Is the Ivy’s food at last.Creeping on, where time has been,A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

While the old gentleman repeated these lines a second time, to enable Mr. Snodgrass to note them down, Mr. Pickwick perused the lineaments of his face with an expression of great interest. The old gentleman having concluded his dictation, and Mr. Snodgrass having returned his note-book to his pocket, Mr. Pickwick said —

“Excuse me, sir, for making the remark on so short an acquaintance; but a gentleman like yourself cannot fail, I should think, to have observed many scenes and incidents worth recording, in the course of your experience as a minister of the Gospel.”

“I have witnessed some, certainly,” replied the old gentleman; “but the incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my sphere of action being so very limited.”

“You did make some notes, I think, about John Edmunds, did you not?” inquired Mr. Wardle, who appeared very desirous to draw his friend out, for the edification of his new visitors.

The old gentleman slightly nodded his head in token of assent, and was proceeding to change the subject, when Mr. Pickwick said —

“I beg your pardon, sir; but pray, if I may venture to inquire, who was John Edmunds?”

“The very thing I was about to ask,” said Mr. Snodgrass, eagerly.

“You are fairly in for it,” said the jolly host. “You must satisfy the curiosity of these gentlemen, sooner or later; so you had better take advantage of this favourable opportunity, and do so at once.”

The old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair forward; – the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together, especially Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather hard of hearing; and the old lady’s ear trumpet having been duly adjusted, and Mr. Miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital of the verses) roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch, administered beneath the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man, the old gentleman, without farther preface, commenced the following tale, to which we have taken the liberty of prefixing the title of

THE CONVICT’S RETURN

“When I first settled in this village,” said the old gentleman, “which is now just five-and-twenty years ago, the most notorious person among my parishioners was a man of the name of Edmunds, who leased a small farm near this spot. He was a morose, savage-hearted, bad man; idle and dissolute in his habits; cruel and ferocious in his disposition. Beyond the few lazy and reckless vagabonds with whom he sauntered away his time in the fields, or sotted in the ale-house, he had not a single friend or acquaintance; no one cared to speak to the man whom many feared, and every one detested – and Edmunds was shunned by all.

“This man had a wife and one son, who, when I first came here, was about twelve years old. Of the acuteness of that woman’s sufferings, of the gentle and enduring manner in which she bore them, of the agony of solicitude with which she reared that boy, no one can form an adequate conception. Heaven forgive me the supposition, if it be an uncharitable one, but I do firmly and in my soul believe, that the man systematically tried for many years to break her heart; but she bore it all for her child’s sake, and, however strange it may seem to many, for his father’s too; for brute as he was, and cruelly as he had treated her, she had loved him once; and the recollection of what he had been to her, awakened feelings of forbearance and meekness under suffering in her bosom, to which all God’s creatures, but women, are strangers.

“They were poor – they could not be otherwise when the man pursued such courses; but the woman’s unceasing and unwearied exertions, early and late, morning, noon, and night, kept them above actual want. Those exertions were but ill repaid. People who passed the spot in the evening – sometimes at a late hour of the night – reported that they had heard the moans and sobs of a woman in distress, and the sound of blows: and more than once, when it was past midnight, the boy knocked softly at the door of a neighbour’s house, whither he had been sent, to escape the drunken fury of his unnatural father.

“During the whole of this time, and when the poor creature often bore about her marks of ill-usage and violence which she could not wholly conceal, she was a constant attendant at our little church. Regularly every Sunday, morning and afternoon, she occupied the same seat with the boy at her side; and though they were both poorly dressed – much more so than many of their neighbours who were in a lower station – they were always neat and clean. Every one had a friendly nod and a kind word for ‘poor Mrs. Edmunds’; and sometimes, when she stopped to exchange a few words with a neighbour at the conclusion of the service in the little row of elm trees which leads to the church porch, or lingered behind to gaze with a mother’s pride and fondness upon her healthy boy, as he sported before her with some little companions, her care-worn face would lighten up with an expression of heartfelt gratitude; and she would look, if not cheerful and happy, at least tranquil and contented.

“Five or six years passed away; the boy had become a robust and well-grown youth. The time that had strengthened the child’s slight frame and knit his weak limbs into the strength of manhood had bowed his mother’s form, and enfeebled her steps; but the arm that should have supported her was no longer locked in hers; the face that should have cheered her, no more looked upon her own. She occupied her old seat, but there was a vacant one beside her. The Bible was kept as carefully as ever, the places were found and folded down as they used to be: but there was no one to read it with her; and the tears fell thick and fast upon the book, and blotted the words from her eyes. Neighbours were as kind as they were wont to be of old, but she shunned their greetings with averted head. There was no lingering among the old elm trees now – no cheering anticipations of happiness yet in store. The desolate woman drew her bonnet closer over her face, and walked hurriedly away.

“Shall I tell you, that the young man, who, looking back to the earliest of his childhood’s days to which memory and consciousness extended, and carrying his recollection down to that moment, could remember nothing which was not in some way connected with a long series of voluntary privations suffered by his mother for his sake, with ill-usage, and insult, and violence, and all endured for him; – shall I tell you, that he, with a reckless disregard for her breaking heart, and a sullen wilful forgetfulness of all she had done and borne for him, had linked himself with depraved and abandoned men, and was madly pursuing a headlong career, which must bring death to him, and shame to her? Alas for human nature! You have anticipated it long since.

“The measure of the unhappy woman’s misery and misfortune was about to be completed. Numerous offences had been committed in the neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained undiscovered, and their boldness increased. A robbery of a daring and aggravated nature occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a strictness of search, they had not calculated on. Young Edmunds was suspected, with three companions. He was apprehended – committed – tried – condemned – to die.

“The wild and piercing shriek from a woman’s voice, which resounded through the court when the solemn sentence was pronounced, rings in my ears at this moment. That cry struck a terror to the culprit’s heart, which trial, condemnation – the approach of death itself, had failed to awaken. The lips which had been compressed in dogged sullenness throughout, quivered and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale as the cold perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs of the felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock.

“In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and fervently besought the Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles, to release her from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life of her only child. A burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as I hope I may never have to witness again, succeeded. I knew that her heart was breaking from that hour; but I never once heard complaint or murmur escape her lips.

“It was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison yard from day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain. He remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years, softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour.

“But the spirit of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. She fell sick. She dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her son once more, but her strength failed her, and she sunk powerless on the ground.

“And now the boasted coldness and indifference of the young man were tested indeed; and the retribution that fell heavily upon him, nearly drove him mad. A day passed away and his mother was not there; another flew by, and she came not near him; a third evening arrived, and yet he had not seen her; and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated from her – perhaps for ever. Oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the narrow yard – as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for his hurrying – and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent he had ever known, lay ill – it might be, dying – within one mile of the ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would place him by her side. He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron rail with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he beat his hands together and wept like a child.

“I bore the mother’s forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison; and I carried his solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent supplication for pardon, to her sick bed. I heard, with pity and compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months before he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no longer of this world.

“He was removed by night. A few weeks afterwards the poor woman’s soul took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place of eternal happiness and rest. I performed the burial service over her remains. She lies in our little churchyard. There is no stone at her grave’s head. Her sorrows were known to man; her virtues to God.

“It had been arranged previously to the convict’s departure, that he should write to his mother as soon as he could obtain permission, and that the letter should be addressed to me. The father had positively refused to see his son from the moment of his apprehension; and it was a matter of indifference to him whether he lived or died. Many years passed over without any intelligence of him; and when more than half his term of transportation had expired, and I had received no letter, I concluded him to be dead, as, indeed, I almost hoped he might be.

“Edmunds, however, had been sent a considerable distance up the country on his arrival at the settlement; and to this circumstance, perhaps, may be attributed the fact, that though several letters were despatched, none of them ever reached my hands. He remained in the same place during the whole fourteen years. At the expiration of the term, steadily adhering to his old resolution and the pledge he gave his mother, he made his way back to England amidst innumerable difficulties, and returned, on foot, to his native place.

“On a fine Sunday evening, in the month of August, John Edmunds set foot in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years before. His nearest way lay through the churchyard. The man’s heart swelled as he crossed the stile. The tall old elms, through whose branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light upon the shady path, awakened the associations of his earliest days. He pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother’s hand, and walking peacefully to church. He remembered how he used to look up into her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she gazed upon his features – tears which fell hot upon his forehead as she stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too, although he little knew then what bitter tears hers were. He thought how often he had run merrily down that path with some childish playfellow, looking back, ever and again, to catch his mother’s smile, or hear her gentle voice; and then a veil seemed lifted from his memory, and words of kindness unrequited, and warnings despised, and promises broken, thronged upon his recollection till his heart failed him, and he could bear it no longer.