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

be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to

sleep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is

a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I’ll be wery thankful.

I’d be more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible

for an unfortnet to be it.”

 

He makes so many of these references to the lawstationer in the

course of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr.

Jarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook’s Court, the

rather, as the cart seems to be breaking down.

 

To Cook’s Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his

counter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of

several skins which has just come in from the engrosser’s, an

immense desert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a

resting-place of a few large letters to break the awful monotony

and save the traveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of

these inky wells and greets the stranger with his cough of general

preparation for business.

 

“You don’t remember me, Mr. Snagsby?”

 

The stationer’s heart begins to thump heavily, for his old

apprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to

answer, “No, sir, I can’t say I do. I should have considered—not

to put too fine a point upon it—that I never saw you before, sir.”

 

“Twice before,” says Allan Woodcourt. “Once at a poor bedside, and

once—”

 

“It’s come at last!” thinks the afflicted stationer, as

recollection breaks upon him. “It’s got to a head now and is going

to burst!” But he has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his

visitor into the little counting-house and to shut the door.

 

“Are you a married man, sir?”

 

“No, I am not.”

 

“Would you make the attempt, though single,” says Mr. Snagsby in a

melancholy whisper, “to speak as low as you can? For my little

woman is a-listening somewheres, or I’ll forfeit the business and

five hundred pound!”

 

In deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back

against his desk, protesting, “I never had a secret of my own, sir.

I can’t charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive

my little woman on my own account since she named the day. I

wouldn’t have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I

couldn’t have done it, I dursn’t have done it. Whereas, and

nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery,

till my life is a burden to me.”

 

His visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he

remember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh,

don’t he!

 

“You couldn’t name an individual human being—except myself—that

my little woman is more set and determined against than Jo,” says

Mr. Snagsby.

 

Allan asks why.

 

“Why?” repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the

clump of hair at the back of his bald head. “How should I know

why? But you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared

to ask a married person such a question!”

 

With this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal

resignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to

communicate.

 

“There again!” says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of

his feelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured

in the face. “At it again, in a new direction! A certain person

charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one,

even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the

person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not

to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons.

Why, this is a private asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point

upon it, this is Bedlam, sir!” says Mr. Snagsby.

 

But it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of

the mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has

fallen. And being tender-hearted and affected by the account he

hears of Jo’s condition, he readily engages to “look round” as

early in the evening as he can manage it quietly. He looks round

very quietly when the evening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs.

Snagsby is as quiet a manager as he.

 

Jo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left

alone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so

far out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby,

touched by the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the

table half a crown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of

wounds.

 

“And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?” inquires the stationer

with his cough of sympathy.

 

“I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am,” returns Jo, “and don’t want for

nothink. I’m more cumfbler nor you can’t think. Mr. Sangsby! I’m

wery sorry that I done it, but I didn’t go fur to do it, sir.”

 

The stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what

it is that he is sorry for having done.

 

“Mr. Sangsby,” says Jo, “I went and giv a illness to the lady as

wos and yit as warn’t the t’other lady, and none of ‘em never says

nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser

good and my having been s’unfortnet. The lady come herself and see

me yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah, Jo!’ she ses. ‘We thought we’d lost

you, Jo!’ she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don’t

pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don’t,

and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders,

I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he

come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he’s allus a-doin’

on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin

up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby.”

 

The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table.

Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will

relieve his feelings.

 

“Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby,” proceeds Jo, “wos, as you

wos able to write wery large, p’raps?”

 

“Yes, Jo, please God,” returns the stationer.

 

“Uncommon precious large, p’raps?” says Jo with eagerness.

 

“Yes, my poor boy.”

 

Jo laughs with pleasure. “Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr.

Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go

and couldn’t be moved no furder, whether you might be so good

p’raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it

anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and

that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn’t know

nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos

allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he’d be able to forgive

me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large,

he might.”

 

“It shall say it, Jo. Very large.”

 

Jo laughs again. “Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It’s wery kind of you,

sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore.”

 

The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough,

slips down his fourth half-crown—he has never been so close to a

case requiring so many—and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon

this little earth, shall meet no more. No more.

 

For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey’s end and drags

over stony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken

steps, shattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and

behold it still upon its weary road.

 

Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse

and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often

looking round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an

encouraging elevation of his one eyebrow, “Hold up, my boy! Hold

up!” There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt

almost always, both thinking, much, how strangely fate has

entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives.

There, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway

with his athletic figure and, from his superfluity of life and

strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon Jo, who never

fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words.

 

Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly

arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a

while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face

towards him—just as he sat in the law-writer’s room—and touches

his chest and heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but

labours on a little more.

 

The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has

stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his

hand. Mr. Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional

interest and attention on his face, and glancing significantly at

the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out. When the little

hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it.

 

“Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don’t be frightened.”

 

“I thought,” says Jo, who has started and is looking round, “I

thought I was in Tom-all-Alone’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but

you, Mr. Woodcot?”

 

“Nobody.”

 

“And I ain’t took back to Tom-all-Alone’s. Am I, sir?”

 

“No.” Jo closes his eyes, muttering, “I’m wery thankful.”

 

After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth

very near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, “Jo!

Did you ever know a prayer?”

 

“Never knowd nothink, sir.”

 

“Not so much as one short prayer?”

 

“No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at

Mr. Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t

make out nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen

come down Tom-all-Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the

t’other ‘wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking

to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos

all about.”

 

It takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced

and attentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him.

After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden,

a strong effort to get out of bed.

 

“Stay, Jo! What now?”

 

“It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,” he

returns with a wild look.

 

“Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?”

 

“Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me

indeed, he wos. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin

ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there

and be berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,’ he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now

and have