CHAPTER XXXVII

IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN

MATRIMONIAL CASES

Mr. Bumble sat in the workhouse parlour, with his eyes moodily

fixed on the cheerless grate, whence, as it was summer time, no

brighter gleam proceeded, than the reflection of certain sickly

rays of the sun, which were sent back from its cold and shining

surface. A paper fly-cage dangled from the ceiling, to which he

occasionally raised his eyes in gloomy thought; and, as the

heedless insects hovered round the gaudy net-work, Mr. Bumble

would heave a deep sigh, while a more gloomy shadow overspread

his countenance. Mr. Bumble was meditating; it might be that the

insects brought to mind, some painful passage in his own past

life.

Nor was Mr. Bumble's gloom the only thing calculated to awaken a

pleasing melancholy in the bosom of a spectator. There were not

wanting other appearances, and those closely connected with his

own person, which announced that a great change had taken place

in the position of his affairs. The laced coat, and the cocked

hat; where were they? He still wore knee-breeches, and dark

cotton stockings on his nether limbs; but they were not THE

breeches. The coat was wide-skirted; and in that respect like

THE coat, but, oh how different! The mighty cocked hat was

replaced by a modest round one. Mr. Bumble was no longer a

beadle.

There are some promotions in life, which, independent of the more

substantial rewards they offer, require peculiar value and

dignity from the coats and waistcoats connected with them. A

field-marshal has his uniform; a bishop his silk apron; a

counsellor his silk gown; a beadle his cocked hat. Strip the

bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace; what are

they? Men. Mere men. Dignity, and even holiness too,

sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some

people imagine.

Mr. Bumle had married Mrs. Corney, and was master of the

workhouse. Another beadle had come into power. On him the

cocked hat, gold-laced coat, and staff, had all three descended.

'And to-morrow two months it was done!' said Mr. Bumble, with a

sigh. 'It seems a age.'

Mr. Bumble might have meant that he had concentrated a whole

existence of happiness into the short space of eight weeks; but

the sigh--there was a vast deal of meaning in the sigh.

'I sold myself,' said Mr. Bumble, pursuing the same train of

relection, 'for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a

milk-pot; with a small quantity of second-hand furniture, and

twenty pound in money. I went very reasonable. Cheap, dirt

cheap!'

'Cheap!' cried a shrill voice in Mr. Bumble's ear: 'you would

have been dear at any price; and dear enough I paid for you, Lord

above knows that!'

Mr. Bumble turned, and encountered the face of his interesting

consort, who, imperfectly comprehending the few words she had

overheard of his complaint, had hazarded the foregoing remark at

a venture.

'Mrs. Bumble, ma'am!' said Mr. Bumble, with a sentimental

sternness.

'Well!' cried the lady.

'Have the goodness to look at me,' said Mr. Bumble, fixing his

eyes upon her. (If she stands such a eye as that,' said Mr.

Bumble to himself, 'she can stand anything. It is a eye I never

knew to fail with paupers. If it fails with her, my power is

gone.')

Whether an exceedingly small expansion of eye be sufficient to

quell paupers, who, being lightly fed, are in no very high

condition; or whether the late Mrs. Corney was particularly proof

against eagle glances; are matters of opinion. The matter of

fact, is, that the matron was in no way overpowered by Mr.

Bumble's scowl, but, on the contrary, treated it with great

disdain, and even raised a laugh threreat, which sounded as

though it were genuine.

On hearing this most unexpected sound, Mr. Bumble looked, first

incredulous, and afterwards amazed. He then relapsed into his

former state; nor did he rouse himself until his attention was

again awakened by the voice of his partner.

'Are you going to sit snoring there, all day?' inquired Mrs.

Bumble.

'I am going to sit here, as long as I think proper, ma'am,'

rejoined Mr. Bumble; 'and although I was NOT snoring, I shall

snore, gape, sneeze, laugh, or cry, as the humour strikes me;

such being my prerogative.'

'Your PREROGATIVE!' sneered Mrs. Bumble, with ineffable contempt.

'I said the word, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble. 'The prerogative of a

man is to command.'

'And what's the prerogative of a woman, in the name of Goodness?'

cried the relict of Mr. Corney deceased.

'To obey, ma'am,' thundered Mr. Bumble. 'Your late unfortunate

husband should have taught it you; and then, perhaps, he might

have been alive now. I wish he was, poor man!'

Mrs. Bumble, seeing at a glance, that the decisive moment had now

arrived, and that a blow struck for the mastership on one side or

other, must necessarily be final and conclusive, no sooner heard

this allusion to the dead and gone, than she dropped into a

chair, and with a loud scream that Mr. Bumble was a hard-hearted

brute, fell into a paroxysm of tears.

But, tears were not the things to find their way to Mr. Bumble's

soul; his heart was waterproof. Like washable beaver hats that

improve with rain, his nerves were rendered stouter and more

vigorous, by showers of tears, which, being tokens of weakness,

and so far tacit admissions of his own power, please and exalted

him. He eyed his good lady with looks of great satisfaction, and

begged, in an encouraging manner, that she should cry her

hardest: the exercise being looked upon, by the faculty, as

stronly conducive to health.

'It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes,

and softens down the temper,' said Mr. Bumble. 'So cry away.'

As he discharged himself of this pleasantry, Mr. Bumble took his

hat from a peg, and putting it on, rather rakishly, on one side,

as a man might, who felt he had asserted his superiority in a

becoming manner, thrust his hands into his pockets, and sauntered

towards the door, with much ease and waggishness depicted in his

whole appearance.

Now, Mrs. Corney that was, had tried the tears, because they were

less troublesome than a manual assault; but, she was quite

prepared to make trial of the latter mode of proceeding, as Mr.

Bumble was not long in discovering.

The first proof he experienced of the fact, was conveyed in a

hollow sound, immediately succeeded by the sudden flying off of

his hat to the opposite end of the room. This preliminary

proceeding laying bare his head, the expert lady, clasping him

tightly round the throat with one hand, inflicted a shower of

blows (dealt with singularvigour and dexterity) upon it with the

other. This done, she created a little variety by scratching his

face, and tearing his hair; and, having, by this time, inflicted

as much punishment as she deemed necessary for the offence, she

pushed him over a chair, which was luckily well situated for the

purpose: and defied him to talk about his prerogative again, if

he dared.

'Get up!' said Mrs. Bumble, in a voice of command. 'And take

yourself away from here, unless you want me to do something

desperate.'

Mr. Bumble rose with a very rueful countenance: wondering much

what something desperate might be. Picking up his hat, he looked

towards the door.

'Are you going?' demanded Mr. Bumble.

'Certainly, my dear, certainly,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, making a

quicker motion towards the door. 'I didn't intend to--I'm going,

my dear! You are so very violent, that really I--'

At this instant, Mrs. Bumble stepped hastily forward to replace

the carpet, which had been kicked up in the scuffle. Mr. Bumble

immediately darted out of the room, without bestowing another

thought on his unfinished sentence: leaving the late Mrs. Corney

in full possession of the field.

Mr. Bumble was fairly taken by surprise, and fairly beaten. He

had a decided propensity for bullying: derived no inconsiderable

pleasure from the exercise of petty cruelty; and, consequently,

was (it is needless to say) a coward. This is by no means a

disparagement to his character; for many official personages, who

are held in high respect and admiration, are the victims of

similar infirmities. The remark is made, indeed, rather in his

favour than otherwise, and with a view of impressing the reader

with a just sense of his qualifications for office.

But, the measure of his degradation was not yet full. After

making a tour of the house, and thinking, for the first time,

that the poor-laws really were too hard on people; and that men

who ran away from their wives, leaving them chargeable to the

parish, ought, in justice to be visited with no punishment at

all, but rather rewarded as meritorious individuals who had

suffered much; Mr. Bumble came to a room where some of the female

paupers were usually employed in washing the parish linen: when

the sound of voices in conversation, now proceeded.

'Hem!' said Mr. Bumble, summoning up all his native dignity.

'These women at least shall continue to respect the prerogative.

Hallo! hallo there! What do you mean by this noise, you

hussies?'

With these words, Mr. Bumble opened the door, and walked in with

a very fierce and angry manner: which was at once exchanged for

a most humiliated and cowering air, as his eyes unexpectedly

rested on the form of his lady wife.

'My dear,' said Mr. Bumble, 'I didn't know you were here.'

'Didn't know I was here!' repeated Mrs. Bumble. 'What do YOU do

here?'

'I thought they were talking rather too much to be doing their

work properly, my dear,' replied Mr. Bumble: glancing

distractedly at a couple of old women at the wash-tub, who were

comparing notes of admiration at the workhouse-master's humility.

'YOU thought they were talking too much?' said Mrs. Bumble. 'What

business is it of yours?'

'Why, my dear--' urged Mr. Bumble submissively.

'What business is it of yours?' demanded Mrs. Bumble, again.

'It's very true, you're matron here, my dear,' submitted Mr.

Bumble; 'but I thought you mightn't be in the way just then.'

'I'll tell you what, Mr. Bumble,' returned his lady. 'We don't

want any of your interference. You're a great deal too fond of

poking your nose into things that don't concern you, making

everybody in the house laugh, the moment your back is turned, and

making yourself look like a fool every hour in the day. Be off;

come!'

Mr. Bumble, seeing with excruciating feelings, the delight of the

two old paupers, who were tittering together most rapturously,

hesitated for an instant. Mrs. Bumble, whose patience brooked no

delay, caught up a bowl of soap-suds, and motioning him towards

the door, ordered him instantly to depart, on pain of receiving

the contents upon his portly person.

What could Mr. Bumble do? He looked dejectedly round, and slunk

away; and, as he reached the door, the titterings of the paupers

broke into a shrillchuckle of irrepressible delight. It wanted

but this. He was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and

station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the

height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of the most

snubbed hen-peckery.

'All in two months!' said Mr. Bumble, filled with dismal

thoughts. 'Two months! No more than two months ago, I was not

only my own master, but everybody else's, so far as the porochial

workhouse was concerned, and now!--'

It was too much. Mr. Bumble boxed the ears of the boy who opened

the gate for him (for he had reached the portal in his reverie);

and walked, distractedly, into the street.

He walked up one street, and down another, until exercise had

abated the first passion of his grief; and then the revulsion of

feeling made him thirsty. He passed a great many public-houses;

but, at length paused before one in a by-way, whose parlour, as

he gathered from a hasty peep over the blinds, was deserted, save

by one solitary customer. It began to rain, heavily, at the

moment. This determined him. Mr. Bumble stepped in; and

ordering something to drink, as he passed the bar, entered the

apartment into which he had looked from the street.

The man who was seated there, was tall and dark, and wore a large

cloak. He had the air of a stranger; and seemed, by a certain

haggardness in his look, as well as by the dusty soils on his

dress, to have travelled some distance. He eyed Bumble askance,

as he entered, but scarcely deigned to nod his head in

acknowledgment of his salutation.

Mr. Bumble had quite dignity enough for two; supposing even that

the stranger had been more familiar: so he drank his

gin-and-water in silence, and read the paper with great show of

pomp and circumstance.

It so happened, however: as it will happen very often, when men

fall into company under such circumstances: that Mr. Bumble

felt, every now and then, a powerful inducement, which he could

not resist, to steal a look at the stranger: and that whenever

he did so, he withdrew his eyes, in some confusion, to find that

the stranger was at that moment stealing a look at him. Mr.

Bumble's awkwardness was enhanced by the very remarkable

expression of the stranger's eye, which was keen and bright, but

shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike anything he

had ever observed before, and repulsive to behold.

When they had encountered each other's glance several times in

this way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence.

'Were you looking for me,' he said, 'when you peered in at the

window?'

'Not that I am aware of, unless you're Mr. --' Here Mr. Bumble

stopped short; for he was curious to know the stranger's name,

and thought in his impatience, he might supply the blank.

'I see you were not,' said the stranger; and expression of quiet

sarcasm playing about his mouth; 'or you have known my name. You

don't know it. I would recommend you not to ask for it.'

'I meant no harm, young man,' observed Mr. Bumble, majestically.

'And have done none,' said the stranger.

Another silence succeeded this short dialogue: which was again

broken by the stranger.

'I have seen you before, I think?' said he. 'You were

differently dressed at that time, and I only passed you in the

street, but I should know you again. You were beadle here, once;

were you not?'

'I was,' said Mr. Bumble, in some surprise; 'porochial beadle.'

'Just so,' rejoined the other, nodding his head. 'It was in that

character I saw you. What are you now?'

'Master of the workhouse,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and

impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might

otherwise assume. 'Master of the workhouse, young man!'

'You have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had,

I doubt not?' resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr.

Bumble's eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question.

'Don't scruple to answer freely, man. I know you pretty well,

you see.'

'I suppose, a married man,' replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes

with his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in

evident perplexity, 'is not more averse to turning an honest

penny when he can, than a single one. Porochial officers are not

so well paid that they can afford to refuse any little extra fee,

when it comes to them in a civil and proper manner.'

The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say,

he had not mistaken his man; then rang the bell.

'Fill this glass again,' he said, handing Mr. Bumble's empty

tumbler to the landlord. 'Let it be strong and hot. You like it

so, I suppose?'

'Not too strong,' replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough.

'You understand what that means, landlord!' said the stranger,

drily.

The host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned

with a steaming jorum: of which, the first gulp brought the water

into Mr. Bumble's eyes.

'Now listen to me,' said the stranger, after closing the door and

window. 'I came down to this place, to-day, to find you out;

and, by one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of

his friends sometimes, you walked into the very room I was

sitting in, while you were uppermost in my mind. I want some

information from you. I don't ask you to give it for mothing,

slight as it is. Put up that, to begin with.'

As he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to

his companion, carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking

of money should be heard without. When Mr. Bumble had

scrupulously examined the coins, to see that they were genuine,

and had put them up, with much satisfaction, in his

waistcoat-pocket, he went on:

'Carry your memory back--let me see--twelve years, last winter.'

'It's a long time,' said Mr. Bumble. 'Very good. I've done it.'

'The scene, the workhouse.'

'Good!'

'And the time, night.'

'Yes.'

'And the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which

miserable drabs brought forth the life and health so often denied

to themselves--gave birth to puling children for the parish to

rear; and hid their shame, rot 'em in the grave!'

'The lying-in room, I suppose?' said Mr. Bumble, not quite

following the stranger's excited description.

'Yes,' said the stranger. 'A boy was born there.'

'A many boys,' observed Mr. Bumble, shaking his head,

despondingly.

'A murrain on the young devils!' cried the stranger; 'I speak of

one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down

here, to a coffin-maker--I wish he had made his coffin, and

screwed his body in it--and who afterwards ran away to London, as

it was supposed.

'Why, you mean Oliver! Young Twist!' said Mr. Bumble; 'I

remember him, of course. There wasn't a obstinater young

rascal--'

'It's not of him I want to hear; I've heard enough of him,' said

the stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on

the subject of poor Oliver's vices. 'It's of a woman; the hag

that nursed his mother. Where is she?'

'Where is she?' said Mr. Bumble, whom the gin-and-water had

rendered facetious. 'It would be hard to tell. There's no

midwifery there, whichever place she's gone to; so I suppose

she's out of employment, anyway.'

'What do you mean?' demanded the stranger, sternly.

'That she died last winter,' rejoined Mr. Bumble.

The man looked fixedly at him when he had given this information,

and although he did not withdraw his eyes for some time

afterwards, his gaze gradually became vacant and abstracted, and

he seemed lost in thought. For some time, he appeared doubtful

whether he ought to be relieved or disappointed by the

intelligence; but at length he breathed more freely; and

withdrawing his eyes, observed that it was no great matter. With

that he rose, as if to depart.

But Mr. Bumble was cunning enough; and he at once saw that an

opportunity was opened, for the lucrative disposal of some secret

in the possession of his better half. He well remembered the

night of old Sally's death, which the occurrences of that day had

given him good reason to recollect, as the occasion on which he

had proposed to Mrs. Corney; and although that lady had never

confided to him the disclosure of which she had been the solitary

witness, he had heard enough to know that it related to something

that had occurred in the old woman's attendance, as workhouse

nurse, upon the young mother of Oliver Twist. Hastily calling

this circumstance to mind, he informed the stranger, with an air

of mystery, that one woman had been closeted with the old

harridan shortly before she died; and that she could, as he had

reason to believe, throw some light on the subject of his

inquiry.

'How can I find her?' said the stranger, thrown off his guard;

and plainly showing that all his fears (whatever they were) were

aroused afresh by the intelligence.

'Only through me,' rejoined Mr. Bumble.

'When?' cried the stranger, hastily.

'To-morrow,' rejoined Bumble.

'At nine in the evening,' said the stranger, producing a scrap of

paper, and writing down upon it, an obscure address by the

water-side, in characters that betrayed his agitation; 'at nine

in the evening, bring her to me there. I needn't tell you to be

secret. It's your interest.'

With these words, he led the way to the door, after stopping to

pay for the liquor that had been drunk. Shortly remarking that

their roads were different, he departed, without more ceremony

than an emphaticrepetition of the hour of appointment for the

following night.

On glancing at the address, the parochial functionary observed

that it contained no name. The stranger had not gone far, so he

made after him to ask it.

'What do you want?' cried the man. turning quickly round, as

Bumble touched him on the arm. 'Following me?'

'Only to ask a question,' said the other, pointing to the scrap

of paper. 'What name am I to ask for?'

'Monks!' rejoined the man; and strode hastily, away.
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