Chapter 11

Our Dear Brother

touch on the lawyer’s wrinkled hand, as he stands in the

dark room, irresolute, makes him start and say, “What’s

that?”

“It’s me,” returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in

his ear. “Can’t you wake him?”

“No.”

“What have you done with your candle?”

“It’s gone out. Here it is.”

Krook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and

tries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and his

endeavours are vain. Muttering after an ineffectual call to his

lodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from

the shop, the old man departs. Mr Tulkinghorn, for some new

reason that he has, does not await his return in the room, but on

the stairs outside.

The welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes

slowly up, with his green-eyed cat following at his heels. “Does the

man generally sleep like this?” inquires the lawyer, in a low voice.

“Hi! I don’t know,” says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his

eyebrows. “I know next to nothing of his habits, except that he

keeps himself very close.”

Thus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in,

the great eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so the

eyes upon the bed.

“God save us!” exclaims Mr Tulkinghorn. “He is dead!”

Krook drops the heavy hand he has taken up, so suddenly that

the arm swings over the bedside.

They look at one another for a moment.

“Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir.

Here’s poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?” says Krook,

with his lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire’s

wings.

Mr Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing, and calls “Miss Flite!

Flite! Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!” Krook follows

him with his eyes, and, while he is calling, finds opportunity to

steal to the old portmanteau and steal back again.

“Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!” So Mr Krook

addresses a crazy little woman, who is his female lodger: who

appears and vanishes in a breath: who soon returns, accompanied

by a testy medical man, brought from his dinner―with a broad

snuffy upper lip, and a broad Scotch tongue.

“Ey! Bless the hearts o’ ye,” says the medical man, looking up

at them after a moment’s examination. “He’s just as dead as

Phairy!”

Mr Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if

he has been dead any time?

“Any time, sir?” says the medical gentleman. “It’s probable he

wull have been dead aboot three hours.”

“About that time, I should say,” observes a dark young man, on

the other side of the bed.

“Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?” inquires

the first.

The dark young man says yes.

“Then I’ll just tak’ my depairture,” replies the other; “for I’m

nae gude here!” With which remark, he finishes his brief

attendance, and returns to finish his dinner.

The dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across

the face, and carefully examines the Law-writer, who has

established his pretensions to his name by becoming indeed No

one.

“I knew this person by sight, very well,” says he. “He has

purchased opium of me, for the last year and a half. Was anybody

present related to him?” glancing round upon the three

bystanders.

“I was his landlord,” grimly answers Krook, taking the candle

from the surgeon’s outstretched hand. “He told me once, I was the

nearest relation he had.”

“He has died,” says the surgeon, “of an overdose of opium,

there is no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is

enough here now,” taking an old teapot from Mr Krook, “to kill a

dozen people.”

“Do you think he did it on purpose?” asks Krook.

“Took the overdose?”

“Yes!” Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a

horrible interest.

“I can’t say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the

habit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I

suppose?”

“I suppose he was. His room―don’t look rich,” says Krook; who

might have changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance

around. “But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was

too close to name the circumstances to me.”

“Did he owe you any rent?”

“Six weeks.”

“He will never pay it!” says the young man, resuming his

examination. “It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as

Pharaoh; and to judge from his appearance and condition, I

should think it a happy release. Yet he must have been a good

figure when a youth, and I dare say good-looking.” He says this,

not unfeelingly, while sitting on the bedstead’s edge, with his face

towards that other face, and his hand upon the region of the heart.

“I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner,

uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life. Was that so? he

continues, looking round.

Krook replies, “You might as well ask me to describe the ladies

whose heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he

was my lodger for a year and a half, and lived―or didn’t live―by

law-writing, I know no more of him.”

During this dialogue, Mr Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old

portmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all

appearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the

bed―from the young surgeon’s professional interest in death,

noticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased

as an individual; from the old man’s unction; and the little crazy

woman’s awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as

his rusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all

this while. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor

attention nor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As

easily might the tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred

from its case, as the tone of Mr Tulkinghorn from his case.

He now interposes; addressing the young surgeon, in his

unmoved professional way.

“I looked in here,” he observes, “just before you, with the

intention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive,

some employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from

my stationer―Snagsby of Cook’s Court. Since no one here knows

anything about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!”

to the little crazy woman, who has often seen him in Court, and

whom he has often seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-

show, to go for the law stationer. “Suppose you do!”

While she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless

investigation, and covers its subject with the patchwork

counterpane. Mr Krook and he interchange a word or two. Mr

Tulkinghorn says nothing; but stands, ever, near the old-

portmanteau.

Mr Snabsby arrives hastily, in his grey coat and his black

sleeves. “Dear me, dear me,” he says; “and it has come to this, has

it! Bless my soul!”

“Can you give the person of the house any information about

this unfortunate creature, Snagsby?” inquires Mr Tulkinghorn.

“He was in arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried,

you know.”

“Well, sir,” says Mr Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough

behind his hand; “I really don’t know what advice I could offer,

except sending for the beadle.”

“I don’t speak of advice,” returns Mr Tulkinghorn. “I could

advise―”

(“No one better, sir, I am sure,” says Mr Snagsby, with his

deferential cough.)

“I speak of affording some clue to his connections, or to where

he came from, or to anything concerning him.”

“I assure you, sir,” says Mr Snagsby, after prefacing his reply

with his cough of general propitiation, “that I no more know

where he came from, than I know―”

“Where he has gone to, perhaps,” suggests the surgeon, to help

him out.

A pause. Mr Tulkinghorn looking at the law stationer. Mr

Krook, with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next.

“As to his connections, sir,” says Mr Snagsby, “if a person was

to say to me, ‘Snagsby, here’s twenty thousand pound down, ready

for you in the Bank of England, if you’ll only name one of ’em,’ I

couldn’t do it, sir! About a year and a half ago―to the best of my

belief at the time when he first came to lodge at the present Rag

and Bottle Shop―”

“That was the time!” says Krook, with a nod.

“About a year and a half ago,” says Mr Snagsby, strengthened,

“he came into our place one morning after breakfast, and, finding

my little woman (which I name Mrs Snagsby when I use that

appellation) in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting,

and gave her to understand that he was in wants of copying work

to do, and was―not to put too fine a point upon it―” a favourite

apology for plain-speaking with Mr Snagsby, which he always

offers with a sort of argumentative frankness, “hard up! My little

woman is not in general partial to strangers, particular―not to put

too fine a point upon it―when they want anything. But she was

rather took by something about this person; whether by his being

unshaved, or by his hair being in want of attention, or by what

other ladies’ reasons, I leave you to judge; and she accepted of the

specimen, and likewise of the address. My little woman has’t a

good ear for names,” proceeds Mr Snagsby, after consulting his

cough of consideration behind his hand, “and she considered

Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. In consequence of which, she

got into a habit of saying to me at meals, ‘Mr Snagsby, you haven’t

found Nimrod any work yet?’ or ‘Mr Snagsby, why didn’t you give

that eight-and-thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce, to Nimrod?’ or

such like. And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our

place; and that is the most I know of him, except that he was a

quick hand, and a hand not sparing of night-work; and that if you

gave him out, say five-and-forty folio on the Wednesday night, you

would have it brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which―

” Mr Snagsby concludes by politely motioning with his hat

towards the bed, as much as to add, “I have no doubt my

honourable friend would confirm, if he were in a condition to do

it.”

“Hadn’t you better see,” says Mr Tulkinghorn to Krook,

“whether he had any papers that may enlighten you? There will

be an Inquest, and you will be asked the question. You can read?”

“No, I can’t,” returns the old man, with a sudden grin.

“Snagsby,” says Mr Tulkinghorn, “look over the room for him.

He will get into some trouble or difficulty, otherwise. Being here

I’ll wait, if you make haste; and then I can testify on his behalf, if it

should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will

hold the candle for Mr Snagsby, my friend, he’ll soon see whether

there is anything to help you.”

“In the first place, here’s an old portmanteau, sir,” says

Snagsby.

Ah, to be sure, so there is! Mr Tulkinghorn does not appear to

have seen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though

there is very little else, Heaven knows.

The marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-

stationer conducts the search. The surgeon leans against a corner

of the chimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within

the door. The apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black

breeches tied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat,

his long-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief

tied in the bow the Peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the

same place and attitude.

There are some worthless articles of clothing in the old

portmanteau; there is a bundle of pawnbrokers’ duplicates, those

turnpike tickets on the road of Poverty; there is a crumpled paper,

smelling of opium, on which are scrawled rough memoranda―as,

took, such a day, so many grains; took, such another day, so many

more―begun some time ago, as if with the intention of being

regularly continued, but soon left off. There are a few dirty scraps

of newspapers, all referring to Coroners’ Inquests; there is nothing

else. They search the cupboard, and the drawer of the ink-

splashed table. There is not a morsel of an old letter, or of any

other writing, in either. The young surgeon examines the dress on

the law writer. A knife and some odd halfpence are all he finds. Mr

Snagsby’s suggestion is the practical suggestion after all, and the

beadle must be called in.

So the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come

out of the room. “Don’t leave the cat there!” says the surgeon:

“that won’t do!” Mr Krook therefore drives her out before him;

and she goes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and

licking her lips.

“Good night!” says Mr Tulkinghorn; and goes home to Allegory

and meditation.

By this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its

inhabitants assemble to discuss the thing; and the outposts of the

army of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr

Krook’s window, which they closely invest. A policeman has

already walked up to the room, and walked down again to the

door, where he stands like a tower, only condescending to see the

boys at his base occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they

quail and fall back. Mrs Perkins, who has not been for some weeks

on speaking terms with Mrs Piper, in consequence of an

unpleasantness originating in young Perkins having “fetched”

young Piper “a crack,” renews her friendly intercourse on this

auspicious occasion. The potboy at the corner, who is a privileged

amateur, as possessing official knowledge of life, and having to

deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges confidential

communications with the policeman, and has the appearance of an

impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable

in station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and

bare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to

know what’s the matter. The general feeling seems to be that it’s a

blessing Mr Krook warn’t made away with first, mingled with a

little natural disappointment that he was not. In the midst of this

sensation, the beadle arrives.

The beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood

to be a ridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for

the moment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body.

The policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of

the barbarous watchmen-times; but gives him admission, as

something that must be borne with until Government shall abolish

him. The sensation is heightened, as the tidings spread from

mouth to mouth that the beadle is on the ground, and has gone in.

By-and-by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the

sensation, which has rather languished in the interval. He is

understood to be in want of witnesses, for the inquest tomorrow,

who can tell the Coroner and Jury anything whatever respecting

the deceased. Is immediately referred to innumerable people who

can tell nothing whatever. Is made more imbecile by being

constantly informed that Mrs Green’s son “was a law-writer

hisself, and knowed him better than anybody”―which son of Mrs

Green’s appears, on inquiry, to be at the present time aboard a

vessel bound for China, three months out, but considered

accessible by telegraph, on application to the Lords of the

Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours,

examining the inhabitants; always shutting the door first, and by

exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy, exasperating the public.

Policeman seen to smile to potboy. Public loses interest, and

undergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle, in shrill youthful voices,

with having boiled a boy; choruses fragments of a popular song to

that effect, and importing that the boy was made into soup for the

workhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law,

and seize a vocalist; who is released upon the flight of the rest, on

condition of his getting out of this then, come! and cutting it―a

condition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for

the time; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium,

more or less, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible

greatcoat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues his

lounging way with a heavy tread: beating the palms of his white

gloves one against the other, and stopping now and then, at a

street-corner, to look casually about for anything between a lost

child and a murder.

Under cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes

flitting about Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every

Juror’s name is wrongly spelt, and nothing is rightly spelt but the

beadle’s own name, which nobody can read or wants to know. The

summonses served, and his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes

to Mr Krook’s, to keep a small appointment he has made with

certain paupers; who, presently arriving, are conducted upstairs;

where they leave the great eyes in the shutter something new to

stare at, in that last shape which earthly lodgings take for No

one―and for Every one.

And, all that night, the coffin stands ready by the old

portmanteau; and the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life

has lain through five-and-forty years, lies there, with no more

track behind him, that any one can trace, than a deserted infant.

Next day the court is all alive―is like a fair, as Mrs Perkins,

more than reconciled to Mrs Piper, says, in amicable conversation

with that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor

room at the Sol’s Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place

twice a-week, and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of

professional celebrity, faced by little Swills, the comic vocalist,

who hopes (according to the bill in the window) that his friends

will rally round him, and support first-rate talent. The Sol’s Arms

does a brisk stroke of business all the morning. Even children so

require sustaining, under the general excitement, that a pieman

who has established himself for the occasion at the corner of the

court, says his brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the

beadle, hovering between the door of Mr Krook’s establishment

and the door of the Sol’s Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping

to a few discreet spirits, and accepts the compliment of a glass of

ale or so in return.

At the appointed hour arrives the Coroner, for whom the

Jurymen are waiting, and who is received with a salute of skittles

from the good dry skittle-ground attached to the Sol’s Arms. The

Coroner frequents more public-houses than any man alive. The

smell of sawdust, beer, tobacco-smoke, and spirits, is inseparable

in his voca tion from death in its most awful shapes. He is

conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the Harmonic

Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the piano, and takes a

Windsor-chair at the head of a long table, formed of several short

tables put together, and ornamented with glutinous rings in

endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the Jury

as can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among

the spittoons and pipes, or lean against the piano. Over the

Coroner’s head is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a

bell, which rather gives the Majesty of the Court the appearance of

going to be hanged.

Call over and swear the Jury! While the ceremony is in

progress, sensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little

man in a large shirt-collar, with a moist eye, and an inflamed nose,

who modestly takes a position near the door as one of the general

public, but seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates

that this is little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get

up an imitation of the Coroner, and make it the principal feature

of the Harmonic Meeting in the evening.

“Well, gentlemen―” the Coroner begins.

“Silence there, will you!” says the beadle. Not to the Coroner,

though it might appear so.

“Well, gentlemen!” resumes the Coroner. “You are impanelled

here, to inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be

given before you, as to the circumstances attending that death,

and you will give your verdict according to the skittles; they must

be stopped you know, beadle!―evidence, and not according to

anything else. The first thing to be done, is to view the body.”

“Make way there!” cries the beadle.

So they go out in a loose procession, something after the

manner of a straggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr

Krook’s back second floor, from which a few of the Jurymen retire

pale and precipitately. The beadle is very careful that two

gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose

accommodation he has provided a special little table near the

Coroner, in the Harmonic Meeting Room) should see all that is to

be seen. For they are the public chroniclers of such inquiries, by

the line; and he is not superior to the universal human infirmity,

but hopes to read in print what “Mooney, the active and intelligent

beadle of the district,” said and did; and even aspires to see the

name of Mooney as familiarly and patronisingly mentioned as the

name of the Hangman is, according to the latest examples.

Little Swills is waiting for the Coroner and Jury on their return.

Mr Tulkinghorn, also. Mr Tulkinghorn is received with distinction,

and seated near the Coroner; between that high judicial officer, a

bagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The Jury

learn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more

about him. “A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen,”

says the Coroner, “who, I am informed, was accidentally present,

when discovery of the death was made; but he could only repeat

the evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the

landlord, the lodger, and the law-stationer; and it is not necessary

to trouble him. Is anybody in attendance who knows anything

more?”

Mrs Piper pushed forward by Mrs Perkins. Mrs Piper sworn.

Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs Piper―

what have you got to say about this?

Why, Mrs Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses

and without punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs Piper lives in

the court (which her husband is a cabinet-maker) and it has long

been well be-known among the neighbours (counting from the day

next but one before the half baptizing of Alexander James Piper

aged eighteen months and four days old on accounts of not being

expected to live such was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in

his gums) as the Plaintive―so Mrs Piper insists on calling the

deceased―was reported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the

Plaintive’s air in which that report originatinin. See the Plaintive

often, and considered as his air was feariocious, and not to be

allowed to go about some children being timid (and if doubted

hoping Mrs Perkins may be brought forward for she is here and

will do credit to her husband and herself and family). Has seen the

Plaintive wexed and worrited by the children (for children they

will ever be and you cannot expect them specially if of playful

dispositions to be Methoozellers which you was not yourself). On

accounts of this and his dark looks has often dreamed as she see

him take a pickaxe from his pocket and split Johnny’s head (which

the child knows not fear and has repeatually called after him close

at his eels). Never however see the Plaintive take a pickaxe or any

other wepping far from it. Has seen him hurry away when run and

called after as if not partial to children and never see him speak to

neither child nor grown person at any time (excepting the boy that

sweeps the crossing down the lane over the way round the corner

which if he was here would tell you that he has been seen a

speaking to him frequent).

Says the Coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he

is not here. Says the Coroner, go and fetch him then. In the

absence of the active and intelligent, the Coroner converses with

Mr Tulkinghorn. O! Here’s the boy, gentlemen!

Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy!―

But stop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few

preliminary paces.

Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don’t know that

everybody has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don’t know

that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for him.

He don’t find no fault with it. Spell it? No. He can’t spell it. No

father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What’s home?

Knows a broom’s a broom, and knows it’s wicked to tell a lie. Don’t

recollect who told him about the broom, or about the lie, but

knows both. Can’t exactly say what’ll be done to him arter he’s

dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen, here, but believes it’ll be

something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right―and so

he’ll tell the truth.

“This won’t do, gentlemen!” says the Coroner, with a

melancholy shake of the head.

“Don’t you think you can receive his evidence, sir?” asks an

attentive Juryman.

“Out of the question,” says the Coroner. “You have heard the

boy. ‘Can’t exactly say’ won’t do, you know. We can’t take that, in a

Court of Justice, gentlemen. It’s terrible depravity. Put the boy

aside.”

Boy put aside; to the great edification of the audience;―

especially of Little Swills, the Comic Vocalist.

Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness.

Very well, gentlemen! Here’s a man unknown, proved to have

been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and

a half, found dead of too much opium. If you think you have any

evidence to lead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide,

you will come to that conclusion. If you think it is a case of

accidental death, you will find a Verdict accordingly.

Verdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen,

you are discharged. Good afternoon.

While the Coroner buttons his great coat, Mr Tulkinghorn and

he give private audience to the rejected witness in a corner.

That graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom

he recognised just now by his yellow face and black hair) was

sometimes hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold

winter night, when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near

his crossing, the man turned to look at him, and came back, and,

having questioned him and found that he had not a friend in the

world, said, “Neither have I. Not one!” and gave him the price of a

supper and a night’s lodging. That the man had often spoken to

him since; and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and

how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die;

and similar strange questions. That when the man had no money,

he would say in passing, “I am as poor as you today, Jo;” but that

when he had any, he had always (as the boy most heartily believes)

been glad to give him some.

“He wos wery good to me,” says the boy, wiping his eyes with

his wretched sleeve. “Wen I see him a-layin’ so stritched out just

now, I wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery

good to me, he wos!”

As he shuffles downstairs, Mr Snagsby, lying in wait for him,

puts a half-crown in his hand. “If ever you see me coming past

your crossing with my little woman―I mean a lady―” says Mr

Snagsby, with his finger on his nose, “don’t allude to it!”

For some little time the Jurymen hang about the Sol’s Arms

colloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of

pipe smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol’s Arms; two stroll

to Hampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at

night, and top up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several

hands. Being asked what he thinks of the proceedings,

characterises them (his strength lying in a slangular direction) as

“a rummy start.” The landlord of the Sol’s Arms, finding Little

Swills so popular, commends him highly to the Jurymen and

public; observing that, for a song in character, he don’t know his

equal, and that that man’s character-wardrobe would fill a cart.

Thus, gradually the Sol’s Arms melts into the shadowy night,

and then flares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour

arriving, the gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair; is

faced (red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them,

and support first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little

Swills says, Gentlemen, if you’ll permit me, I’ll attempt a short

description of a scene of real life that came off here today. Is much

applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes

in as the Coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes

the Inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte

accompaniment to the refrain―With his (the Coroner’s) tippy tol li

doll, tippy tol lo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee!

The jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends

rally round their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely

figure, now laid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by

the gaunt eyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night.

If this forlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here,

by the mother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes

upraised to her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to

close upon the neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the

vision would have seemed! O, if, in brighter days, the now-

extinguished fire within him ever burned for one woman who held

him in her heart, where is she, while these ashes are above the

ground!

It is anything but a night of rest at Mr Snagsby’s in Cook’s

Court; where Guster murders sleeps by going, as Mr Snagsby

himself allows―not to put too fine a point upon it―out of one fit

into twenty. The occasion of this seizure is, that Guster has a

tender heart, and a susceptible something that possibly might

have been imagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it

what it may, now, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr

Snagsby’s account of the inquiry at which he had assisted, that at

supper-time she projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a

flying Dutch-cheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration: which

she only came out of to go into another, and another, and so on

through a chain of fits, with short intervals between, of which she

has pathetically availed herself by consuming them in entreaties to

Mrs Snagsby not to give her warning “when she quite comes to;”

and also in appeals to the whole establishment to lay her down on

the stones, and go to bed. Hence, Mr Snagsby, at last hearing the

cock at the little dairy in Cursitor Street go into that disinterested

ecstacy of his on the subject of daylight, says, drawing a long

breath, though the most patient of men, “I thought you was dead, I

am sure!”

What question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when

he strains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow

(so men crow on various triumphant public occasions, however)

about what cannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is

enough that daylight comes, morning comes, noon comes.

Then the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning

papers as such, comes with his pauper company to Mr Krook’s,

and bears off the body of our dear brother here departed, to a

hemmed-in churchyard, pestiferous and obscene, whence

malignant diseases are communicated to the bodies of our dear

brothers and sisters who have not departed; while our dear

brothers and sisters who hang about official back-stairs―would to

Heaven they had departed!―are very complacent and agreeable.

Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would reject as a

savage abomination, and a Caffre would shudder at, they bring

our dear brother here departed, to receive Christian burial.

With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking

little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate―with every

villany of life in action close on death, and every poisonous

element of death in action close on life―here, they lower our dear

brother down a foot or two: here, sow him in corruption, to be

raised in corruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside: a

shameful testimony to future ages, how civilisation and barbarism

walked this boastful island together.

Come night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon, or

stay too long, by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into

the windows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein,

do it at least with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas,

burning so sullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air

deposits its witch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you

should call to every passer-by, “Look here!”

With the night, comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-

court, to the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its

hands, and looks in between the bars; stands looking in, for a little

while.

It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and

makes the archway clean. It does so, very busily and trimly; looks

in again, a little while; and so departs.

Jo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who “can’t

exactly say” what will be done to him in greater hands than men’s,

thou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a

distant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this:―

“He wos wery good to me, he wos!”

• 6小时掌握学英语的秘诀！——点击看答案
• 专治男女记不住单词的秘密