Bleak House - Charles Dickens (read this if txt) 📗

any one

in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my

paying for him beforehand?”

 

As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little

man standing at the trooper’s elbow and looking up, with an oddly

twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper’s face. After a

few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the

little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper.

 

“Well, sir,” says Mr. George, “I can assure you that I would

willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all

agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a

privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are

naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You

see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for

the boy if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except

for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances

here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a

moment’s notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long

as it lasts, here it is at your service.”

 

With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole

building at his visitor’s disposal.

 

“I take it for granted, sir,” he adds, “you being one of the

medical staff, that there is no present infection about this

unfortunate subject?”

 

Allan is quite sure of it.

 

“Because, sir,” says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, “we

have had enough of that.”

 

His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance.

“Still I am bound to tell you,” observes Allan after repeating his

former assurance, “that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and

that he may be—I do not say that he is—too far gone to recover.”

 

“Do you consider him in present danger, sir?” inquires the trooper.

 

“Yes, I fear so.”

 

“Then, sir,” returns the trooper in a decisive manner, “it appears

to me—being naturally in the vagabond way myself—that the sooner

he comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!”

 

Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of

command; and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo

is brought in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle’s Tockahoopo

Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby’s lambs, being wholly

unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance

and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is

the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all

the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only

in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites

devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him; native

ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his

immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth,

Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the

crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee.

 

He shuffles slowly into Mr. George’s gallery and stands huddled

together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to

know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for

what he is and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks

from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same

place in creation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the

beasts nor of humanity.

 

“Look here, Jo!” says Allan. “This is Mr. George.”

 

Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a

moment, and then down again.

 

“He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging

room here.”

 

Jo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow.

After a little more consideration and some backing and changing of

the foot on which he rests, he mutters that he is “wery thankful.”

 

“You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be

obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here,

whatever you do, Jo.”

 

“Wishermaydie if I don’t, sir,” says Jo, reverting to his favourite

declaration. “I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to

get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at

all, sir, ‘sept not knowin’ nothink and starwation.”

 

“I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to

speak to you.”

 

“My intention merely was, sir,” observes Mr. George, amazingly

broad and upright, “to point out to him where he can lie down and

get a thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here.” As the

trooper speaks, he conducts them to the other end of the gallery

and opens one of the little cabins. “There you are, you see! Here

is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as

Mr., I ask your pardon, sir”—he refers apologetically to the card

Allan has given him—“Mr. Woodcourt pleases. Don’t you be alarmed

if you hear shots; they’ll be aimed at the target, and not you.

Now, there’s another thing I would recommend, sir,” says the

trooper, turning to his visitor. “Phil, come here!”

 

Phil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. “Here is

a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently,

it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor

creature. You do, don’t you, Phil?”

 

“Certainly and surely I do, guv’ner,” is Phil’s reply.

 

“Now I was thinking, sir,” says Mr. George in a martial sort of

confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at

a drum-head, “that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to

lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles—”

 

“Mr. George, my considerate friend,” returns Allan, taking out his

purse, “it is the very favour I would have asked.”

 

Phil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of

improvement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes

the best of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her

friend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the

judgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing

“which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many

years, would be too absurdly unfortunate!” Allan takes the

opportunity of going out to procure some restorative medicines, and

obtaining them near at hand, soon returns to find the trooper

walking up and down the gallery, and to fall into step and walk

with him.

 

“I take it, sir,” says Mr. George, “that you know Miss Summerson

pretty well?”

 

Yes, it appears.

 

“Not related to her, sir?”

 

No, it appears.

 

“Excuse the apparent curiosity,” says Mr. George. “It seemed to me

probable that you might take more than a common interest in this

poor creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate

interest in him. ‘Tis MY case, sir, I assure you.”

 

“And mine, Mr. George.”

 

The trooper looks sideways at Allan’s sunburnt cheek and bright

dark eye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to

approve of him.

 

“Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I

unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Bucket

took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not

acquainted with the name, I can help you to it. It’s Tulkinghorn.

That’s what it is.”

 

Allan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name.

 

“Tulkinghorn. That’s the name, sir. I know the man, and know him

to have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a

deceased person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir.

To my sorrow.”

 

Allan naturally asks what kind of man he is.

 

“What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?”

 

“I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally,

what kind of man?”

 

“Why, then I’ll tell you, sir,” returns the trooper, stopping short

and folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face

fires and flushes all over; “he is a confoundedly bad kind of man.

He is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and

blood than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man—by

George!—that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness,

and more dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put

together. That’s the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!”

 

“I am sorry,” says Allan, “to have touched so sore a place.”

 

“Sore?” The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of

his broad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache.

“It’s no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a

power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to

tumble me out of this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a

constant see-saw. He won’t hold off, and he won’t come on. If I

have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to

go to him about, he don’t see me, don’t hear me—passes me on to

Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn, Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn

passes me back again to him—he keeps me prowling and dangling

about him as if I was made of the same stone as himself. Why, I

spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about

his door. What does he care? Nothing. Just as much as the rusty

old carbine I have compared him to. He chafes and goads me till—

Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt,” the

trooper resumes his march, “all I say is, he is an old man; but I

am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse

and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance, in

one of the humours he drives me into—he’d go down, sir!”

 

Mr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe

his forehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his

impetuosity away with the national anthem, some involuntary

shakings of his head and heavings of his chest still linger behind,

not to mention an occasional hasty adjustment with both hands of

his open shirt-collar, as if it were scarcely open enough to

prevent his being troubled by a choking sensation. In short, Allan

Woodcourt has not much doubt about the going down of Mr.

Tulkinghorn on the field referred to.

 

Jo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his

mattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of

medicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and

instructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He

repairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without

seeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his

discovery.

 

With him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him

that there are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed

and showing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats

in substance what he said in the morning, without any material

variation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws

with a hollower sound.

 

“Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more,” falters Jo,

“and