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Book the Second: The Golden Thread
Chapter XIV.
The Honest Tradesman
To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher,
sitting on his stool in Fleet-street with
his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number
and variety of objects in movement were
every day presented.
Who could sit upon anything in Fleet-street
during the busy hours of the day, and not
be dazed and deafened by two immense
processions, one ever tending westward with
the sun, the other ever tending eastward
from the sun, both ever tending to the
plains beyond the range of red and purple
where the 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 duty watching one stream-
-saving that Jerry had no expectation of
their ever running 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
timid women (mostly of a full habit and
past the middle term of life) from
Tellson's side of the tides to the opposite
shore.
Brief as such companionship was in every
separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never
failed to become so interested in the lady
as to express a strong desire to have the
honour of drinking her very good health.
And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him
towards the execution of this benevolent
purpose, that he recruited his finances, as
just now observed.
Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a
public place, and mused in the 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 were few, and belated
women few, and when his affairs in general
were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong
suspicion in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher
must have been "flopping" in some pointed
manner, when an unusual concourse pouring
down Fleet-street westward, attracted his
attention.
Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out
that some kind of funeral was coming along,
and that there was popular objection to
this funeral, which engendered uproar.
"Young Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, turning
to his offspring, "it's a buryin'."
"Hooroar, father!" cried Young Jerry.
The young gentleman uttered this exultant
sound with mysterious significance.
The elder gentleman took the cry so ill,
that he watched his opportunity, and smote
the young gentleman on the ear.
"What d'ye mean?
What are you hooroaring at?
What do you want to conwey to 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't let me hear no more of you, or you
shall feel some more of me.
D'ye hear?"
"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_ no harms.
Get a top of that there seat, and look at
the crowd."
His son obeyed, and the crowd approached;
they were bawling and hissing round a dingy
hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which
mourning coach there was only one mourner,
dressed in the dingy trappings that were
considered essential to the dignity of the
position.
The position appeared by no means to please
him, however, with an increasing rabble
surrounding the coach, deriding him, making
grimaces at him, and incessantly 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; he always
pricked up his senses, and became excited,
when a funeral passed Tellson's.
Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this
uncommon attendance excited 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 mouth
nevertheless, and vociferating in a
surprising heat and with the greatest
ardour, "Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi--ies!"
At length, a person better informed on the
merits of the case, tumbled against him,
and from this person he learned that the
funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly.
"Was He a spy?" asked Mr. Cruncher.
"Old Bailey spy," returned his informant.
"Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old Bailey Spi--i--ies!"
"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed Jerry,
recalling the Trial at which he had
assisted.
"I've seen him.
Dead, is he?"
"Dead as mutton," returned the other, "and
can't be too dead.
Have 'em out, 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
the suggestion to have 'em out, and to pull
'em out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely
that they came to a stop.
On the crowd's opening the coach doors, the
one mourner scuffled out of himself and was
in their hands for 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, after shedding his cloak,
hat, long hatband, white pocket-
handkerchief, and other symbolical tears.
These, the people tore to pieces and
scattered far and wide with great
enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly
shut up their shops; for a crowd 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 coffin out, when
some brighter genius proposed instead, its
being escorted to its destination amidst
general rejoicing.
Practical suggestions being much needed,
this suggestion, too, was received with
acclamation, and the 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 any exercise of
ingenuity stick upon it.
Among the first of these volunteers was
Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly
concealed his spiky head from the
observation of Tellson's, in the further
corner of the mourning coach.
The officiating undertakers made some
protest against these changes in the
ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly
near, and several voices remarking on the
efficacy of cold immersion in bringing
refractory members of the profession to
reason, the protest was faint and brief.
The remodelled procession started, with a
chimney-sweep driving the hearse--advised
by the regular driver, who was perched
beside him, under close inspection, for the
purpose--and with a pieman, also attended
by his cabinet minister, driving the
mourning coach.
A bear-leader, a popular street character
of the time, was impressed as an additional
ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far
down the Strand; and his bear, who was
black and very mangy, gave quite an
Undertaking air to that part of the
procession in which he walked.
Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking,
song-roaring, and infinite caricaturing of
woe, the disorderly procession went its
way, recruiting at every step, and all the
shops shutting up before it.
Its destination was the old church of Saint
Pancras, far off in the fields.
It got there in course of time; insisted on
pouring into the burial-ground; finally,
accomplished the interment of the deceased
Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its
own satisfaction.
The dead man disposed of, and the crowd
being under the necessity of providing some
other entertainment for itself, another
brighter genius (or perhaps the same)
conceived the humour of impeaching casual
passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and
wreaking vengeance on them.
Chase was given to some scores of
inoffensive persons who had never been near
the Old Bailey in their lives, in the
realisation of this fancy, and they were
roughly hustled and maltreated.
The transition to the sport of window-
breaking, and thence to the plundering of
public-houses, was easy and natural.
At last, after several hours, when sundry
summer-houses had been pulled down, and
some area-railings had been torn up, to arm
the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got
about that the Guards were coming.
Before this rumour, the crowd gradually
melted away, and perhaps the Guards came,
and perhaps they never came, and this was
the usual progress of a mob.
Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing
sports, but had remained behind in the
churchyard, to confer and condole with the
undertakers.
The place had a soothing influence on him.
He procured a pipe from a neighbouring
public-house, and smoked it, looking in at
the railings and maturely 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 he was a young 'un and a
straight made 'un."
Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a
little longer, he turned himself about,
that he might appear, before the hour of
closing, on his station at Tellson's.
Whether his meditations on mortality had
touched his liver, or whether his general
health had been previously at all amiss, or
whether he desired to show a little
attention to an eminent man, is not so much
to the purpose, as that he made a short
call upon his medical adviser--a
distinguished surgeon--on his way back.
Young Jerry relieved his father with
dutiful interest, and reported No job in
his absence.
The bank closed, the ancient clerks came
out, the usual 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, on entering.
"If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes
wrong to-night, I shall make sure that
you've been praying again me, and I shall
work you for 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 of angry 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 general ironical dissatisfaction.
"You and your yes, Jerry," said Mr.
Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread-
and-butter, and seeming to help it down
with a large invisible oyster out of his
saucer.
"Ah! I think so.
I believe you."
"You are going out to-night?" asked his
decent wife, when he took another 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's where 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 that gentleman, shaking
his head; "that's questions enough for you;
I ain't a going out, till you've been long
abed."
He devoted himself during the remainder of
the evening to keeping a most vigilant
watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly
holding her in conversation that she might
be prevented from meditating any petitions
to his disadvantage.
With this view, he urged his son to hold
her in conversation also, and led the
unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling
on any causes of complaint he could bring
against her, rather than he would leave her
for a moment to her own reflections.
The devoutest person could have rendered no
greater homage to the efficacy of an honest
prayer than he did in this distrust of his
wife.
It was as if a professed unbeliever in
ghosts should be frightened by a ghost
story.
"And mind you!" said Mr. Cruncher.
"No games to-morrow!
If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in
providing a jinte of meat or two, none of
your not touching of it, and sticking to
bread.
If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to
provide a little beer, none of your
declaring on water.
When you go to Rome, do as Rome does.
Rome will be a ugly customer 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't know how scarce you mayn't make the
wittles and drink here, by your flopping
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 to perform her first
duty, and, whatever else she did or
neglected, above all things to lay especial
stress on the discharge of that maternal
function so affectingly and delicately
indicated by his other parent.
Thus the evening wore away with the
Cruncher family, until Young Jerry was
ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under
similar injunctions, obeyed them.
Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches
of the night with solitary pipes, and did
not start upon his excursion until nearly
one o'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
brought forth a sack, a crowbar of
convenient size, a rope and chain, and
other fishing tackle of that nature.
Disposing these articles about him in
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 to bed, was not
long after his father.
Under cover of the darkness he followed out
of the room, followed down the stairs,
followed down the court, followed out into
the streets.
He was in no uneasiness concerning his
getting into the house again, for it was
full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar
all night.
Impelled by a laudable ambition to study
the art and mystery of his father's honest
calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to
house fronts, walls, and doorways, as his
eyes were close to one another, held his
honoured parent in view.
The honoured parent steering Northward, had
not gone far, when he was joined by another
disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two
trudged on together.
Within half an hour from the first
starting, they were beyond the winking
lamps, and the more than winking watchmen,
and were out upon a lonely road.
Another fisherman was picked up here--and
that so silently, that if Young Jerry had
been superstitious, he might have supposed
the second follower of the gentle craft to
have, all of a sudden, split himself into
two.
The three went on, and Young Jerry went on,
until the three stopped under a bank
overhanging the road.
Upon the top of the bank was a low brick
wall, surmounted by an iron railing.
In the shadow of bank and wall the three
turned out of the road, and up a blind
lane, of which the 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 that Young Jerry saw,
was the form of his honoured parent, pretty
well defined against a watery and clouded
moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate.
He was soon over, and then the second
fisherman got over, and then the third.
They all dropped softly on the ground
within the gate, and lay there a little--
listening perhaps.
Then, they moved away on their hands and
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
looking in, he made out the three fishermen
creeping through some rank grass! and all
the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a
large churchyard that they were in--looking
on like ghosts in white, while the church
tower itself looked on like the ghost of a
monstrous giant.
They did not creep far, before they stopped
and stood upright.
And then they began to fish.
They fished with a spade, at first.
Presently the honoured parent appeared to
be adjusting some instrument like a great
corkscrew.
Whatever tools they worked with, they
worked hard, until the awful striking 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, not only stopped him
in his running away, but lured him back
again.
They were still fishing perseveringly, when
he peeped in at the gate for the second
time; but, now they seemed to have got a
bite.
There was a screwing and complaining sound
down below, and their bent figures were
strained, as if by a weight.
By slow degrees the weight broke away the
earth upon it, and came to the surface.
Young Jerry very well knew what it would
be; but, when he saw it, and saw his
honoured parent about to wrench it open, he
was so frightened, being new to the sight,
that he made 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 desirable to get to the end
of.
He had a strong idea that the coffin he had
seen was running after him; and, pictured
as hopping on behind him, bolt upright,
upon its narrow end, always on the point of
overtaking him and hopping on at his side--
perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to
shun.
It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend
too, for, while it was making the whole
night behind him dreadful, he darted out
into the roadway to avoid dark alleys,
fearful of its coming hopping out of them
like a dropsical boy's Kite without tail
and wings.
It hid in doorways too, rubbing its
horrible shoulders against doors, and
drawing them up to 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 was incessantly hopping on
behind and gaining on him, so that when the
boy got to his own door he had reason for
being half dead.
And even then it would not leave him, but
followed him upstairs with a bump on every
stair, scrambled into bed with him, and
bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast
when he fell asleep.
From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in
his closet was awakened after daybreak and
before sunrise, by the presence of his
father in the family room.
Something had gone wrong with him; at
least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the
circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher
by the ears, and knocking the back of her
head against the head-board of the bed.
"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 me and my
partners suffer.
You was to honour and obey; why the devil
don't you?"
"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 it honouring your husband to dishonour
his business?
Is it obeying your husband 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 a honest
tradesman, and not to occupy your female
mind with calculations when he took to his
trade or when he didn't.
A honouring and obeying wife would let his
trade alone altogether.
Call yourself a religious woman?
If you're a religious woman, give me a
irreligious one!
You have no more nat'ral sense of duty than
the bed of this here Thames river has of a
pile, and similarly it must be knocked into
you."
The altercation was conducted in a low tone
of voice, and terminated in the honest
tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled
boots, and lying down at his length on the
floor.
After taking a timid peep at him lying on
his back, with his rusty hands under his
head for a pillow, his son lay down 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-lid by him as
a projectile for the correction of Mrs.
Cruncher, in case he should observe any
symptoms of her saying Grace.
He was brushed and washed at the usual
hour, and set off with his son to pursue
his ostensible calling.
Young Jerry, walking with the stool under
his arm at his father's side along sunny
and crowded Fleet-street, was a very
different Young Jerry from him of the
previous night, running home through
darkness and solitude from his grim
pursuer.
His cunning was fresh with the day, and his
qualms were gone with the night--in which
particulars it is not improbable 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 keep at arm's length
and to have the stool well between them:
"what's a Resurrection-Man?"
Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement
before he answered, "How should I know?"
"I thought you knowed everything, father,"
said the artless boy.
"Hem! Well," returned Mr. Cruncher, going
on again, and lifting off his hat 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 a branch
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 quite growed 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 dewelop your talents, and
never to say no more than you can help to
nobody, and there's no telling at the
present time what you may not come to be
fit for."
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
to himself: "Jerry, you honest tradesman,
there's hopes wot that boy will yet be a
blessing to you, and a recompense to you
for his mother!"