THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY
It had come to pass that Mr Silas Wegg now rarely attended the minion of
fortune and the worm of the hour, at his (the worm's and minion's) own house,
but lay under general instructions to await him within a certain margin of hours
at the Bower. Mr Wegg took this arrangement in great dudgeon, because the
appointed hours were evening hours, and those he considered precious to the
progress of the friendly move. But it was quite in character, he bitterly
remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart who had trampled on those eminent
creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should
oppress his literary man.
The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr Boffin next appeared
in a cab with Rollin's Ancient History, which valuable work being found to
possess lethargic properties, broke down, at about the period when the whole of
the army of Alexander the Macedonian (at that time about forty thousand strong)
burst into tears simultaneously, on his being taken with a shivering fit after
bathing. The Wars of the Jews, likewise languishing under Mr Wegg's generalship,
Mr Boffin arrived in another cab with Plutarch: whose Lives he found in the
sequel extremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not expect him to
believe them all. What to believe, in the course of his reading, was Mr Boffin's
chief literary difficulty indeed; for some time he was divided in his mind
between half, all, or none; at length, when he decided, as a moderate man, to
compound with half, the question still remained, which half? And that stumbling-
block he never got over.
One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his
patron in a cab, accompanied by some profane historian charged with unutterable
names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent, waging wars any number
of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about,
with the greatest ease, beyond the confines of geography--one evening the usual
time passed by, and no patron appeared. After half an hour's grace, Mr Wegg
proceeded to the outer gate, and there executed a whistle, conveying to Mr
Venus, if perchance within hearing, the tidings of his being at home and
disengaged. Forth from the shelter of a neighbouring wall, Mr Venus then
emerged.
'Brother in arms,' said Mr Wegg, in excellent spirits, 'welcome!'
In return, Mr Venus gave him a rather dry good evening.
'Walk in, brother,' said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, 'and take your
seat in my chimley corner; for what says the ballad?
"No malice to dread, sir, And no falsehood to fear, But truth to delight me,
Mr Venus, And I forgot what to cheer. Li toddle de om dee. And something to
guide, My ain fireside, sir, My ain fireside."'
With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spirit than the
words), Mr Wegg conducted his guest to his hearth.
'And you come, brother,' said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, 'you come like I
don't know what--exactly like it--I shouldn't know you from it--shedding a halo
all around you.'
'What kind of halo?' asked Mr Venus.
''Ope sir,' replied Silas. 'That's YOUR halo.'
Mr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather discontentedly at
the fire.
'We'll devote the evening, brother,' exclaimed Wegg, 'to prosecute our
friendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing wine-cup-- which I allude to
brewing rum and water--we'll pledge one another. For what says the Poet?
"And you needn't Mr Venus be your black bottle, For surely I'll be mine, And
we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which you're partial, For auld
lang syne."'
This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observation of
some little querulousness on the part of Venus.
'Why, as to the friendly move,' observed the last-named gentleman, rubbing
his knees peevishly, 'one of my objections to it is, that it DON'T move.'
'Rome, brother,' returned Wegg: 'a city which (it may not be generally known)
originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in Imperial marble: wasn't built in a
day.'
'Did I say it was?' asked Venus.
'No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired.'
'But I do say,' proceeded Venus, 'that I am taken from among my trophies of
anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human warious for mere coal-ashes
warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up.'
'No, sir!' remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. 'No, Sir!
"Charge, Chester, charge, On, Mr Venus, on!"
Never say die, sir! A man of your mark!'
'It's not so much saying it that I object to,' returned Mr Venus, 'as doing
it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can't afford to waste my time on
groping for nothing in cinders.'
'But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,' urged
Wegg. 'Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do they come to? And you,
sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, and feelings, you with the
patience to fit together on wires the whole framework of society--I allude to
the human skelinton-- you to give in so soon!'
'I don't like it,' returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head between his
knees and stuck up his dusty hair. 'And there's no encouragement to go on.'
'Not them Mounds without,' said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand with an air
of solemn reasoning, 'encouragement? Not them Mounds now looking down upon us?'
'They're too big,' grumbled Venus. 'What's a scratch here and a scrape there,
a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them. Besides; what have we
found?'
'What HAVE we found?' cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce. 'Ah!
There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade, what MAY we
find? There you'll grant me. Anything.'
'I don't like it,' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came into it
without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't your own Mr Boffin well
acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well acquainted with the deceased and
his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation of finding anything?'
At that moment wheels were heard.
'Now, I should be loth,' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury, 'to
think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this time of night.
And yet it sounds like him.'
A ring at the yard bell.
'It is him,' said Mr Wegg, 'and he it capable of it. I am sorry, because I
could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment of respect for him.'
Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 'Halloa! Wegg!
Halloa!'
'Keep your seat, Mr Venus,' said Wegg. 'He may not stop.' And then called
out, 'Halloa, sir! Halloa! I'm with you directly, sir! Half a minute, Mr Boffin.
Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!' And so with a show of much
cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with a light, and there, through the
window of a cab, descried Mr Boffin inside, blocked up with books.
'Here! lend a hand, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin excitedly, 'I can't get out till
the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in a cab-full of
wollumes. Do you know him?'
'Know the Animal Register, sir?' returned the Impostor, who had caught the
name imperfectly. 'For a trifling wager, I think I could find any Animal in him,
blindfold, Mr Boffin.'
'And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum,' said Mr Boffin, 'and Caulfield's
Characters, and Wilson's. Such Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I must have
one or two of the best of 'em to- night. It's amazing what places they used to
put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that pile of wollumes,
Wegg, or it'll bulge out and burst into the mud. Is there anyone about, to
help?'
'There's a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending the
evening with me when I gave you up--much against my will--for the night.'
'Call him out,' cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; 'get him to bear a hand. Don't
drop that one under your arm. It's Dancer. Him and his sister made pies of a
dead sheep they found when they were out a walking. Where's your friend? Oh,
here's your friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg and myself with these
books? But don't take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark, nor yet Jemmy Wood of
Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I'll carry them myself.'
Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, Mr Boffin
directed the removal and arrangement of the books, appearing to be in some sort
beside himself until they were all deposited on the floor, and the cab was
dismissed.
'There!' said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. 'There they are, like the
four-and-twenty fiddlers--all of a row. Get on your spectacles, Wegg; I know
where to find the best of 'em, and we'll have a taste at once of what we have
got before us. What's your friend's name?'
Mr Wegg presented his friend as Mr Venus.
'Eh?' cried Mr Boffin, catching at the name. 'Of Clerkenwell?'
'Of Clerkenwell, sir,' said Mr Venus.
'Why, I've heard of you,' cried Mr Boffin, 'I heard of you in the old man's
time. You knew him. Did you ever buy anything of him?' With piercing eagerness.
'No, sir,' returned Venus.
'But he showed you things; didn't he?'
Mr Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative.
'What did he show you?' asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands behind him, and
eagerly advancing his head. 'Did he show you boxes, little cabinets,
pocket-books, parcels, anything locked or sealed, anything tied up?'
Mr Venus shook his head.
'Are you a judge of china?'
Mr Venus again shook his head.
'Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to know of it,'
said Mr Boffin. And then, with his right hand at his lips, repeated
thoughtfully, 'a Teapot, a Teapot', and glanced over the books on the floor, as
if he knew there was something interesting connected with a teapot, somewhere
among them.
Mr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and Mr Wegg, in
fitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, over their rims, and tapped the
side of his nose: as an admonition to Venus to keep himself generally wide
awake.
'A Teapot,' repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the books; 'a
Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, Wegg?'
'I am at your service, sir,' replied that gentleman, taking his usual seat on
the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the table before it. 'Mr
Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a seat beside me, sir, for the
conveniency of snuffing the candles?'
Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, Silas
pegged at him with his wooden leg, to call his particular attention to Mr Boffin
standing musing before the fire, in the space between the two settles.
'Hem! Ahem!' coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer's attention. 'Would you
wish to commence with an Animal, sir-- from the Register?'
'No,' said Mr Boffin, 'no, Wegg.' With that, producing a little book from his
breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to the literary gentlemen, and
inquired, 'What do you call that, Wegg?'
'This, sir,' replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to the
title-page, 'is Merryweather's Lives and Anecdotes of Misers. Mr Venus, would
you make yourself useful and draw the candles a little nearer, sir?' This to
have a special opportunity of bestowing a stare upon his comrade.
'Which of 'em have you got in that lot?' asked Mr Boffin. 'Can you find out
pretty easy?'
'Well, sir,' replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly
fluttering the leaves of the book, 'I should say they must be pretty well all
here, sir; here's a large assortment, sir; my eye catches John Overs, sir, John
Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr Jones of Blewbury, Vulture
Hopkins, Daniel Dancer- -'
'Give us Dancer, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin.
With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the place.
'Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter, "His
birth and estate. His garments and outward appearance. Miss Dancer and her
feminine graces. The Miser's Mansion. The finding of a treasure. The Story of
the Mutton Pies. A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser's cur. Griffiths and
his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a Fire. The Advantages of
keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a Shirt. The Treasures of a
Dunghill--"'
'Eh? What's that?' demanded Mr Boffin.
'"The Treasures," sir,' repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, '"of a
Dunghill." Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?' This, to secure
attention to his adding with his lips only, 'Mounds!'
Mr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and said, seating
himself and slyly rubbing his hands:
'Give us Dancer.'
Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its various phases
of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer's death on a sick regimen of cold
dumpling, and through Mr Dancer's keeping his rags together with a hayband, and
warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down to the consolatory incident of his
dying naked in a sack. After which he read on as follows:
'"The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, and which
at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes, was a most miserable,
decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more than half a century."'
(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had not
been repaired for a long time.)
'"But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very rich in
the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole contents; and Captain
Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into the miser's secret hoards."'
(Here Mr Wegg repeated 'secret hoards', and pegged his comrade again.)
'"One of Mr Dancer's richest escretoires was found to be a dungheap in the
cowhouse; a sum but little short of two thousand five hundred pounds was
contained in this rich piece of manure; and in an old jacket, carefully tied,
and strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notes and gold were found five
hundred pounds more."'
(Here Mr Wegg's wooden leg started forward under the table, and slowly
elevated itself as he read on.)
'"Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half- guineas; and at
different times on searching the corners of the house they found various parcels
of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices of the wall"';
(Here Mr Venus looked at the wall.)
'"Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the chairs"';
(Here Mr Venus looked under himself on the settle.)
'"Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; and notes amounting
to six hundred pounds were found neatly doubled up in the inside of an old
teapot. In the stable the Captain found jugs full of old dollars and shillings.
The chimney was not left unsearched, and paid very well for the trouble; for in
nineteen different holes, all filled with soot, were found various sums of
money, amounting together to more than two hundred pounds."'
On the way to this crisis Mr Wegg's wooden leg had gradually elevated itself
more and more, and he had nudged Mr Venus with his opposite elbow deeper and
deeper, until at length the preservation of his balance became incompatible with
the two actions, and he now dropped over sideways upon that gentleman, squeezing
him against the settle's edge. Nor did either of the two, for some few seconds,
make any effort to recover himself; both remaining in a kind of pecuniary swoon.
But the sight of Mr Boffin sitting in the arm-chair hugging himself, with his
eyes upon the fire, acted as a restorative. Counterfeiting a sneeze to cover
their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic 'Tish-ho!' pulled himself and Mr
Venus up in a masterly manner.
'Let's have some more,' said Mr Boffin, hungrily.
'John Elwes is the next, sir. Is it your pleasure to take John Elwes?'
'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Let's hear what John did.'
He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly. But an
exemplary lady named Wilcocks, who had stowed away gold and silver in a
pickle-pot in a clock-case, a canister-full of treasure in a hole under her
stairs, and a quantity of money in an old rat-trap, revived the interest. To her
succeeded another lady, claiming to be a pauper, whose wealth was found wrapped
up in little scraps of paper and old rag. To her, another lady, apple- woman by
trade, who had saved a fortune of ten thousand pounds and hidden it 'here and
there, in cracks and corners, behind bricks and under the flooring.' To her, a
French gentleman, who had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment of its
drawing powers, 'a leather valise, containing twenty thousand francs, gold
coins, and a large quantity of precious stones,' as discovered by a chimneysweep
after his death. By these steps Mr Wegg arrived at a concluding instance of the
human Magpie:
'"Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old couple of the name
of Jardine: they had two sons: the father was a perfect miser, and at his death
one thousand guineas were discovered secreted in his bed. The two sons grew up
as parsimonious as their sire. When about twenty years of age, they commenced
business at Cambridge as drapers, and they continued there until their death.
The establishment of the Messrs Jardine was the most dirty of all the shops in
Cambridge. Customers seldom went in to purchase, except perhaps out of
curiosity. The brothers were most disreputable-looking beings; for, although
surrounded with gay apparel as their staple in trade, they wore the most filthy
rags themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, to save the expense of
one, always slept on a bundle of packing-cloths under the counter. In their
housekeeping they were penurious in the extreme. A joint of meat did not grace
their board for twenty years. Yet when the first of the brothers died, the
other, much to his surprise, found large sums of money which had been secreted
even from him.'
'There!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Even from him, you see! There was only two of 'em,
and yet one of 'em hid from the other.'
Mr Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman, had been
stooping to peer up the chimney, had his attention recalled by the last
sentence, and took the liberty of repeating it.
'Do you like it?' asked Mr Boffin, turning suddenly.
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'Do you like what Wegg's been a-reading?'
Mr Venus answered that he found it extremely interesting.
'Then come again,' said Mr Boffin, 'and hear some more. Come when you like;
come the day after to-morrow, half an hour sooner. There's plenty more; there's
no end to it.'
Mr Venus expressed his acknowledgments and accepted the invitation.
'It's wonderful what's been hid, at one time and another,' said Mr Boffin,
ruminating; 'truly wonderful.'
'Meaning sir,' observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw him out, and
with another peg at his friend and brother, 'in the way of money?'
'Money,' said Mr Boffin. 'Ah! And papers.'
Mr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr Venus, and again
recovering himself, masked his emotions with a sneeze.
'Tish-ho! Did you say papers too, sir? Been hidden, sir?'
'Hidden and forgot,' said Mr Boffin. 'Why the bookseller that sold me the
Wonderful Museum--where's the Wonderful Museum?' He was on his knees on the
floor in a moment, groping eagerly among the books.
'Can I assist you, sir?' asked Wegg.
'No, I have got it; here it is,' said Mr Boflin, dusting it with the sleeve
of his coat. 'Wollume four. I know it was the fourth wollume, that the
bookseller read it to me out of. Look for it, Wegg.'
Silas took the book and turned the leaves.
'Remarkable petrefaction, sir?'
'No, that's not it,' said Mr Boffin. 'It can't have been a petrefaction.'
'Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking Rushlight, sir?
With portrait?'
'No, nor yet him,' said Mr Boffin.
'Remarkable case of a person who swallowed a crown-piece, sir?'
'To hide it?' asked Mr Boffin.
'Why, no, sir,' replied Wegg, consulting the text, 'it appears to have been
done by accident. Oh! This next must be it. "Singular discovery of a will, lost
twenty-one years."'
'That's it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Read that.'
'"A most extraordinary case,"' read Silas Wegg aloud, '"was tried at the last
Maryborough assizes in Ireland. It was briefly this. Robert Baldwin, in March
1782, made his will, in which he devised the lands now in question, to the
children of his youngest son; soon after which his faculties failed him, and he
became altogether childish and died, above eighty years old. The defendant, the
eldest son, immediately afterwards gave out that his father had destroyed the
will; and no will being found, he entered into possession of the lands in
question, and so matters remained for twenty-one years, the whole family during
all that time believing that the father had died without a will. But after
twenty- one years the defendant's wife died, and he very soon afterwards, at the
age of seventy-eight, married a very young woman: which caused some anxiety to
his two sons, whose poignant expressions of this feeling so exasperated their
father, that he in his resentment executed a will to disinherit his eldest son,
and in his fit of anger showed it to his second son, who instantly determined to
get at it, and destroy it, in order to preserve the property to his brother.
With this view, he broke open his father's desk, where he found-- not his
father's will which he sought after, but the will of his grandfather, which was
then altogether forgotten in the family."'
'There!' said Mr Boffin. 'See what men put away and forget, or mean to
destroy, and don't!' He then added in a slow tone, 'As-- ton--ish--ing!' And as
he rolled his eyes all round the room, Wegg and Venus likewise rolled their eyes
all round the room. And then Wegg, singly, fixed his eyes on Mr Boffin looking
at the fire again; as if he had a mind to spring upon him and demand his
thoughts or his life.
'However, time's up for to-night,' said Mr Boffin, waving his hand after a
silence. 'More, the day after to-morrow. Range the books upon the shelves, Wegg.
I dare say Mr Venus will be so kind as help you.'
While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat, and
struggled with some object there that was too large to be got out easily. What
was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when this object at last emerging,
proved to be a much-dilapidated dark lantern!
Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument, Mr
Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of matches, deliberately
lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindled match, and cast the end
into the fire. 'I'm going, Wegg,' he then announced, 'to take a turn about the
place and round the yard. I don't want you. Me and this same lantern have taken
hundreds-- thousands--of such turns in our time together.'
'But I couldn't think, sir--not on any account, I couldn't,'--Wegg was
politely beginning, when Mr Boffin, who had risen and was going towards the
door, stopped:
'I have told you that I don't want you, Wegg.'
Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred to his mind
until he now brought it to bear on the circumstance. He had nothing for it but
to let Mr Boffin go out and shut the door behind him. But, the instant he was on
the other side of it, Wegg clutched Venus with both hands, and said in a choking
whisper, as if he were being strangled:
'Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn't be lost sight
of for a moment.'
'Why mustn't he?' asked Venus, also strangling.
'Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits when you
come in to-night. I've found something.'
'What have you found?' asked Venus, clutching him with both hands, so that
they stood interlocked like a couple of preposterous gladiators.
'There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look for it.
We must have an eye upon him instantly.'
Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, and peeped
out. It was a cloudy night, and the black shadow of the Mounds made the dark
yard darker. 'If not a double swindler,' whispered Wegg, 'why a dark lantern? We
could have seen what he was about, if he had carried a light one. Softly, this
way.'
Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of crockery set in
ashes, the two stole after him. They could hear him at his peculiar trot,
crushing the loose cinders as he went. 'He knows the place by heart,' muttered
Silas, 'and don't need to turn his lantern on, confound him!' But he did turn it
on, almost in that same instant, and flashed its light upon the first of the
Mounds.
'Is that the spot?' asked Venus in a whisper.
'He's warm,' said Silas in the same tone. 'He's precious warm. He's close. I
think he must be going to look for it. What's that he's got in his hand?'
'A shovel,' answered Venus. 'And he knows how to use it, remember, fifty
times as well as either of us.'
'If he looks for it and misses it, partner,' suggested Wegg, 'what shall we
do?'
'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 he up again easily with his wooden leg. So they both rolled
on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffin shut the gate.
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