the engine would blow and heave and perspire, like an engine wiping
its forehead and saying what a run it had had; and within ten
minutes the lamps were out, and I was houseless and alone again.
But now, there were driven cattle on the high road near, wanting
(as cattle always do) to turn into the midst of stone walls, and
squeeze themselves through six inches' width of iron railing, and
getting their heads down (also as cattle always do) for tossingpurchase
at quite imaginary dogs, and giving themselves and every
devoted creature associated with them a most extraordinary amount
of unnecessary trouble. Now, too, the conscious gas began to grow
pale with the knowledge that daylight was coming, and straggling
workpeople were already in the streets, and, as waking life had
become extinguished with the last pieman's sparks, so it began to
be rekindled with the fires of the first street-corner breakfastsellers.
And so by faster and faster degrees, until the last
degrees were very fast, the day came, and I was tired and could
sleep. And it is not, as I used to think, going home at such
times, the least wonderful thing in London, that in the real desert
region of the night, the houseless wanderer is alone there. I knew
well enough where to find Vice and Misfortune of all kinds, if I
had chosen; but they were put out of sight, and my houselessness
had many miles upon miles of streets in which it could, and did,
have its own solitary way.
CHAPTER XIV - CHAMBERS
Having occasion to transact some business with a solicitor who
occupies a highly suicidal set of chambers in Gray's Inn, I
afterwards took a turn in the large square of that stronghold of
Melancholy, reviewing, with congenial surroundings, my experiences
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of Chambers.
I began, as was natural, with the Chambers I had just left. They
were an upper set on a rotten staircase, with a mysterious bunk or
bulkhead on the landing outside them, of a rather nautical and
Screw Collier-like appearance than otherwise, and painted an
intense black. Many dusty years have passed since the
appropriation of this Davy Jones's locker to any purpose, and
during the whole period within the memory of living man, it has
been hasped and padlocked. I cannot quite satisfy my mind whether
it was originally meant for the reception of coals, or bodies, or
as a place of temporary security for the plunder 'looted' by
laundresses; but I incline to the last opinion. It is about breast
high, and usually serves as a bulk for defendants in reduced
circumstances to lean against and ponder at, when they come on the
hopeful errand of trying to make an arrangement without money -
under which auspicious circumstances it mostly happens that the
legal gentleman they want to see, is much engaged, and they pervade
the staircase for a considerable period. Against this opposing
bulk, in the absurdest manner, the tomb-like outer door of the
solicitor's chambers (which is also of an intense black) stands in
dark ambush, half open, and half shut, all day. The solicitor's
apartments are three in number; consisting of a slice, a cell, and
a wedge. The slice is assigned to the two clerks, the cell is
occupied by the principal, and the wedge is devoted to stray
papers, old game baskets from the country, a washing-stand, and a
model of a patent Ship's Caboose which was exhibited in Chancery at
the commencement of the present century on an application for an
injunction to restrain infringement. At about half-past nine on
every week-day morning, the younger of the two clerks (who, I have
reason to believe, leads the fashion at Pentonville in the articles
of pipes and shirts) may be found knocking the dust out of his
official door-key on the bunk or locker before mentioned; and so
exceedingly subject to dust is his key, and so very retentive of
that superfluity, that in exceptional summer weather when a ray of
sunlight has fallen on the locker in my presence, I have noticed
its inexpressive countenance to be deeply marked by a kind of
Bramah erysipelas or small-pox.
This set of chambers (as I have gradually discovered, when I have
had restless occasion to make inquiries or leave messages, after
office hours) is under the charge of a lady named Sweeney, in
figure extremely like an old family-umbrella: whose dwelling
confronts a dead wall in a court off Gray's Inn-lane, and who is
usually fetched into the passage of that bower, when wanted, from
some neighbouring home of industry, which has the curious property
of imparting an inflammatory appearance to her visage. Mrs.
Sweeney is one of the race of professed laundresses, and is the
compiler of a remarkable manuscript volume entitled 'Mrs. Sweeney's
Book,' from which much curious statistical information may be
gathered respecting the high prices and small uses of soda, soap,
sand, firewood, and other such articles. I have created a legend
in my mind - and consequently I believe it with the utmost
pertinacity - that the late Mr. Sweeney was a ticket-porter under
the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, and that, in consideration of
his long and valuable services, Mrs. Sweeney was appointed to her
present post. For, though devoid of personal charms, I have
observed this lady to exercise a fascination over the elderly
ticker-porter mind (particularly under the gateway, and in corners
and entries), which I can only refer to her being one of the
fraternity, yet not competing with it. All that need be said
concerning this set of chambers, is said, when I have added that it
is in a large double house in Gray's Inn-square, very much out of
repair, and that the outer portal is ornamented in a hideous manner
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with certain stone remains, which have the appearance of the
dismembered bust, torso, and limbs of a petrified bencher.
Indeed, I look upon Gray's Inn generally as one of the most
depressing institutions in brick and mortar, known to the children
of men. Can anything be more dreary than its arid Square, Sahara
Desert of the law, with the ugly old tiled-topped tenements, the
dirty windows, the bills To Let, To Let, the door-posts inscribed
like gravestones, the crazy gateway giving upon the filthy Lane,
the scowling, iron-barred prison-like passage into Verulambuildings,
the mouldy red-nosed ticket-porters with little coffin
plates, and why with aprons, the dry, hard, atomy-like appearance
of the whole dust-heap? When my uncommercial travels tend to this
dismal spot, my comfort is its rickety state. Imagination gloats
over the fulness of time when the staircases shall have quite
tumbled down - they are daily wearing into an ill-savoured powder,
but have not quite tumbled down yet - when the last old prolix
bencher all of the olden time, shall have been got out of an upper
window by means of a Fire Ladder, and carried off to the
Holborn
Union; when the last clerk shall have engrossed the last parchment
behind the last splash on the last of the mud-stained windows,
which, all through the miry year, are pilloried out of recognition
in Gray's Inn-lane. Then, shall a squalid little trench, with rank
grass and a pump in it, lying between the coffee-house and Southsquare,
be wholly given up to cats and rats, and not, as now, have
its empire divided between those animals and a few briefless bipeds
- surely called to the Bar by voices of deceiving spirits, seeing
that they are wanted there by no mortal - who glance down, with
eyes better glazed than their casements, from their dreary and
lacklustre rooms. Then shall the way Nor' Westward, now lying
under a short grim colonnade where in summer-time pounce flies from
law-stationering windows into the eyes of laymen, be choked with
rubbish and happily become impassable. Then shall the gardens
where turf, trees, and gravel wear a legal livery of black, run
rank, and pilgrims go to Gorhambury to see Bacon's effigy as he
sat, and not come here (which in truth they seldom do) to see where
he walked. Then, in a word, shall the old-established vendor of
Holborn Gate, like that lumbering Marius among the ruins of
Carthage, who has sat heavy on a thousand million of similes.
At one period of my uncommercial career I much frequented another
set of chambers in Gray's Inn-square. They were what is familiarly
called 'a top set,' and all the eatables and drinkables introduced
into them acquired a flavour of Cockloft. I have known an unopened
Strasbourg pate fresh from Fortnum and Mason's, to draw in this
cockloft tone through its crockery dish, and become penetrated with
cockloft to the core of its inmost truffle in three-quarters of an
hour. This, however, was not the most curious feature of those
chambers; that, consisted in the profound conviction entertained by
my esteemed friend Parkle (their tenant) that they were clean.
Whether it was an inborn hallucination, or whether it was imparted
to him by Mrs. Miggot the laundress, I never could ascertain. But,
I believe he would have gone to the stake upon the question. Now,
they were so dirty that I could take off the distinctest impression
of my figure on any article of furniture by merely lounging upon it
for a few moments; and it used to be a private amusement of mine to
print myself off - if I may use the expression - all over the
rooms. It was the first large circulation I had. At other times I
have accidentally shaken a window curtain while in animated
conversation with Parkle, and struggling insects which were
certainly red, and were certainly not ladybirds, have dropped on
the back of my hand. Yet Parkle lived in that top set years, bound
body and soul to the superstition that they were clean. He used to
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say, when congratulated upon them, 'Well, they are not like
chambers in one respect, you know; they are clean.' Concurrently,
he had an idea which he could never explain, that Mrs. Miggot was
in some way connected with the Church. When he was in particularly
good spirits, he used to believe that a deceased uncle of hers had
been a Dean; when he was poorly and low, he believed that her
brother had been a Curate. I and Mrs. Miggot (she was a genteel
woman) were on confidential terms, but I never knew her to commit
herself to any distinct assertion on the subject; she merely
claimed a proprietorship in the Church, by looking when it was
mentioned, as if the reference awakened the slumbering Past, and
were personal. It may have been his amiable confidence in Mrs.
Miggot's better days that inspired my friend with his delusion
respecting the chambers, but he never wavered in his fidelity to it
for a moment, though he wallowed in dirt seven years.
Two of the windows of these chambers looked down into the garden;
and we have sat up there together many a summer evening, saying how
pleasant it was, and talking of many things. To my intimacy with
that top set, I am indebted for three of my liveliest personal
impressions of the loneliness of life in chambers. They shall
follow here, in order; first, second, and third.
First. My Gray's Inn friend, on a time, hurt one of his legs, and
it became seriously inflamed. Not knowing of his indisposition, I
was on my way to visit him as usual, one summer evening, when I was
much surprised by meeting a lively leech in Field-court, Gray's
Inn, seemingly on his way to the West End of London. As the leech
was alone, and was of course unable to explain his position, even
if he had been inclined to do so (which he had not the appearance
of being), I passed him and went on. Turning the corner of Gray's
Inn-square, I was beyond expression amazed by meeting another leech
- also entirely alone, and also proceeding in a westerly direction,
though with less decision of purpose. Ruminating on this
extraordinary circumstance, and endeavouring to remember whether I
had ever read, in the Philosophical Transactions or any work on
Natural History, of a migration of Leeches, I ascended to the top
set, past the dreary series of closed outer doors of offices and an
empty set or two, which intervened between that lofty region and
upon his back, like Prometheus Bound, with a perfectly demented
ticket-porter in attendance on him instead of the Vulture: which
helpless individual, who was feeble and frightened, and had (my
friend explained to me, in great choler) been endeavouring for some
hours to apply leeches to his leg, and as yet had only got on two
out of twenty. To this Unfortunate's distraction between a damp
cloth on which he had placed the leeches to freshen them, and the
wrathful adjurations of my friend to 'Stick 'em on, sir!' I
referred the phenomenon I had encountered: the rather as two fine
specimens were at that moment going out at the door, while a
general insurrection of the rest was in progress on the table.
After a while our united efforts prevailed, and, when the leeches
came off and had recovered their spirits, we carefully tied them up
in a decanter. But I never heard more of them than that they were
all gone next morning, and that the Out-of-door young man of
Bickle, Bush and Bodger, on the ground floor, had been bitten and
blooded by some creature not identified. They never 'took' on Mrs.
Miggot, the laundress; but, I have always preserved fresh, the
belief that she unconsciously carried several about her, until they
gradually found openings in life.
Second. On the same staircase with my friend Parkle, and on the
same floor, there lived a man of law who pursued his business
elsewhere, and used those chambers as his place of residence. For
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three or four years, Parkl
e rather knew of him than knew him, but
after that - for Englishmen - short pause of consideration, they
began to speak. Parkle exchanged words with him in his private
character only, and knew nothing of his business ways, or means.
He was a man a good deal about town, but always alone. We used to
remark to one another, that although we often encountered him in
theatres, concert-rooms, and similar public places, he was always
alone. Yet he was not a gloomy man, and was of a decidedly
conversational turn; insomuch that he would sometimes of an evening
lounge with a cigar in his mouth, half in and half out of Parkle's
rooms, and discuss the topics of the day by the hour. He used to
hint on these occasions that he had four faults to find with life;
firstly, that it obliged a man to be always winding up his watch;
secondly, that London was too small; thirdly, that it therefore
wanted variety; fourthly, that there was too much dust in it.
There was so much dust in his own faded chambers, certainly, that
they reminded me of a sepulchre, furnished in prophetic
anticipation of the present time, which had newly been brought to
light, after having remained buried a few thousand years. One dry,
hot autumn evening at twilight, this man, being then five years
turned of fifty, looked in upon Parkle in his usual lounging way,
with his cigar in his mouth as usual, and said, 'I am going out of
town.' As he never went out of town, Parkle said, 'Oh indeed! At
last?' 'Yes,' says he, 'at last. For what is a man to do? London
is so small! If you go West, you come to Hounslow. If you go
East, you come to Bow. If you go South, there's Brixton or
Norwood. If you go North, you can't get rid of Barnet. Then, the
monotony of all the streets, streets, streets - and of all the
roads, roads, roads - and the dust, dust, dust!' When he had said
this, he wished Parkle a good evening, but came back again and
said, with his watch in his hand, 'Oh, I really cannot go on
winding up this watch over and over again; I wish you would take
care of it.' So, Parkle laughed and consented, and the man went
out of town. The man remained out of town so long, that his
letter-box became choked, and no more letters could be got into it,
and they began to be left at the lodge and to accumulate there. At
last the head-porter decided, on conference with the steward, to