The Uncommercial Traveller

by Dickens, Charles

dinners, which led to a dancing worse than speech-making. So is

  the cave where the flaring eyes of the old goat made such a goblin

  appearance in the dark. So is the site of the hut where Robinson

  lived with the dog and the parrot and the cat, and where he endured

  those first agonies of solitude, which - strange to say - never

  involved any ghostly fancies; a circumstance so very remarkable,

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  that perhaps he left out something in writing his record? Round

  hundreds of such objects, hidden in the dense tropical foliage, the

  tropical sea breaks evermore; and over them the tropical sky,

  saving in the short rainy season, shines bright and cloudless.

  Neither, was I ever belated among wolves, on the borders of France

  and Spain; nor, did I ever, when night was closing in and the

  ground was covered with snow, draw up my little company among some

  felled trees which served as a breastwork, and there fire a train

  of gunpowder so dexterously that suddenly we had three or four

  score blazing wolves illuminating the darkness around us.

  Nevertheless, I occasionally go back to that dismal region and

  perform the feat again; when indeed to smell the singeing and the

  frying of the wolves afire, and to see them setting one another

  alight as they rush and tumble, and to behold them rolling in the

  snow vainly attempting to put themselves out, and to hear their

  howlings taken up by all the echoes as well as by all the unseen

  wolves within the woods, makes me tremble.

  I was never in the robbers' cave, where Gil Blas lived, but I often

  go back there and find the trap-door just as heavy to raise as it

  used to be, while that wicked old disabled Black lies everlastingly

  cursing in bed. I was never in Don Quixote's study, where he read

  his books of chivalry until he rose and hacked at imaginary giants,

  and then refreshed himself with great draughts of water, yet you

  couldn't move a book in it without my knowledge, or with my

  consent. I was never (thank Heaven) in company with the little old

  woman who hobbled out of the chest and told the merchant Abudah to

  go in search of the Talisman of Oromanes, yet I make it my business

  to know that she is well preserved and as intolerable as ever. I

  was never at the school where the boy Horatio Nelson got out of bed

  to steal the pears: not because he wanted any, but because every

  other boy was afraid: yet I have several times been back to this

  Academy, to see him let down out of window with a sheet. So with

  Damascus, and Bagdad, and Brobingnag (which has the curious fate of

  being usually misspelt when written), and Lilliput, and Laputa, and

  the Nile, and Abyssinia, and the Ganges, and the North Pole, and

  many hundreds of places - I was never at them, yet it is an affair

  of my life to keep them intact, and I am always going back to them.

  But, when I was in Dullborough one day, revisiting the associations

  of my childhood as recorded in previous pages of these notes, my

  experience in this wise was made quite inconsiderable and of no

  account, by the quantity of places and people - utterly impossible

  places and people, but none the less alarmingly real - that I found

  I had been introduced to by my nurse before I was six years old,

  and used to be forced to go back to at night without at all wanting

  to go. If we all knew our own minds (in a more enlarged sense than

  the popular acceptation of that phrase), I suspect we should find

  our nurses responsible for most of the dark corners we are forced

  to go back to, against our wills.

  The first diabolical character who intruded himself on my peaceful

  youth (as I called to mind that day at Dullborough), was a certain

  Captain Murderer. This wretch must have been an off-shoot of the

  Blue Beard family, but I had no suspicion of the consanguinity in

  those times. His warning name would seem to have awakened no

  general prejudice against him, for he was admitted into the best

  society and possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer's mission

  was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with

  tender brides. On his marriage morning, he always caused both

  sides of the way to church to be planted with curious flowers; and

  when his bride said, 'Dear Captain Murderer, I ever saw flowers

  like these before: what are they called?' he answered, 'They are

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  called Garnish for house-lamb,' and laughed at his ferocious

  practical joke in a horrid manner, disquieting the minds of the

  noble bridal company, with a very sharp show of teeth, then

  displayed for the first time. He made love in a coach and six, and

  married in a coach and twelve, and all his horses were milk-white

  horses with one red spot on the back which he caused to be hidden

  by the harness. For, the spot WOULD come there, though every horse

  was milk-white when Captain Murderer bought him. And the spot was

  young bride's blood. (To this terrific point I am indebted for my

  first personal experience of a shudder and cold beads on the

  forehead.) When Captain Murderer had made an end of feasting and

  revelry, and had dismissed the noble guests, and was alone with his

  wife on the day month after their marriage, it was his whimsical

  custom to produce a golden rolling-pin and a silver pie-board.

  Now, there was this special feature in the Captain's courtships,

  that he always asked if the young lady could make pie-crust; and if

  she couldn't by nature or education, she was taught. Well. When

  the bride saw Captain Murderer produce the golden rolling-pin and

  silver pie-board, she remembered this, and turned up her laced-silk

  sleeves to make a pie. The Captain brought out a silver pie-dish

  of immense capacity, and the Captain brought out flour and butter

  and eggs and all things needful, except the inside of the pie; of

  materials for the staple of the pie itself, the Captain brought out

  none. Then said the lovely bride, 'Dear Captain Murderer, what pie

  is this to be?' He replied, 'A meat pie.' Then said the lovely

  bride, 'Dear Captain Murderer, I see no meat.' The Captain

  humorously retorted, 'Look in the glass.' She looked in the glass,

  but still she saw no meat, and then the Captain roared with

  laughter, and suddenly frowning and drawing his sword, bade her

  roll out the crust. So she rolled out the crust, dropping large

  tears upon it all the time because he was so cross, and when she

  had lined the dish with crust and had cut the crust all ready to

  fit the top, the Captain called out, 'I see the meat in the glass!'

  And the bride looked up at the glass, just in time to see the

  Captain cutting her head off; and he chopped her in pieces, and

  peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it

  to the baker's, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

  Captain Murderer went on in this way, prospering exceedingly, until

  he came to choose a bride from two twin sisters, and at first

  didn't know which to choose. For,
though one was fair and the

  other dark, they were both equally beautiful. But the fair twin

  loved him, and the dark twin hated him, so he chose the fair one.

  The dark twin would have prevented the marriage if she could, but

  she couldn't; however, on the night before it, much suspecting

  Captain Murderer, she stole out and climbed his garden wall, and

  looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter, and saw him

  having his teeth filed sharp. Next day she listened all day, and

  heard him make his joke about the house-lamb. And that day month,

  he had the paste rolled out, and cut the fair twin's head off, and

  chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put

  her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and ate it all, and

  picked the bones.

  Now, the dark twin had had her suspicions much increased by the

  filing of the Captain's teeth, and again by the house-lamb joke.

  Putting all things together when he gave out that her sister was

  dead, she divined the truth, and determined to be revenged. So,

  she went up to Captain Murderer's house, and knocked at the knocker

  and pulled at the bell, and when the Captain came to the door,

  said: 'Dear Captain Murderer, marry me next, for I always loved

  you and was jealous of my sister.' The Captain took it as a

  compliment, and made a polite answer, and the marriage was quickly

  arranged. On the night before it, the bride again climbed to his

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  window, and again saw him having his teeth filed sharp. At this

  sight she laughed such a terrible laugh at the chink in the

  shutter, that the Captain's blood curdled, and he said: 'I hope

  nothing has disagreed with me!' At that, she laughed again, a

  still more terrible laugh, and the shutter was opened and search

  made, but she was nimbly gone, and there was no one. Next day they

  went to church in a coach and twelve, and were married. And that

  day month, she rolled the pie-crust out, and Captain Murderer cut

  her head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and

  salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and

  ate it all, and picked the bones.

  But before she began to roll out the paste she had taken a deadly

  poison of a most awful character, distilled from toads' eyes and

  spiders' knees; and Captain Murderer had hardly picked her last

  bone, when he began to swell, and to turn blue, and to be all over

  spots, and to scream. And he went on swelling and turning bluer,

  and being more all over spots and screaming, until he reached from

  floor to ceiling and from wall to wall; and then, at one o'clock in

  the morning, he blew up with a loud explosion. At the sound of it,

  all the milk-white horses in the stables broke their halters and

  went mad, and then they galloped over everybody in Captain

  Murderer's house (beginning with the family blacksmith who had

  filed his teeth) until the whole were dead, and then they galloped

  away.

  Hundreds of times did I hear this legend of Captain Murderer, in my

  early youth, and added hundreds of times was there a mental

  compulsion upon me in bed, to peep in at his window as the dark

  twin peeped, and to revisit his horrible house, and look at him in

  his blue and spotty and screaming stage, as he reached from floor

  to ceiling and from wall to wall. The young woman who brought me

  acquainted with Captain Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of my

  terrors, and used to begin, I remember - as a sort of introductory

  overture - by clawing the air with both hands, and uttering a long

  low hollow groan. So acutely did I suffer from this ceremony in

  combination with this infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to

  plead I thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough to hear

  the story again just yet. But, she never spared me one word of it,

  and indeed commanded the awful chalice to my lips as the only

  preservative known to science against 'The Black Cat' - a weird and

  glaring-eyed supernatural Tom, who was reputed to prowl about the

  world by night, sucking the breath of infancy, and who was endowed

  with a special thirst (as I was given to understand) for mine.

  This female bard - may she have been repaid my debt of obligation

  to her in the matter of nightmares and perspirations! - reappears

  in my memory as the daughter of a shipwright. Her name was Mercy,

  though she had none on me. There was something of a shipbuilding

  flavour in the following story. As it always recurs to me in a

  vague association with calomel pills, I believe it to have been

  reserved for dull nights when I was low with medicine.

  There was once a shipwright, and he wrought in a Government Yard,

  and his name was Chips. And his father's name before him was

  Chips, and HIS father's name before HIM was Chips, and they were

  all Chipses. And Chips the father had sold himself to the Devil

  for an iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny nails and half a ton of

  copper and a rat that could speak; and Chips the grandfather had

  sold himself to the Devil for an iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny

  nails and half a ton of copper and a rat that could speak; and

  Chips the great-grandfather had disposed of himself in the same

  direction on the same terms; and the bargain had run in the family

  for a long, long time. So, one day, when young Chips was at work

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  in the Dock Slip all alone, down in the dark hold of an old

  Seventy-four that was haled up for repairs, the Devil presented

  himself, and remarked:

  'A Lemon has pips,

  And a Yard has ships,

  And I'll have Chips!'

  (I don't know why, but this fact of the Devil's expressing himself

  in rhyme was peculiarly trying to me.) Chips looked up when he

  heard the words, and there he saw the Devil with saucer eyes that

  squinted on a terrible great scale, and that struck out sparks of

  blue fire continually. And whenever he winked his eyes, showers of

  blue sparks came out, and his eyelashes made a clattering like

  flints and steels striking lights. And hanging over one of his

  arms by the handle was an iron pot, and under that arm was a bushel

  of tenpenny nails, and under his other arm was half a ton of

  copper, and sitting on one of his shoulders was a rat that could

  speak. So, the Devil said again:

  'A Lemon has pips,

  And a Yard has ships,

  And I'll have Chips!'

  (The invariable effect of this alarming tautology on the part of

  the Evil Spirit was to deprive me of my senses for some moments.)

  So, Chips answered never a word, but went on with his work. 'What

  are you doing, Chips?' said the rat that could speak. 'I am

  putting in new planks where you and your gang have eaten old away,'

  said Chips. 'But we'll eat them too,' said the rat that could

  speak; 'and we'll let in the water and drown the crew, and we'll

  eat them too.' Chips, being only a shipwright, and not a Man-ofwar's

  man, said, 'You are w
elcome to it.' But he couldn't keep his

  eyes off the half a ton of copper or the bushel of tenpenny nails;

  for nails and copper are a shipwright's sweethearts, and

  shipwrights will run away with them whenever they can. So, the

  Devil said, 'I see what you are looking at, Chips. You had better

  strike the bargain. You know the terms. Your father before you

  was well acquainted with them, and so were your grandfather and

  great-grandfather before him.' Says Chips, 'I like the copper, and

  I like the nails, and I don't mind the pot, but I don't like the

  rat.' Says the Devil, fiercely, 'You can't have the metal without

  him - and HE'S a curiosity. I'm going.' Chips, afraid of losing

  the half a ton of copper and the bushel of nails, then said, 'Give

  us hold!' So, he got the copper and the nails and the pot and the

  rat that could speak, and the Devil vanished. Chips sold the

  copper, and he sold the nails, and he would have sold the pot; but

  whenever he offered it for sale, the rat was in it, and the dealers

  dropped it, and would have nothing to say to the bargain. So,

  Chips resolved to kill the rat, and, being at work in the Yard one

  day with a great kettle of hot pitch on one side of him and the

  iron pot with the rat in it on the other, he turned the scalding

  pitch into the pot, and filled it full. Then, he kept his eye upon

  it till it cooled and hardened, and then he let it stand for twenty

  days, and then he heated the pitch again and turned it back into

  the kettle, and then he sank the pot in water for twenty days more,

  and then he got the smelters to put it in the furnace for twenty

  days more, and then they gave it him out, red hot, and looking like

  red-hot glass instead of iron-yet there was the rat in it, just the

  same as ever! And the moment it caught his eye, it said with a

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  jeer:

  'A Lemon has pips,

  And a Yard has ships,

  And I'll have Chips!'

  (For this Refrain I had waited since its last appearance, with

  inexpressible horror, which now culminated.) Chips now felt

  certain in his own mind that the rat would stick to him; the rat,

  answering his thought, said, 'I will - like pitch!'

  Now, as the rat leaped out of the pot when it had spoken, and made

  off, Chips began to hope that it wouldn't keep its word. But, a