Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0055/00559.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 17KB | 346 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00559}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Chapter XII - Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{durdles
jasper
himself
bottle
upon
jarsper
way
home
light
mister}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Mystery Of Edwin Drood, The
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter XII - Part II

     It is not until they are gone, that Mr. Jasper moves.  But then he
turns to Durdles, and bursts into a fit of laughter.  Durdles, who still
has that suspended something in his cheek, and who sees nothing to laugh
at stares at him until Mr. Jasper lays his face down on his arms to have
his laugh out.  Then Durdles bolts the something, as if desperately
resigning himself to indigestion.

     Among those secluded nooks there is very little stir or movement
after dark.  There is little enough in the high tide of the day, but there
is next to none at night.  Besides that the cheerfully frequented High
Street lies nearly parallel to the spot (the old Cathedral rising between
the two), and is the natural channel in which the Cloisterham traffic
flows, a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, and
the churchyard, after dark, which not many people care to encounter.  Ask
the first hundred citizens of Cloisterham, met at random in the streets at
noon, if they believed in Ghosts, they would tell you no; but put them to
choose at night between these eerie Precincts and the thoroughfare of
shops, and you would find that ninety-nine declared for the longer round
and the more frequented way.  The cause of this is not to be found in any
local superstition that attaches to the Precincts - albeit a mysterious
lady, with a child in her arms and a rope dangling from her neck, has been
seen flitting about there by sundry witnesses as intangible as herself -
but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking of dust with the breath of
life in it from dust out of which the breath of life has passed; also, in
the widely diffused, and almost as widely unacknowledged, reflection: 'If
the dead do, under any circumstances become visible to the living, these
are such likely surroundings for the purpose that I, the living, will get
out of them as soon as I can.'

     Hence, when Mr. Jasper and Durdles pause to glance around them,
before descending into the crypt by a small side door, of which the latter
has a key, the whole expanse of moonlight in their view is utterly
deserted.  One might fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by Mr.
Jasper's own gatehouse.  The murmur of the tide is heard beyond; but no
wave passes the archway, over which his lamp burns red behind his curtain,
as if the building were a Lighthouse.

     They enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged steps, and are
down in the Crypt.  The lantern is not wanted, for the moonlight strikes
in at the groined windows, bare of glass, the broken frames for which cast
patterns on the ground.  The heavy pillars which support the roof engender
masses of black shade, but between them there are lanes of light.  Up and
down these lanes they walk, Durdles discoursing of the 'old uns' he yet
counts on disinterring, and slapping a wall, in which he considers 'a
whole family on 'em' to be stoned and earthed up, just as if he were a
familiar friend of the family.  The taciturnity of Durdles is for the time
overcome by Mr. Jasper's wicker bottle, which circulates freely; - in the
sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freely into Mr. Durdles's
circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth once, and casts forth
the rinsing.

     They are to ascend the great Tower.  On the steps by which they rise
to the Cathedral, Durdles pauses for new store of breath.  The steps are
very dark, but out of the darkness they can see the lanes of light they
have traversed.  Durdles seats himself upon a step.  Mr. Jasper seats
himself upon another.  The odour from the wicker bottle (which has somehow
passed into Durdles's keeping) soon intimates that the cork has been taken
out; but this is not ascertainable through the sense of sight, since
neither can descry the other.  And yet, in talking, they turn to one
another, as though their faces could commune together.

     'This is good stuff, Mister Jarsper!'

     'It is very good stuff, I hope.  I bought it on purpose.'

     'They don't show, you see, the old uns don't, Mister Jarsper!'

     'It would be a more confused world than it is, if they could.'

     'Well, it would lead towards a mixing of things.' Durdles acquiesces:
pausing on the remark, as if the idea of ghosts had not previously
presented itself to him in a merely inconvenient light, domestically or
chronologically.  'But do you think there may be Ghosts of other things,
though not of men and women?'

     'What things?  Flower-beds and watering-pots?  horses and harness?'

     'No. Sounds.'

     'What sounds?'

     'Cries.'

     'What cries do you mean?  Chairs to mend?'

     'No.  I mean screeches.  Now I'll tell you, Mr. Jarsper.  Wait a bit
till I put the bottle right.' Here the cork is evidently taken out again,
and replaced again.  'There!  Now it's right.  This time last year, only a
few days later, I happened to have been doing what was correct by the
season, in the way of giving it the welcome it had a right to expect, when
them townboys set on me at their worst.  At length I gave 'em the slip,
and turned in here.  And here I fell asleep.  And what woke me?  The ghost
of a cry.  The ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek was followed by
the ghost of the howl of a dog: a long, dismal, woeful howl, such as a dog
gives when a person's dead.  That was my last Christmas Eve.'

     'What do you mean?' is the very abrupt, and, one might say, fierce
retort.

     'I mean that I made inquiries everywhere about, and that no living
ears but mine heard either that cry or that howl.  So I say they was both
ghosts; though why they came to me, I've never made out.'

     'I thought you were another kind of man,' says Jasper, scornfully.

     'So I thought myself,' answers Durdles with his usual composure; 'and
yet I was picked out for it.'

     Jasper had risen suddenly, when he asked him what he meant, and he
now says, 'Come; we shall freeze here; lead the way.'

     Durdles complies, not over-steadily; opens the door at the top of the
steps with the key he has already used; and so emerges on the Cathedral
level, in a passage at the side of the chancel.  Here, the moonlight is so
very bright again that the colours of the nearest stained-glass window are
thrown upon their faces.  The appearance of the unconscious Durdles,
holding the door open for his companion to follow, as if from the grave,
is ghastly enough, with a purple band across his face, and a yellow splash
upon his brow; but he bears the close scrutiny of his companion in an
insensible way, although it is prolonged while the latter fumbles among
his pockets for a key confided to him that will open an iron gate, so to
enable them to pass to the staircase of the great tower.

     'That and the bottle are enough for you to carry,' he says, giving it
to Durdles; 'hand your bundle to me; I am younger and longer-winded than
you.' Durdles hesitates for a moment between bundle and bottle; but gives
the preference to the bottle as being by far the better company, and
consigns the dry weight to his fellow-explorer.

     Then they go up the winding staircase of the great tower, toilsomely,
turning and turning, and lowering their heads to avoid the stairs above,
or the rough stone pivot around which they twist.  Durdles has lighted his
lantern, by drawing from the cold, hard wall a spark of that mysterious
fire which lurks in everything, and guided by this speck, they clamber up
among the cob-webs and the dust.  Their way lies through strange places.
Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-arched galleries, whence they
can look down into the moonlit nave; and where Durdles, waving his
lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming
to watch their progress.  Anon they turn into narrower and steeper
staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of
some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of
wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon
their heads.  At last, leaving their light behind a stair - for it blows
fresh up here - they look down on Cloisterham, fair to see in the
moonlight: its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead, at the
tower's base: its moss-softened red-tiled roofs and red-brick houses of
the living, clustered beyond: its river winding down from the mist on the
horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving with a
restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea.

     Once again, an unaccountable expedition this!  Jasper (always moving
softly with no visible reason) contemplates the scene, and especially that
stillest part of it which the Cathedral overshadows.  But he contemplates
Durdles quite as curiously, and Durdles is by times conscious of his
watchful eyes.

     Only by times, because Durdles is growing drowsy.  As aeronauts
lighten the load they carry, when they wish to rise, similarly Durdles has
lightened the wicker bottle in coming up.  Snatches of sleep surprise him
on his legs, and stop him in his talk.  A mild fit of calenture seizes
him, in which he deems that the ground so far below, is on a level with
the tower, and would as lief walk off the tower into the air as not.  Such
is his state when they begin to come down.  And as aeronauts make
themselves heavier when they wish to descend, similarly Durdles charges
himself with more liquid from the wicker bottle, that he may come down the
better.

     The iron gate attained and locked - but not before Durdles has
tumbled twice, and cut an eyebrow open once - they descend into the crypt
again, with the intent of issuing forth as they entered.  But, while
returning among those lanes of light, Durdles becomes so very uncertain,
both of foot and speech, that he half drops, half throws himself down, by
one of the heavy pillars, scarcely less heavy than itself, and
indistinctly appeals to his companion for forty winks of a second each.

     'If you will have it so, or must have it so,' replies Jasper, 'I'll
not leave you here.  Take them, while I walk to and fro.'

     Durdles is asleep at once; and in his sleep he dreams a dream.

     It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of the domains
of dreamland, and their wonderful productions; it is only remarkable for
being unusually restless and unusually real.  He dreams of lying there,
asleep, and yet counting his companion's footsteps as he walks to and fro.
He dreams that the footsteps die away into distance of time and of space,
and that something touches him, and that something falls from his hand.
Then something clinks and gropes about, and he dreams that he is alone for
so long a time, that the lanes of light take new directions as the moon
advances in her course.  From succeeding unconsciousness he passes into a
dream of slow uneasiness from cold; and painfully awakes to a perception
of the lanes of light - really changed, much as he had dreamed - and
Jasper walking among them, beating his hands and feet.

     'Holloa!' Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed.

     'Awake at last?' says Jasper, coming up to him.  'Do you know that
your forties have stretched into thousands?'

     'No.'

     'They have though.'

     'What's the time?'

     'Hark!  The bells are going in the Tower!'

     They strike four quarters, and then the great bell strikes.

     'Two!' cries Durdles, scrambling up; 'why didn't you try to wake me,
Mister Jarsper?'

     'I did.  I might as well have tried to wake the dead - your own
family of dead, up in the corner there.'

     'Did you touch me?'

     'Touch you!  Yes.  Shook you.'

     As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks
down on the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to
where he himself lay.

     'I dropped you, did I?' he says, picking it up, and recalling that
part of his dream.  As he gathers himself up again into an upright
position, or into a position as nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is
again conscious of being watched by his companion.

     'Well?' says Jasper, smiling, 'are you quite ready?  Pray don't hurry.'

     'Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I'm with you.'

     As he ties it afresh, he is once more conscious that he is very narrowly
observed.

     'What do you suspect me of, Mister Jarsper?' he asks, with drunken
displeasure.  'Let them as has any suspicions of Durdles name 'em.'

     'I've no suspicions of you, my good Mr. Durdles; but I have suspicions
that my bottle was filled with something stiffer than either of us supposed.
And I also have suspicions,' Jasper adds, taking it from the pavement and
turning it bottom upwards, 'that it's empty.'

     Durdles condescends to laugh at this.  Continuing to chuckle when his
laugh is over, as though remonstrant with himself on his drinking powers, he
rolls to the door and unlocks it.  They both pass out, and Durdles relocks it,
and pockets his key.

     'A thousand thanks for a curious and interesting night,' says Jasper,
giving him his hand; 'you can make your own way home?'

     'I should think so!' answers Durdles.  'If you was to offer Durdles the
affront to show him his way home, he wouldn't go home.

     Durdles wouldn't go home till morning;
     And then Durdles wouldn't go home,

Durdles wouldn't.' This with the utmost defiance.

     'Good-night, then.'

     Good-night, Mister Jarsper.'

     Each is turning his own way, when a sharp whistle rends the silence, and
the jargon is yelped out:

     'Widdy widdy wen!
     I - ket - ches - Im - out - ar - ter - ten.
     Widdy widdy wy!
     Then - E - don't - go - then - I - shy -
     Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning!'

Instantly afterwards, a rapid fire of stones rattle at the Cathedral wall, and
the hideous small boy is beheld opposite, dancing in the moonlight.

     'What!  Is that baby-devil on the watch there!' cries Jasper in a fury:
so quickly roused, and so violent, that he seems an older devil himself.  'I
shall shed the blood of that impish wretch!  I know I shall do it!' Regardless
of the fire, though it hits him more than once, he rushes at Deputy, collars
him, and tries to bring him across.  But Deputy is not to be so easily brought
across.  With a diabolical insight into the strongest part of his position, he
is no sooner taken by the throat than he curls up his legs, forces his
assailant to hang him as it were, and gurgles in his throat, and screws his
body, and twists, as already undergoing the first agonies of strangulation.
There is nothing for it but to drop him.  He instantly gets himself together,
backs over to Durdles, and cries to his assailant, gnashing the great gap in
front of his mouth with rage and malice:

     'I'll blind yer, s'elp me!  I'll stone yer eyes out, s'elp me!  If I
don't have yer eyesight, bellows me!' At the same time dodging behind Durdles,
and snarling at Jasper, now from this side of him, and now from that:
prepared, if pounced upon, to dart away in all manner of curvilinear
directions, and, if run down after all, to grovel in the dust, and cry: 'Now,
hit me when I'm down!  Do it!'

     'Don't hurt the boy, Mister Jarsper,' urges Durdles, shielding him.
'Recollect yourself.'

     'He followed us to-night, when we first came here!'

     'Yer lie, I didn't!' replies Deputy, in his one form of polite
contradiction.

     'He has been prowling near us ever since!'

     'Yer lie, I haven't,' returns Deputy.  'I'd only jist come out for my
'elth when I see you two a-coming out of the Kinfreederel.  If

     'I - ket - ches - Im - out - ar - ter - ten!'

(with the usual rhythm and dance, though dodging behind Durdles), 'it ain't my
fault, is it?'

     'Take him home, then,' retorts Jasper, ferociously, though with a strong
check upon himself, 'and let my eyes be rid of the sight of you!'

     Deputy, with another sharp whistle, at once expressing his relief, and
his commencement of a milder stoning of Mr. Durdles, begins stoning that
respectable gentleman home, as if he were a reluctant ox.  Mr. Jasper goes to
his gatehouse, brooding.  And thus, as everything comes to an end, the
unaccountable expedition comes to an end - for the time.