Charles Dickens : The Complete Novels (Best Navigation, Active TOC) (A to Z Classics). A to Z Classics
their pillows to dream of their future husbands on; and a great deal of blushing and merriment was thereby occasioned.
‘Mr. Miller,’ said Mr. Pickwick to his old acquaintance, the hard–headed gentleman, ‘a glass of wine?’
‘With great satisfaction, Mr. Pickwick,’ replied the hard–headed gentleman solemnly.
‘You’ll take me in?’ said the benevolent old clergyman.
‘And me,’ interposed his wife. ‘And me, and me,’ said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the table, who had eaten and drunk very heartily, and laughed at everything.
Mr. Pickwick expressed his heartfelt delight at every additional suggestion; and his eyes beamed with hilarity and cheerfulness. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mr. Pickwick, suddenly rising.
‘Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear!’ cried Mr. Weller, in the excitement of his feelings.
‘Call in all the servants,’ cried old Wardle, interposing to prevent the public rebuke which Mr. Weller would otherwise most indubitably have received from his master. ‘Give them a glass of wine each to drink the toast in. Now, Pickwick.’
Amidst the silence of the company, the whispering of the women–servants, and the awkward embarrassment of the men, Mr. Pickwick proceeded—
‘Ladies and gentlemen—no, I won’t say ladies and gentlemen, I’ll call you my friends, my dear friends, if the ladies will allow me to take so great a liberty—’
Here Mr. Pickwick was interrupted by immense applause from the ladies, echoed by the gentlemen, during which the owner of the eyes was distinctly heard to state that she could kiss that dear Mr. Pickwick. Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn’t be done by deputy: to which the young lady with the black eyes replied ‘Go away,’ and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do, ‘if you can.’
‘My dear friends,’ resumed Mr. Pickwick, ‘I am going to propose the health of the bride and bridegroom—God bless ’em (cheers and tears). My young friend, Trundle, I believe to be a very excellent and manly fellow; and his wife I know to be a very amiable and lovely girl, well qualified to transfer to another sphere of action the happiness which for twenty years she has diffused around her, in her father’s house. (Here, the fat boy burst forth into stentorian blubberings, and was led forth by the coat collar, by Mr. Weller.) I wish,’ added Mr. Pickwick—‘I wish I was young enough to be her sister’s husband (cheers), but, failing that, I am happy to be old enough to be her father; for, being so, I shall not be suspected of any latent designs when I say, that I admire, esteem, and love them both (cheers and sobs). The bride’s father, our good friend there, is a noble person, and I am proud to know him (great uproar). He is a kind, excellent, independent–spirited, fine–hearted, hospitable, liberal man (enthusiastic shouts from the poor relations, at all the adjectives; and especially at the two last). That his daughter may enjoy all the happiness, even he can desire; and that he may derive from the contemplation of her felicity all the gratification of heart and peace of mind which he so well deserves, is, I am persuaded, our united wish. So, let us drink their healths, and wish them prolonged life, and every blessing!’
Mr. Pickwick concluded amidst a whirlwind of applause; and once more were the lungs of the supernumeraries, under Mr. Weller’s command, brought into active and efficient operation. Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Pickwick; Mr. Pickwick proposed the old lady. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. Wardle; Mr. Wardle proposed Mr. Snodgrass. One of the poor relations proposed Mr. Tupman, and the other poor relation proposed Mr. Winkle; all was happiness and festivity, until the mysterious disappearance of both the poor relations beneath the table, warned the party that it was time to adjourn.
At dinner they met again, after a five–and–twenty mile walk, undertaken by the males at Wardle’s recommendation, to get rid of the effects of the wine at breakfast. The poor relations had kept in bed all day, with the view of attaining the same happy consummation, but, as they had been unsuccessful, they stopped there. Mr. Weller kept the domestics in a state of perpetual hilarity; and the fat boy divided his time into small alternate allotments of eating and sleeping.
The dinner was as hearty an affair as the breakfast, and was quite as noisy, without the tears. Then came the dessert and some more toasts. Then came the tea and coffee; and then, the ball.
The best sitting–room at Manor Farm was a good, long, dark–panelled room with a high chimney–piece, and a capacious chimney, up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all. At the upper end of the room, seated in a shady bower of holly and evergreens were the two best fiddlers, and the only harp, in all Muggleton. In all sorts of recesses, and on all kinds of brackets, stood massive old silver candlesticks with four branches each. The carpet was up, the candles burned bright, the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, and merry voices and light–hearted laughter rang through the room. If any of the old English yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels.
If anything could have added to the interest of this agreeable scene, it would have been the remarkable fact of Mr. Pickwick’s appearing without his gaiters, for the first time within the memory of his oldest friends.
‘You mean to dance?’ said Wardle.
‘Of course I do,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘Don’t you see I am dressed for the purpose?’ Mr. Pickwick called attention to his speckled silk stockings, and smartly tied pumps.
‘You in silk stockings!’ exclaimed Mr. Tupman jocosely.
‘And why not, sir—why not?’ said Mr. Pickwick, turning warmly upon him. ‘Oh, of course there is no reason why you shouldn’t wear them,’ responded Mr. Tupman.
‘I imagine not, sir—I imagine not,’ said Mr. Pickwick, in a very peremptory tone.
Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter; so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern.
‘I hope they are,’ said Mr. Pickwick, fixing his eyes upon his friend. ‘You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, as stockings, I trust, Sir?’
‘Certainly not. Oh, certainly not,’ replied Mr. Tupman. He walked away; and Mr. Pickwick’s countenance resumed its customary benign expression.
‘We are all ready, I believe,’ said Mr. Pickwick, who was stationed with the old lady at the top of the dance, and had already made four false starts, in his excessive anxiety to commence.
‘Then begin at once,’ said Wardle. ‘Now!’
Up struck the two fiddles and the one harp, and off went Mr. Pickwick into hands across, when there was a general clapping of hands, and a cry of ‘Stop, stop!’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Mr. Pickwick, who was only brought to, by the fiddles and harp desisting, and could have been stopped by no other earthly power, if the house had been on fire. ‘Where’s Arabella Allen?’ cried a dozen voices.
‘And Winkle?‘added Mr. Tupman.
‘Here we are!’ exclaimed that gentleman, emerging with his pretty companion from the corner; as he did so, it would have been hard to tell which was the redder in the face, he or the young lady with the black eyes.
‘What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle,’ said Mr. Pickwick, rather pettishly, ‘that you couldn’t have taken your place before.’
‘Not at all extraordinary,’ said Mr. Winkle.
‘Well,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a very expressive smile, as his eyes rested on Arabella, ‘well, I don’t know that it was extraordinary, either, after all.’
However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick—hands across—down the middle to the very end of the room, and half–way up the chimney, back again to the door—poussette everywhere—loud stamp on the ground—ready for the next couple—off again—all the figure