XIV. The Honest Tradesman
To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool inFleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number andvariety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could situpon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, andnot be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tendingwestward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun,both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple wherethe sun goes down!
With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams,like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on dutywatching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of their everrunning dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind,since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timidwomen (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) fromTellson's side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as suchcompanionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failedto become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire tohave the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was fromthe gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolentpurpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed.
Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused inthe sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place,but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him.
It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds werefew, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were sounprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs.Cruncher must have been ”flopping” in some pointed manner, when anunusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted hisattention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind offuneral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to thisfuneral, which engendered uproar.
”Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, ”it's aburyin'.”
”Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry.
The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterioussignificance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watchedhis opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear.
”What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conweyto your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for_me_!” said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. ”Him and his hooroars! Don'tlet me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D'yehear?”
”I warn't doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek.
”Drop it then,” said Mr. Cruncher; ”I won't have none of _your_ noharms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd.”
His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissinground a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coachthere was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that wereconsidered essential to the dignity of the position. The positionappeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabblesurrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, andincessantly groaning and calling out: ”Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!”with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat.
Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; healways pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passedTellson's. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon attendanceexcited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him:
”What is it, brother? What's it about?”
”_I_ don't know,” said the man. ”Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!”
He asked another man. ”Who is it?”
”_I_ don't know,” returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouthnevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with thegreatest ardour, ”Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi--ies!”
At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbledagainst him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was thefuneral of one Roger Cly.
”Was he a spy?” asked Mr. Cruncher.
”Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. ”Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old BaileySpi--i--ies!”
”Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he hadassisted. ”I've seen him. Dead, is he?”
”Dead as mutton,” returned the other, ”and can't be too dead. Have 'emout, there! Spies! Pull 'em out, there! Spies!”
The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea,that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating thesuggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehiclesso closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening the coachdoors, the one mourner scuffled out by himself and was in their handsfor a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time,that in another moment he was scouring away up a bye-street, aftershedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, andother symbolical tears.
These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with greatenjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for acrowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded.They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffinout, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted toits destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions beingmuch needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, andthe coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out,while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by anyexercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteerswas Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head fromthe observation of Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourningcoach.
The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes inthe ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voicesremarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractorymembers of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief.The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driving thehearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, underclose inspection, for the purpose--and with a pieman, also attendedby his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, apopular street character of the time, was impressed as an additionalornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and hisbear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air tothat part of the procession in which he walked.
Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinitecaricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruitingat every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destinationwas the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got therein course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally,accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, andhighly to its own satisfaction.
The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity ofproviding some other entertainment for itself, another brightergenius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casualpassers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chasewas given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been nearthe Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, andthey were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport ofwindow-breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easyand natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses hadbeen pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to armthe more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards werecoming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhapsthe Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usualprogress of a mob.
Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remainedbehind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers.The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from aneighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railings andmaturely considering the spot.
”Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way,”you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that hewas a young 'un and a straight made 'un.”
Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turnedhimself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on hisstation at Tellson's. Whether his meditations on mortality had touchedhis liver, or whether his general health had been previously at allamiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminentman, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call uponhis medical adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back.
Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported Nojob in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, theusual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea.
”Now, I tell you where it is!” said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, onentering. ”If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, Ishall make sure that you've been praying again me, and I shall work youfor it just the same as if I seen you do it.”
The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head.
”Why, you're at it afore my face!” said Mr. Cruncher, with signs ofangry apprehension.
”I am saying nothing.”
”Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate.You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether.”
”Yes, Jerry.”
”Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. ”Ah! It _is_yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say yes, Jerry.”
Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations,but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express generalironical dissatisfaction.
”You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of hisbread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisibleoyster out of his saucer. ”Ah! I think so. I believe you.”
”You are going out to-night?” asked his decent wife, when he tookanother bite.
”Yes, I am.”
”May I go with you, father?” asked his son, briskly.
”No, you mayn't. I'm a going--as your mother knows--a fishing. That'swhere I'm going to. Going a fishing.”
”Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don't it, father?”
”Never you mind.”
”Shall you bring any fish home, father?”
”If I don't, you'll have short commons, to-morrow,” returned thatgentleman, shaking his head; ”that's questions enough for you; I ain't agoing out, till you've been long abed.”
He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping amost vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her inconversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitionsto his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her inconversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwellingon any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather thanhe would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutestperson could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of anhonest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if aprofessed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story.
”And mind you!” said Mr. Cruncher. ”No games to-morrow! If I, as ahonest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, noneof your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honesttradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaringon water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a uglycustomer to you, if you don't. _I_'m your Rome, you know.”
Then he began grumbling again:
”With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don'tknow how scarce you mayn't make the wittles and drink here, by yourflopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he _is_your'n, ain't he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother,and not know that a mother's first duty is to blow her boy out?”
This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother toperform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, aboveall things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternalfunction so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent.
Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerrywas ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions,obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night withsolitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly oneo'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair,took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and broughtforth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and otherfishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about himin skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher,extinguished the light, and went out.
Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went tobed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness hefollowed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down thecourt, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerninghis getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and thedoor stood ajar all night.
Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of hisfather's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts,walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held hishonoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had notgone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, andthe two trudged on together.
Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond thewinking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon alonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that so silently,that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed thesecond follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, splithimself into two.
The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stoppedunder a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a lowbrick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank andwall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of whichthe wall--there, risen to some eight or ten feet high--formed one side.Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object thatYoung Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty welldefined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate.He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then thethird. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and laythere a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their handsand knees.
It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate: which he did,holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and lookingin, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass!and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyardthat they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the churchtower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did notcreep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began tofish.
They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parentappeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew.Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awfulstriking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off,with his hair as stiff as his father's.
But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, notonly stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. Theywere still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate forthe second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was ascrewing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures werestrained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away theearth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew whatit would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about towrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that hemade off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.
He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath,it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirableto get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seenwas running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, boltupright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking himand hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer toshun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while itwas making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into theroadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of themlike a dropsical boy's kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorwaystoo, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them upto its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road,and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it wasincessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boygot to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even thenit would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on everystair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, onhis breast when he fell asleep.
From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened afterdaybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in thefamily room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerryinferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by theears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of thebed.
”I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, ”and I did.”
”Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored.
”You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said Jerry, ”and meand my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devil don'tyou?”
”I try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman protested, with tears.
”Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business? Is ithonouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying yourhusband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?”
”You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.”
”It's enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, ”to be the wife of ahonest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculationswhen he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeyingwife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religiouswoman? If you're a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You haveno more nat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river hasof a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you.”
The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated inthe honest tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying downat his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying onhis back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son laydown too, and fell asleep again.
There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr.Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron pot-lidby him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in casehe should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushedand washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue hisostensible calling.
Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father's sidealong sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different Young Jerryfrom him of the previous night, running home through darkness andsolitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day,and his qualms were gone with the night--in which particulars it is notimprobable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and the City of London,that fine morning.
”Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keepat arm's length and to have the stool well between them: ”what's aResurrection-Man?”
Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, ”Howshould I know?”
”I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless boy.
”Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off hishat to give his spikes free play, ”he's a tradesman.”
”What's his goods, father?” asked the brisk Young Jerry.
”His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, ”is abranch of Scientific goods.”
”Persons' bodies, ain't it, father?” asked the lively boy.
”I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher.
”Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I'm quitegrowed up!”
Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way.”It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelopyour talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, andthere's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fitfor.” As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance,to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added tohimself: ”Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy willyet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother!”