Book II - Chapter XIV. The Honest Tradesman

by Charles Dickens

　　To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool inFleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number andvariety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who couldsit upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day,and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one evertending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastwardfrom the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of redand 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 dutywatching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of theirever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopefulkind, since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotageof 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 suchcompanionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher neverfailed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desireto have the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was fromthe gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolentpurpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed.

　　Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and musedin 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 sounprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast thatMrs. Cruncher must have been "flopping" in some pointed manner, whenan unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted hisattention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind offuneral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to thisfuneral, 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 mysterioussignificance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that hewatched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear.

　　"What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want toconwey to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a gettingtoo many for me!" said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. "Him andhis hooroars! Don't let me hear no more of you, or you shall feelsome 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 yourno harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd."

　　His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissinground a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coachthere was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that wereconsidered essential to the dignity of the position. The positionappeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabblesurrounding 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 funeralpassed Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommonattendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ranagainst 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 mouthnevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with thegreatest 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 funeralwas 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 hehad 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 thesuggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehiclesso closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening the coachdoors, the one mourner scuffled out of himself and was in their handsfor 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, aftershedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief,and other symbolical tears.

　　These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide withgreat enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops;for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monstermuch dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearseto 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, wasreceived with acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled witheight inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof ofthe hearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it.Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, whomodestly 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 changesin the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and severalvoices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringingrefractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faintand brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweepdriving the hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perchedbeside 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 impressedas an additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far downthe Strand; and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quitean Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked.

　　Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinitecaricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruitingat every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destinationwas the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It gotthere in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground;finally, accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly inits own way, and highly to its own satisfaction.

　　The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity ofproviding some other entertainment for itself, another brighter genius(or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casualpassers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them.Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had neverbeen near the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of thisfancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transitionto the sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering ofpublic-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours,when sundry summer-houses had been pulled down, and some area-railingshad been torn up, to arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumour gotabout that the Guards were coming. Before this rumour, the crowdgradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps theynever came, and this was the usual progress of a mob.

　　Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remainedbehind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers.The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from aneighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railingsand 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 thathe was a young 'un and a straight made 'un."

　　Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turnedhimself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on hisstation at Tellson's. Whether his meditations on mortality had touchedhis liver, or whether his general health had been previously at allamiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminentman, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call uponhis medical adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back.

　　Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported Nojob in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, theusual 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, onentering. "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 workyou 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 ofangry apprehension.

　　"I am saying nothing."

　　"Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop asmeditate. 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 expressgeneral ironical dissatisfaction.

　　"You and your yes, Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of hisbread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisibleoyster out of his saucer. "Ah! I think so. I believe you."

　　"You are going out to-night?" asked his decent wife, when he tookanother 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 thatgentleman, shaking his head; "that's questions enough for you; Iain't a going out, till you've been long abed."

　　He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keepinga most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her inconversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitionsto his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her inconversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwellingon any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than hewould leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutestperson could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honestprayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if aprofessed 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 yourdeclaring on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome willbe 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'tknow how scarce you mayn't make the wittles and drink here, by yourflopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he isyour'n, ain't he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself amother, 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 toperform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, aboveall things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternalfunction so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent.

　　Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerrywas ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions,obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the nightwith solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearlyone o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from hischair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, andbrought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain,and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles abouthim 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 followedout of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the court,followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerninghis getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and thedoor stood ajar all night.

　　Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of hisfather's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts,walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held hishonoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward,had not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple ofIzaak Walton, and the two trudged on together.

　　Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond thewinking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upona lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that sosilently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might havesupposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of asudden, split himself into two.

　　The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stoppedunder a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was alow brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bankand wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of whichthe 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 thatYoung Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty welldefined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an irongate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, andthen the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate,and lay there a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away ontheir 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 lookingin, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass!and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyardthat they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the churchtower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They didnot creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then theybegan to fish.

　　They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parentappeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew.Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awfulstriking 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, notonly stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. Theywere still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate forthe second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was ascrewing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures werestrained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away theearth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew whatit would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about towrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that hemade off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.

　　He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary thanbreath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highlydesirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffinhe had seen was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behindhim, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point ofovertaking him and hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiendtoo, for, while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful,he darted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of itscoming hopping out of them like a dropsical boy's-Kite without tailand wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shouldersagainst 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 totrip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind andgaining on him, so that when the boy got to his own door he had reasonfor being half dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followedhim 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 awakenedafter daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father inthe family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, soYoung Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holdingMrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head againstthe 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 ithonouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying yourhusband 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 ahonest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculationswhen he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeyingwife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religiouswoman? 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 Thamesriver has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you."

　　The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminatedin the honest tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lyingdown at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at himlying 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 ironpot-lid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher,in case he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He wasbrushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son topursue his ostensible calling.

　　Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father'sside along sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very differentYoung Jerry from him of the previous night, running home throughdarkness and solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was freshwith the day, and his qualms were gone with the night--in whichparticulars it is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-streetand the City of London, that fine morning.

　　"Father," said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care tokeep 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 offhis 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'mquite growed up!"

　　Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moralway. "It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be carefulto dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can helpto nobody, and there's no telling at the present time what you maynot come to be fit for." As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went ona few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar,Mr. Cruncher added to himself: "Jerry, you honest tradesman, there'shopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompenseto you for his mother!"