Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0062/00620.txt

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Message From The Sea
Chapter III - Part II}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{landlord
little
room
place
upon
house
now
wine
carriage
doors}
$Date{}
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Title:       (A) Message From The Sea
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter III - Part II

     It was a miserable day in the month of October.  A perfectly gray sky,
with white gleams about the horizon, gave unmistakable evidence that the small
drizzle which was falling would continue for four-and-twenty hours at least.
It was cold and cheerless weather, and on the deserted road I was pursuing
there was scarcely a human being (unless it was an occasional cantonnier, or
roadmender) to break the solitude.  A deserted way indeed, with poplars on
each side of it, which had turned yellow in the autumn, and had shed their
leaves in abundance all across the road, so that the my mare's footsteps had
quite a muffled sound as she trampled them under her hoofs.  Widely extended
flats spread out on either side till the view was lost in an inconceivably
melancholy scene, and the road itself was so perfectly straight, that you
could see something like ten miles of it diminishing to a point in front of
you, while a similar view was visible through the little window at the back of
the carriage.

     In the hurry of the morning's departure, I had omitted to inquire, as I
generally did in travelling an unknown road, at what village it would be best
for me to stop, about noon, to bait, and what was the name of the most
respectable house of public entertainment in my way; so that when I arrived,
between twelve and one o'clock, at a certain place where four roads met, and
when, at one of the corners formed by their union, I saw a great barelooking
inn, with the sign of the Tete Noire swinging in front, I had nothing for it
but to put up there, without knowing anything of the character of the house.

     The look of the place did not please me.  It was a great, bare,
uninhabited-looking house, which seemed much larger than was necessary, and
presented a black and dirty appearance, which, considering the distance from
any town, it was difficult to account for.  All the doors and all the windows
were shut; there was no sign of any living creature about the place; and
niched into the wall above the principal entrance was a grim and
ghastly-looking life-size figure of a saint.  For a moment I hesitated whether
I should turn into the open gates of the stable-yard, or go farther in search
of some more attractive halting-place.  But my mare was tired, I was more than
half-way on my road, and this would be the best division of the journey.
Besides, gentlemen, why not put up here?  If I was only going to stop at such
places of entertainment as completely satisfied me, externally as well as
internally, I had better give up travelling altogether.

     There were no more signs of life in the interior of the yard than were
presented by the external aspect of the house as it fronted the road.
Everything seemed shut up.  All the stables and out-houses were characterized
by closed doors, without so much as a straw clinging to their thresholds to
indicate that these buildings were sometimes put to a practical use.  I saw no
manure strewed about the place, and no living creature; no pigs, no ducks, no
fowls.  It was perfectly still and quiet, and as it was one of those days when
a fine small rain descends quite straight, without a breath of air to drive it
one way or the other, the silence was complete and distressing.  I gave a loud
shout, and began undoing the harness while my summons was taking effect.

     The first person whom the sound of my voice appeared to have reached was
a small but precocious boy, who opened a door in the back of the house, and
descending the flight of steps which led to it, approached to aid me in my
task.  I was just undoing the final buckle on my side of the harness, when,
happening to turn round, I discovered, standing close behind me, a personage
who had approached so quietly that it would have been a confusing thing to
find him so near, even if there had been nothing in his appearance which was
calculated to startle one.  He was the most ill-looking man, gentlemen, that
it was ever my fortune to behold.  Nearer fifty than any other age I could
give him, his dry, spare nature had kept him as light and active as a restless
boy.  An absence of flesh, however, was not the only want I felt to exist in
the personal appearance of the landlord of the Tete Noire.  There was a much
more serious defect in him than this.  A want of any hint of mercy, or
conscience, or any accessible approach to the better side (if there was a
better side) of the man's nature.  When first I looked at his eyes, as he
stood behind me in the open court, and as they rapidly glanced over the comely
points of my horse, and thence to the packages inside my carriage, and the
portmanteau strapped on in front of it, - at that time the colour of his eyes
appeared to me to be of an almost orange tinge; but when, a minute afterward,
we stood together in the dark stable, I noted that a kind of blue
phosphorescence gleamed upon their surface, veiling their real hue, and
imparting to them a tigerish lustre.  The moment when I remarked this, by the
by, was when the organs I have been describing were fixed upon the very large
gold ring which I had not ceased to wear when I adopted my adventurous life,
and which you may see upon my finger now.  There were two other things about
this man that struck me.  These were a bald red-projecting lump of flesh at
the back of his head, and a deep scar, which a scrap of frowzy whisker on his
cheek wholly declined to conceal.

     "A nasty day for a journey of pleasure," said the landlord, looking at me
with a satirical smile.

     "Perhaps it is not a journey of pleasure," I answered, dryly.

     "We have few such travellers on the road now," said the evil-faced man.
"The railroads make the country a desert, and the roads are as wild as they
were three hundred years ago."

     "They are well enough," I answered carelessly, "for those who are obliged
to travel by them.  Nobody else, I should think, would be likely to make use
of them."

     "Will you come into the house?" said the landlord, abruptly, looking me
full in the face.

     I never felt a stronger repugnance than I entertained toward the idea of
entering this man's doors.  Yet what other course was open to me?  My mare was
already half through the first instalment of her oats, so there was no more
excuse for remaining in the stable.  To take a walk in the drenching rain was
out of the question, and to remain sitting in my caleche would have been a
worse indication of suspicion and mistrust. Besides, I had had nothing since
the morning's coffee, and I wanted something to eat and drink.  There was
nothing to be done, then, but to accept my ill-looking friend's offer.  He led
the way up the flight of steps which gave access to the interior of the
building.

     The room in which I found myself on passing through the door at the top
of these steps was one of those rooms which an excess of light not only fails
to enliven, but seems even to invest with an additional degree of gloom.
There is sometimes this character about light, and I have seen before now a
workhouse ward, and a barren schoolroom, which have owed a good share of their
melancholy to an immoderate amount of cold, gray daylight.  This room, then,
into which I was shown, was one of those which, on a wet day, seemed several
degrees lighter than the open air.  Of course it could not be really lighter
than the thing that lit it, but it seemed so.  It also appeared larger than
the whole out-door world; and this, certainly, could not be, either, but
seemed so.  Vast as it was, there appeared through two glass doors in one of
the walls another apartment of similar dimensions.  It was not a square room,
nor an oblong room, but was smaller at one end than at the other; a phenomenon
which, as you have very likely observed, gentlemen, has always an unpleasant
effect. The billiard-table, which stood in the middle of the apartment, though
really of the usual size, looked quite a trifling piece of furniture; and as
to the other tables, which were planted sparingly here and there for purposes
of refreshment, they were quite lost in the immensity of space about them.  A
cupboard, a rack of billiard cues, a marking-board, and a print of the murder
of the Archbishop of Paris, in a black frame, alone broke the uniformity of
wall.  The ceiling, as far as one could judge of anything at that altitude,
appeared to be traversed by an enormous beam with rings fastened into it
adapted for suicidal purposes, and splashed with the whitewash with which the
ceiling itself and the walls had just been decorated.  Even my little terrier,
whom I had been obliged to take up in my arms on account of the disposition
she had manifested to fly at the shins of our detested landlord, looked around
the room with a gaze of horror as I set her down, and trembled and shivered as
if she would come out of her skin.

     "And so you don't like him, Nelly, and your little beads of eyes, that
look up at me from under that hairy pent-house, with nothing but love in them,
are all ablaze with fury when they are turned upon his sinister face?  And how
did he get that scar, Nelly?  Did he get it when he slaughtered his last
traveller?  And what do you think of his eyes, Nelly? And what do you think of
the back of his head, my dog?  What do you think he's about now, eh?  What
mischief do you think he's hatching?  Don't you think he's hatching?  Don't
you wish you were sitting by my side in the caleche, and that we were out on
the free road again?"

     To all these questions and remarks, my little companion responded very
intelligibly by faint thumpings of the ground with her tail, and by certain
flutterings of her ears, which, from long habits of intercourse, I understood
very well to mean that whatever my opinion might be she coincided in it.

     I had ordered an omelet and some wine when I first entered the house,
and, as I now sat waiting for it, I observed that my landlord would every now
and then leave what he was about in the other room - where I concluded that he
was engaged preparing my meal - and would come and peer at me furtively
through the glass doors which connected the room I was in with that in which
he was.  Once, too, I heard him go out, and I felt sure that he had retired to
the stables, to examine more minutely the value of my horse and carriage.

     I took it into my head that my landlord was a desperate rogue; that his
business was not sufficient to support him; that he had remarked that I was in
possession of a very valuable horse and carriage, which would fetch something,
and a quantity of luggage in which there were probably articles of price.  I
had other things of worth about my person, including a sum of money, without
which I could not be travelling about, as he saw me, from place to place.

     While my mind was amusing itself with these cheerful reflections a little
girl, of about twelve years old, entered the room through the glass doors,
and, after honouring me with a long stare, went to the cupboard at the other
end of the apartment, and, opening it with a bunch of keys which she brought
with her in her hand, took out a small white paper packet, about four inches
square, and retired with it by the way by which she had entered; still staring
at me so diligently that from want of proper attention to where she was going,
she got (I am happy to state) a severe bump against the door as she passed
through it.  She was a horrid little girl this, with eyes that in shirking the
necessity of looking straight at anybody or any thing, had got at last to look
only at her nose, - finding it, probably, as bad a nose as could be met with,
and therefore a congenial companion.  She had, moreover, frizzy and fluey
hair, was excessively dirty, and had a slow, crab-like way of going along
without looking at what she was about, which was very noisome and detestable.

     It was not long before this young lady reappeared, bearing in her hand a
plate containing the omelet, which she placed upon the table without going
through the previous form of laying a cloth.  She next cut an immense piece of
bread from a loaf shaped like a ring, and, having clapped this also down upon
the dirtiest part of the table, and having further favoured me with a wiped
knife and fork, disappeared once more. She disappeared to fetch the wine.
When this had been brought, and some water, the preparations for my feast were
considered complete, and I was left to enjoy it alone.

     I must not omit to mention that the horrid waiting-maid appeared to
excite as strong an antipathy in the breast of my little dog as that which my
landlord himself had stirred up; and I am happy to say, that, as the child
left the room, I was obliged to interfere to prevent Nelly from harassing her
retreating calves.

     Gentlemen, an experienced traveller soon learns that he must eat to
support nature; closing his eyes, nose, and ears to all suggestions.  I set to
work then at the omelet with energy, and at the tough, sour bread with
good-will, and had swallowed half a tumbler of wine and water, when a thought
suddenly occurred to me which caused me to set the glass down upon the table.
I had no sooner done this than I raised it again to my lips, took a fresh sip,
rolled the liquid about in my mouth two or three times, and spat it out upon
the floor.  But I uttered as I did so, in an audible tone, the monosyllable
"Pooh!"

     "Pooh!  Nelly," I said, looking down at my dog, who was watching me
intensely with her head on one side, - "pooh!  Nelly," I repeated, "what
frantic and inconceivable nonsense!"

     And what was it that I thus stigmatized?  What was it that had made me
pause in the middle of my draught?  What thought was it that caused me to set
down my glass with half its contents remaining in it?  It was a suspicion,
driven straight and swift as an arrow into the innermost recesses of my soul,
that the wine I had just been drinking, and which, contrary to my custom, I
had mingled with water, was drugged!

     There are some thoughts which, like noxious insects, come buzzing back
into one's mind as often as we repulse them.  We confute them in argument,
prove them illogical, leave them not a leg to stand upon, and yet there they
are the next moment as brisk as bees, and stronger on their pins than ever.
It was just such a thought as this with which I had now to deal.  It was well
to say "Pooh!" It was well to remind myself that this was the nineteenth
century, that I was not acting a part in a French melodrama, that such things
as I was thinking of were only known in romances; it was well to argue that to
set a respectable man down as a murderer, because he had peculiar colored
eyes, and a scar upon his cheek, were ridiculous things to do.  There seemed
to be two separate parties within me, - one possessed of great powers of
argument and a cool judgment; the other, an irrational or opposition party,
whose chief force consisted in a system of dogged assertion which all the
arguments of the rational party were insufficient to put down.

     It was not long before an additional force was imparted to the tactics of
the irrational party, by certain symptoms which began to develope themselves
in my internal organization, and which seemed favourable to the view of the
case I was so anxious to refute.  In spite of all my efforts to the contrary,
I could not help feeling that some very remarkable sensations were slowly and
gradually stealing over me.  First of all, I began to find that I was a little
at fault in my system of calculating distances; so that when I took up any
object and attempted to replace it on the table, I either brought it into
contact with that article of furniture with a crash, in consequence of
conceiving it to be lower than it was; or else, imagining that the table was
several inches nearer to the ceiling than was the case, I abandoned whatever I
held in my hand sooner than I should, and found that I was confiding it to
space. Then, again, my head felt light upon my shoulders, there was a slight
tingling in my hands, and a sense that they, as well as my feet (which were
very cold) were swelling to gigantic size, and were also surrounded with
numerous, rapidly-revolving wheels of a light structure, like Catharine-wheels
previous to ignition.  It also appeared to me that when I spoke to my dog, my
voice had a curious sound, and my words were very imperfectly articulated.

     It would happen, too, that when I looked toward the glass doors, my
landlord was there, peering at me through the muslin curtain; or the horrid
little girl would enter with no obvious intention, and having loitered for a
little time about the room, would leave it again.  At length the landlord
himself came in, and coolly walking up to the table at which I was seated,
glanced at the hardly tasted wine before me.

     "It would appear that the wine of the country is not to your taste," he
said.

     "It is good enough," I answered, as carelessly as I could; the words
sounding to me as if they were uttered inside the cupola of St. Paul's, and
were conveyed by iron tubes to the place I occupied.

     I was in a strange state, - perfectly conscious, but imperfectly able to
control my thoughts, my words, my actions.  I believe my landlord stood
staring down at me as I sat staring up at him, and watching the
Catharine-wheels as they revolved round his eyes, and nose, and chin -
gentlemen, they seemed absolutely to fizz when they got to the scar on his
cheek.

     At this time a noisy party entered the main room of the auberge, which I
have described as being visible though the glass-doors, and the landlord had
to leave me for a time to go and attend to them.  I think I must have fallen
into a slight and strongly resisted doze, and that when I started out of it it
was in consequence of the violent barking of my terrier.  The landlord was in
the room; he was just unlocking the cupboard from which the little girl had
taken the paper parcel.  He took out just such another paper parcel, and
returned again though the doors.  As he did so, I remember stupidly wondering
what had become of the little girl. Presently his evil face appeared again at
the door.

     "I am going to prepare the coffee," said the landlord; "perhaps monsieur
will like it better than the wine."

     As the man disappeared I started suddenly and violently upon my feet. I
could deceive myself no longer.  My thoughts were like lightning.  "The wine
having been taken in so small a quantity and so profusely mixed with water,
has done its work (as this man can see) but imperfectly.  The coffee will
finish that work.  He is now preparing it.  The cupboard, the little parcel -
there can be no doubt.  I will leave this place while I yet can.  Now or
never; if those men whose voices I hear in the other room leave the house, it
will be too late.  With so many witnesses no attempt will be made to prevent
my departure.  I will not sleep, - I will act, - I will force my muscles to
their work, and get away from this place."

     Gentlemen, in compensation for a set of nerves of distressing
sensitiveness, I have received from nature a remarkable power of controlling
my nerves for a time.  I staggered to the door, closing it after me more
violently than I had intended, and descended - the fresh air making me feel
very giddy - into the yard.

     As I went down the steps I saw the little girl of whom I have already
spoken entering the yard, followed by a blacksmith, carrying a hammer and some
other implements of his trade.  Catching sight of me, the girl spoke quickly
to the blacksmith, and in an instant they both changed their course, which was
directed toward the stable, and entered an outhouse on the other side of the
yard.  The thought entered my head that this man had been sent for to drive a
nail into my horse's foot, so that in the event of the drugged wine failing I
might still be unable to proceed.  This horrible idea added new force to my
exertions.  I seized the shafts of my carriage and commenced dragging it out
of the yard and round to the front of the house; feeling that if it was once
in the highway there would be less possibility of offering any impediment to
my starting.  I am conscious of having fallen twice to the ground in my
struggles to get the carriage out of the yard.  Next I hastened to the stable.
My mare was still harnessed, with the exception of the headstall.  I managed
to get the bit into her mouth, and dragged her to the place where I had left
the carriage.  After I know not how many efforts to place the docile beast in
the shafts - for I was as incapable of calculating distances as a drunken man
- I recollect, but how I know not, securing the assistance of the boy I had
seen.  I was making a final effort to fasten the trace to its little pin, when
a voice behind me said,

     "Are you going away without drinking your coffee?"

     I turned round and saw may landlord standing close beside me.  He was
watching my bungling efforts to secure the harness, but he made no movement to
assist me.

     "I do not want any coffee," I answered.

     "No coffee, and no wine!  It would appear that the gentleman is not a
great drinker.  You have not given your horse much of a rest," he added,
presently.

     "I am in haste.  What have I to pay?"

     "You will take something else," said the landlord; "a glass of brandy
before starting in the wet?"

     "No, nothing more.  What have I to pay?"

     "You will at least come in for an instant, and warm your feet at the
stove?"

     "No.  Tell me at once how much I am to pay."

     Baffled in all his efforts to get me again into the house, my detested
landlord had nothing for it but to answer my demand.

     "Four litres of oats," he muttered, "a half-truss of hay, breakfast,
wine, coffee," - he emphasized the last two words with a malignant grin, -
"seven francs fifty centimes."

     My mare was by this time somehow or other buckled into the shafts, and
now I had to get out my purse to pay this demand.  My hands were cold, my head
was giddy, my sight was dim, and, as I brought out my purse (which was a
porte-monnaie, opening with a hinge), I managed while paying the bill to turn
the purse over and to drop some gold pieces.

     "Gold!" cried the boy who had been helping me to harness the horse,
speaking as if by an irresistible impulse.

     The landlord made a sudden dart at it, but instantly checked himself.

     "People want plenty of gold," he said, "when they make a journey of
pleasure."

     I felt myself getting worse.  I could not pick up the gold pieces as they
lay on the ground.  I fell on my knees, and my head bowed forward.  I could
not hit the place where a coin lay; I could see it, but I could not guide my
fingers to it.  Still I did not yield.  I got some of the money up, and the
stable-boy, who was very officious in assisting me, gave me one or two pieces,
- to this day I don't know how many he kept.  I cast a hasty glance, and
seeing no more gold on the ground, raised myself by a desperate effort, and
scrambled to my place in the carriage.  I shook the reins instinctively, and
the mare began to move.

     The well-trained beast was beginning to trot away as cleverly as usual,
when a thought suddenly flashed into my brain, as will sometimes happen when
we are just going to sleep, - a thought which woke me up like a pistol-shot,
and caused me to spring forward and gather up the reins so violently as almost
to bring the mare back upon her haunches.

     "My dog, my dear little Nelly!" I had left her behind!

     To abandon my little favourite was a thing that never entered my head.
"No, I must return.  I must go back to the horrible place I have just escaped
from.  He has seen my gold, too, now," I said to myself as I turned my horse's
head with many clumsy efforts; "the men who were drinking in the auberge are
gone; and, what is worse than all, I feel more under the influence of the drug
I have swallowed."

     As I approached the auberge once more I remember noticing that its walls
looked blacker than ever, that the rain was falling more heavily, that the
landlord and the stable-boy were on the steps of the inn, evidently on the
look-out for me.  One thing more I noticed, - on the road a small speck, as of
some vehicle nearing the place.

     "I have come back for my dog," said I.

     "I know nothing of your dog."

     "It is false!  I left her shut up in the inner room."

     "Go there and find her then," retorted the man, throwing off all
disguise.

     "I will," was my answer.

     I knew it was a trap to get me into the house; I knew I was lost if I
entered it; but I did not care.  I descended from the carriage, I clambered up
the steps with the aid of the balusters, I heard the barking of my little
Nelly as I passed through the outer room and approached the glass doors,
steadying myself as I went by the articles of furniture in the room.  I burst
the doors open, and my favourite bounded into my arms.

     And now I felt that it was too late.  As I approached the door that
opened to the road, I saw my carriage being led round to the back of the
house, and the form of the landlord appeared in the door-way blocking up the
passage.  I made an effort to push past him, but it was useless.  My little
Nelly fell out of my arms on the steps outside; the landlord slammed the door
heavily; and I fell without sense of knowledge at his feet.

     * * * * * *