Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi)

by Charles Dickens

  'First of all, wait till he does,' said Venus.

  Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the mound turned black. After a few seconds, he turned the light on once more, and was seen standing at the foot of the second mound, slowly raising the lantern little by little until he held it up at arm's length, as if he were examining the condition of the whole surface.

  'That can't be the spot too?' said Venus.

  'No,' said Wegg, 'he's getting cold.'

  'It strikes me,' whispered Venus, 'that he wants to find out whether any one has been groping about there.'

  'Hush!' returned Wegg, 'he's getting colder and colder.--Now he's freezing!'

  This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off again, and on again, and being visible at the foot of the third mound.

  'Why, he's going up it!' said Venus.

  'Shovel and all!' said Wegg.

  At a nimbler trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimulated him by reviving old associations, Mr Boffin ascended the 'serpentining walk', up the Mound which he had described to Silas Wegg on the occasion of their beginning to decline and fall. On striking into it he turned his lantern off. The two followed him, stooping low, so that their figures might make no mark in relief against the sky when he should turn his lantern on again. Mr Venus took the lead, towing Mr Wegg, in order that his refractory leg might be promptly extricated from any pitfalls it should dig for itself. They could just make out that the Golden Dustman stopped to breathe. Of course they stopped too, instantly.

  'This is his own Mound,' whispered Wegg, as he recovered his wind, 'this one.

  'Why all three are his own,' returned Venus.

  'So he thinks; but he's used to call this his own, because it's the one first left to him; the one that was his legacy when it was all he took under the will.'

  'When he shows his light,' said Venus, keeping watch upon his dusky figure all the time, 'drop lower and keep closer.'

  He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of the Mound, he turned on his light--but only partially--and stood it on the ground. A bare lopsided weatherbeaten pole was planted in the ashes there, and had been there many a year. Hard by this pole, his lantern stood: lighting a few feet of the lower part of it and a little of the ashy surface around, and then casting off a purposeless little clear trail of light into the air.

  'He can never be going to dig up the pole!' whispered Venus as they dropped low and kept close.

  'Perhaps it's holler and full of something,' whispered Wegg.

  He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up his cuffs and spat on his hands, and then went at it like an old digger as he was. He had no design upon the pole, except that he measured a shovel's length from it before beginning, nor was it his purpose to dig deep. Some dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed. Then, he stopped, looked down into the cavity, bent over it, and took out what appeared to be an ordinary case-bottle: one of those squat, high-shouldered, short-necked glass bottles which the Dutchman is said to keep his Courage in. As soon as he had done this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that he was filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved by a skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to make off in good time. Accordingly, Mr Venus slipped past Mr Wegg and towed him down. But Mr Wegg's descent was not accomplished without some personal inconvenience, for his self-willed leg sticking into the ashes about half way down, and time pressing, Mr Venus took the liberty of hauling him from his tether by the collar: which occasioned him to make the rest of the journey on his back, with his head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and his wooden leg coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr Wegg by this mode of travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with his intellectual developments uppermost, he was quite unconscious of his bearings, and had not the least idea where his place of residence was to be found, until Mr Venus shoved him into it. Even then he staggered round and round, weakly staring about him, until Mr Venus with a hard brush brushed his senses into him and the dust out of him.

  Mr Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had been well accomplished, and Mr Venus had had time to take his breath, before he reappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere about him could not be doubted; where, was not so clear. He wore a large rough coat, buttoned over, and it might be in any one of half a dozen pockets.

  'What's the matter, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin. 'You are as pale as a candle.'

  Mr Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if he had had a turn.

  'Bile,' said Mr Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, shutting it up, and stowing it away in the breast of his coat as before. 'Are you subject to bile, Wegg?'

  Mr Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he didn't think he had ever had a similar sensation in his head, to anything like the same extent.

  'Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, 'to be in order for next night. By-the-by, this neighbourhood is going to have a loss, Wegg.'

  'A loss, sir?'

  'Going to lose the Mounds.'

  The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at one another, that they might as well have stared at one another with all their might.

  'Have you parted with them, Mr Boffin?' asked Silas.

  'Yes; they're going. Mine's as good as gone already.'

  'You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, sir.'

  'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that new touch of craftiness added to it. 'It has fetched a penny. It'll begin to be carted off to-morrow.'

  'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked Silas, jocosely.

  'No,' said Mr Boffin. 'What the devil put that in your head?'

  He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering closer and closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on exploring expeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two or three paces.

  'No offence, sir,' said Wegg, humbly. 'No offence.'

  Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone; and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might have retorted.

  'Good-night,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wandering about Wegg.--'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light.'

  Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill-conditioned blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of insatiable appetite, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and drew Venus along with him.

  'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that bottle about him. We must have that bottle.'

  'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him.

  'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at any price! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you coward?'

  'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus, sturdily, clasping him in his arms.

  'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he was resolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that he was going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will be rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go after him.'

  As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with him; well knowing that, once down, he would not be up again easily with his wooden leg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffin shut the gate.

  Chapter 7

  THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION

  The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing one another, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock of
hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; and Wegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the back of his devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of having been highly--but disagreeably--astonished. Each was silent for some time, leaving it to the other to begin.

  'Brother,' said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 'you were right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself.'

  Mr Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather thinking Mr Wegg had remembered himself, in respect of appearing without any disguise.

  'But comrade,' pursued Wegg, 'it was never your lot to know Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor Uncle Parker.'

  Mr Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished persons, and added, in effect, that he had never so much as desired the honour of their acquaintance.

  'Don't say that, comrade!' retorted Wegg: 'No, don't say that! Because, without having known them, you never can fully know what it is to be stimilated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper.'

  Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit on himself, Mr Wegg impelled himself with his hands towards a chair in a corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward gambols, attained a perpendicular position. Mr Venus also rose.

  'Comrade,' said Wegg, 'take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking countenance is yours!'

  Mr Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked at his hand, as if to see whether any of its speaking properties came off.

  'For clearly do I know, mark you,' pursued Wegg, pointing his words with his forefinger, 'clearly do I know what question your expressive features puts to me.'

  'What question?' said Venus.

  'The question,' returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 'why I didn't mention sooner, that I had found something. Says your speaking countenance to me: "Why didn't you communicate that, when I first come in this evening? Why did you keep it back till you thought Mr Boffin had come to look for the article?" Your speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'puts it plainer than language. Now, you can't read in my face what answer I give?'

  'No, I can't,' said Venus.

  'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful candour. 'Because I lay no claims to a speaking countenance. Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. All men are not gifted alike. But I can answer in words. And in what words? These. I wanted to give you a delightful sap--pur--IZE!'

  Having thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr Wegg shook his friend and brother by both hands, and then clapped him on both knees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him not to mention so small a service as that which it had been his happy privilege to render.

  'Your speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'being answered to its satisfaction, only asks then, "What have you found?" Why, I hear it say the words!'

  'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you hear it say the words, why don't you answer it?'

  'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm a-going to. Hear me out! Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I have found a cash-box.'

  'Where?'

  '--Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a radiant gush of Hear me out.) 'On a certain day, sir--'

  'When?' said Venus bluntly.

  'N--no,' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly, thoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's not your expressive countenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely your voice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard--taking my lonely round--for in the words of a friend of my own family, the author of All's Well arranged as a duett:

  "Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning moon, When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim night's cheerless noon, On tower, fort, or tented ground, The sentry walks his lonely round, The sentry walks:"

  --under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile the monotony of a literary life, when I struck it against an object not necessary to trouble you by naming--'

  'It is necessary. What object?' demanded Venus, in a wrathful tone.

  '--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump.--When I struck it against the Pump, and found, not only that the top was loose and opened with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That something, comrade, I discovered to be a small flat oblong cash-box. Shall I say it was disappointingly light?'

  'There were papers in it,' said Venus.

  'There your expressive countenance speaks indeed!' cried Wegg. 'A paper. The box was locked, tied up, and sealed, and on the outside was a parchment label, with the writing, "MY WILL, JOHN HARMON, TEMPORARILY DEPOSITED HERE."'

  'We must know its contents,' said Venus.

  '--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so, and I broke the box open.

  'Without coming to me!' exclaimed Venus.

  'Exactly so, sir!' returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 'I see I take you with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved, as your discriminating good sense perceives, that if you was to have a sap--pur--IZE, it should be a complete one! Well, sir. And so, as you have honoured me by anticipating, I examined the document. Regularly executed, regularly witnessed, very short. Inasmuch as he has never made friends, and has ever had a rebellious family, he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffin the Little Mound, which is quite enough for him, and gives the whole rest and residue of his property to the Crown.'

  'The date of the will that has been proved, must be looked to,' remarked Venus. 'It may be later than this one.'

  '--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so. I paid a shilling (never mind your sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, that will is dated months before this will. And now, as a fellow-man, and as a partner in a friendly move,' added Wegg, benignantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping him on both knees again, 'say have I completed my labour of love to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sap--pur--IZED?'

  Mr Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubting eyes, and then rejoined stiffly:

  'This is great news indeed, Mr Wegg. There's no denying it. But I could have wished you had told it me before you got your fright to-night, and I could have wished you had ever asked me as your partner what we were to do, before you thought you were dividing a responsibility.'

  '--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I knew you was a-going to say so. But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll bear the blame!' This with an air of great magnanimity.

  'No,' said Venus. 'Let's see this will and this box.'

  'Do I understand, brother,' returned Wegg with considerable reluctance, 'that it is your wish to see this will and this--?'

  Mr Venus smote the table with his hand.

  '--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'Hear me out! I'll go and fetch 'em.'

  After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could hardly make up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, he returned with an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put the other box, for the better preservation of commonplace appearances, and for the disarming of suspicion. 'But I don't half like opening it here,' said Silas in a low voice, looking around: 'he might come back, he may not be gone; we don't know what he may be up to, after what we've seen.'

  'There's something in that,' assented Venus. 'Come to my place.'

  Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it under the existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. 'Come, I tell you,' repeated Venus, chafing, 'to my place.' Not very well seeing his way to a refusal, Mr Wegg then rejoined in a gush, '--Hear me out!--
Certainly.' So he locked up the Bower and they set forth: Mr Venus taking his arm, and keeping it with remarkable tenacity.

  They found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr Venus's establishment, imperfectly disclosing to the public the usual pair of preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of honour still unsettled. Mr Venus had closed his shop door on coming out, and now opened it with the key and shut it again as soon as they were within; but not before he had put up and barred the shutters of the shop window. 'No one can get in without being let in,' said he then, 'and we couldn't be more snug than here.' So he raked together the yet warm cinders in the rusty grate, and made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little counter. As the fire cast its flickering gleams here and there upon the dark greasy walls; the Hindoo baby, the African baby, the articulated English baby, the assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collection, came starting to their various stations as if they had all been out, like their master and were punctual in a general rendezvous to assist at the secret. The French gentleman had grown considerably since Mr Wegg last saw him, being now accommodated with a pair of legs and a head, though his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever the head had originally belonged, Silas Wegg would have regarded it as a personal favour if he had not cut quite so many teeth.

  Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, and Venus dropping into his low chair produced from among his skeleton hands, his tea-tray and tea-cups, and put the kettle on. Silas inwardly approved of these preparations, trusting they might end in Mr Venus's diluting his intellect.

  'Now, sir,' said Venus, 'all is safe and quiet. Let us see this discovery.'

  With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances towards the skeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple of them might spring forth and clutch the document, Wegg opened the hat-box and revealed the cash-box, opened the cash-box and revealed the will. He held a corner of it tight, while Venus, taking hold of another corner, searchingly and attentively read it.

  'Was I correct in my account of it, partner?' said Mr Wegg at length.