Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, and comprehension,โin the sluggish complexion of his face, and in the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as he himself lolled about in a room,โhe was idle, proud, niggardly, reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen.
Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a womanโs delicacy of feature, and wasโโas you may see, though you never saw her,โ said Herbert to meโโexactly like his mother.โ It was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in mid-stream.
Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried youth and hope.
When I had been in Mr. Pocketโs family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocketโs sister. Georgiana, whom I had seen at Miss Havishamโs on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,โan indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves.
These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as Drummle if I had done less.
I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect me at the office at six oโclock. Thither I went, and there I found him, putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck.
โDid you think of walking down to Walworth?โ said he.
โCertainly,โ said I, โif you approve.โ
โVery much,โ was Wemmickโs reply, โfor I have had my legs under the desk all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, Iโll tell you what I have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,โwhich is of home preparation,โand a cold roast fowl,โwhich is from the cookโs-shop. I think itโs tender, because the master of the shop was a Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, โPick us out a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box another day or two, we could easily have done it.โ He said to that, โLet me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop.โ I let him, of course. As far as it goes, itโs property and portable. You donโt object to an aged parent, I hope?โ
I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, โBecause I have got an aged parent at my place.โ I then said what politeness required.
โSo, you havenโt dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?โ he pursued, as we walked along.
โNot yet.โ
โHe told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect youโll have an invitation to-morrow. Heโs going to ask your pals, too. Three of โem; ainโt there?โ
Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my intimate associates, I answered, โYes.โ
โWell, heโs going to ask the whole gang,โโI hardly felt complimented by the word,โโand whatever he gives you, heโll give you good. Donโt look forward to variety, but youโll have excellence. And thereโs another rum thing in his house,โ proceeded Wemmick, after a momentโs pause, as if the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; โhe never lets a door or window be fastened at night.โ
โIs he never robbed?โ
โThatโs it!โ returned Wemmick. โHe says, and gives it out publicly, โI want to see the man whoโll robย me.โ Lord bless you, I have heard him, a hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our front office, โYou know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; why donโt you do a stroke of business with me? Come; canโt I tempt you?โ Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or money.โ
โThey dread him so much?โ said I.
โDread him,โ said Wemmick. โI believe you they dread him. Not but what heโs artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia metal, every spoon.โ
โSo they wouldnโt have much,โ I observed, โeven if theyโโ
โAh! Butย heย would have much,โ said Wemmick, cutting me short, โand they know it. Heโd have their lives, and the lives of scores of โem. Heโd have all he could get. And itโs impossible to say what he couldnโt get, if he gave his mind to it.โ
I was falling into meditation on my guardianโs greatness, when Wemmick remarked:โ
โAs to the absence of plate, thatโs only his natural depth, you know. A riverโs its natural depth, and heโs his natural depth. Look at his watch-chain. Thatโs real enough.โ
โItโs very massive,โ said I.
โMassive?โ repeated Wemmick. โI think so. And his watch is a gold repeater, and worth a hundred pound if itโs worth a penny. Mr. Pip, there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about that watch; thereโs not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who wouldnโt identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it was red hot, if inveigled into touching it.โ
At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of Walworth.
It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. Wemmickโs house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted with guns.
โMy own doing,โ said Wemmick. โLooks pretty; donโt it?โ
I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), and a gothic door almost too small to get in at.
โThatโs a real flagstaff, you see,โ said Wemmick, โand on Sundays I run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I hoist it upโsoโand cut off the communication.โ
The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and not merely mechanically.
โAt nine oโclock every night, Greenwich time,โ said Wemmick, โthe gun fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think youโll say heโs a Stinger.โ
The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella.
โThen, at the back,โ said Wemmick, โout of sight, so as not to impede the idea of fortifications,โfor itโs a principle with me, if you have an idea, carry it out and keep it up,โI donโt know whether thatโs your opinionโโ
I said, decidedly.
โโAt the back, thereโs a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and youโll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir,โ said Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, โif you can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a time in point of provisions.โ
Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it made the back of your hand quite wet.
โI am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,โ said Wemmick, in acknowledging my compliments. โWell; itโs a good thing, you know. It brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldnโt mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldnโt put you out?โ
I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf.
โWell aged parent,โ said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial and jocose way, โhow am you?โ
โAll right, John; all right!โ replied the old man.
โHereโs Mr. Pip, aged parent,โ said Wemmick, โand I wish you could hear his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; thatโs what he likes. Nod away at him, if you please, like winking!โ
โThis is a fine place of my sonโs, sir,โ cried the old man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. โThis is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept together by the Nation, after my sonโs time, for the peopleโs enjoyment.โ
โYouโre as proud of it as Punch; ainโt you, Aged?โ said Wemmick, contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; โthereโsย a nod for you;โ giving him a tremendous one; โthereโsย another for you;โ giving him a still more tremendous one; โyou like that, donโt you? If youโre not tired, Mr. Pipโthough I know itโs tiring to strangersโwill you tip him one more? You canโt think how it pleases him.โ
I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in the arbour; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of perfection.
โIs it your own, Mr. Wemmick?โ
โO yes,โ said Wemmick, โI have got hold of it, a bit at a time. Itโs a freehold, by George!โ
โIs it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?โ
โNever seen it,โ said Wemmick. โNever heard of it. Never seen the Aged. Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If itโs not in any way disagreeable to you, youโll oblige me by doing the same. I donโt wish it professionally spoken about.โ
Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine oโclock. โGetting near gun-fire,โ said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; โitโs the Agedโs treat.โ
Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Agedโwho I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbowsโcried out exultingly, โHeโs fired! I heerd him!โ and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him.
The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation,โupon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, โevery one of โem Lies, sir.โ These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack.
There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all night.
Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbour and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger.